SAP Supply Chain Management:

SAP Supply Chain Management:
Technical Details

An adaptive supply chain network requires integration. From a business perspective, integration enables you to reach beyond enterprise boundaries and link with suppliers and customers. From a technology perspective, integration allows you to leverage existing investments and reduce total cost of ownership.

SAP Supply Chain Management (SAP SCM) ensures seamless integration through the technology foundation of SAP NetWeaver. SAP NetWeaver aligns people, information, and processes across technologies and organizations. It provides a coherent, scalable architecture that lets you integrate your existing technologies while creating a foundation for a new generation of flexible, cross-enterprise processes.

SAP NetWeaver also enables an Enterprise Services Architecture that combines enterprise applications with Web services and open technologies – enabling truly adaptive business. A crucial aspect of Enterprise Services Architecture is the composite application framework. It allows the integration of new functionality into processes that can be configured and reconfigured across the value chain. The composite application framework contains the tools, methodologies, and rules that allow SAP and our partners to develop "snap-on" processes.
Targeting Total Cost of Ownership

Integration isn't the only way SAP SCM lowers total cost of ownership. SAP SCM features a user-friendly interface, ready-to-use business processes, and out-of-the-box integration of vendor-managed inventory (VMI), supplier-managed inventory (SMI), event management, performance management, and other key processes.

In addition, SAP promotes operational stability by offering operational guidelines and by continuously improving our administration and monitoring tools. SAP EarlyWatch Alert and other monitoring services provide remote access to SAP service and support.

Finally, SAP SCM is now built on a single technology component, SAP Supply Chain Management 4.0 (SAP SCM 4.0). Combining SAP Advanced Planning & Optimization (SAP APO), SAP Event Management, and SAP Inventory Collaboration Hub (SAP ICH), SAP SCM 4.0 can be installed on a single database and administered as a single system. The architecture remains unchanged, so you can continue to use existing knowledge and documentation.

SAP SCM 4.0 is based on SAP Web Application Server and requires SAP GUI. For SAP APO within SAP SCM 4.0, you need liveCache. SAP APO also contains SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW), which is required for SAP APO within SAP SCM 4.0.

SAP ICH has its own Web user interface based on Business Server Pages (BSP) technology. Out-of-the-box integration with SAP ICH requires SAP Exchange Infrastructure (SAP XI). Master data integration with SAP ICH requires SAP R/3 plug-in 2003.1. For some SMI scenarios in which suppliers require Web-based user-management functionality, you need SAP User Management Engine (SAP UME).