Floating on cloud 9 into the SAP Public Cloud?

Migration of SAP S/4HANA from "on-premises" to the cloud

By Gerald Scheffels for ifm

Life as an IT manager can be so simple – if you choose to host your ERP system in the public cloud. No acquisition costs, no effort for smooth operation, data backup and updates, full functionality, with worldwide access to all relevant data: Compared to on-premises solutions, digitalisation offers a whole package of advantages – also and especially for SAP users. Therefore, more and more IT managers are deciding to migrate their enterprise-wide SAP S/4HANA infrastructure to the SAP Public Cloud.

What delights the IT workers can certainly cause headaches on the business department or at least lead to concerns. Understandably, they are interested in working as seamlessly as possible in a familiar IT environment and, above all, in taking along many proven functions and also individual adjustments and settings.

In material requirements planning, these concerns can now be overcome essentially because MRP View Excellence from ifm, as a true public cloud app, offers the necessary transparency about material planning that a MRP controller absolutely needs. This app creates transparency as it allows a central overview for controlling all material flows under SAP. Material overviews are displayed on one screen, detailed information is available with one click – everything user-friendly and intuitively operable in Fiori design. The fear of falling out of the cloud or out of all clouds as a public cloud user is therefore unfounded.

"Wait a minute", some SAP S/4HANA users will now think, "we already use such a solution for our on-premises installation. Correct: For many years, ifm has provided a central control unit for SAP S/4HANA with GIB Operations. It acts as a comprehensive navigation system by displaying all relevant information concentrated in one screen view and opens up the possibility of jumping directly into all transactions. In this way, planning, execution and control are carried out from one application. This is not only practical and clear, but also creates transparency, saves time and guides the MRP controller through his daily doing without any worries – and that is precisely why many people use GIB Operations.

Transparency – even in the public cloud

A part of this large solution is now also available as an app for the SAP Public Cloud. This makes the decision to migrate much easier. Some of the advantages of MRP View Excellence at a glance:

• Time and cost savings – through efficient display and analysis of the material stock: Whether it is a matter of bottlenecks or overstocks: MRP View Excellence gives the user the opportunity to detect irregularities as they arise and to take countermeasures.
• Transparency – all essential dispatcher information at a glance: The start screen gives the perfect overall view. It could hardly be more user-friendly. Those who want to see details simply use the drill-down menu and see clearly what they want to see.
• Quick decision – no hopping from app to app: The consolidation of all relevant information in a central navigation screen speeds up decision-making. This can be extremely important, especially regarding irregularities. The jump from overview to depth via drill-down then accelerates the (re)steering of the process in the next step.
• Planning reliability – view of future inventory development: Not only the current, but also the future stocks become visible in terms of quantity and value. This enables the user to identify stock overages and shortages at an early stage and to plan more precisely.

Together with Gigaset, the renowned German manufacturer of communication products and solutions, this practical solution could be developed. "Without this central control unit, we could not imagine moving to the public cloud. Therefore, it was a must for us to make this core area cloud-enabled together with ifm," says Andreas Tourneur, Vice President Order Center at Gigaset.

It remains to be seen whether one can go so far that the MRP controller/purchaser is floating on cloud nine with this solution: The task of maintaining a supply, production and value chain that is as stable as it is flexible and constantly adapting to new conditions remains challenging. But with the combination of SAP S/4HANA and MRP View Excellence in the public cloud, the ERP system offers the agility and transparency needed to tackle this challenge more calmly – and not to fall out of all clouds because inventory planning and reality diverge.

The first step to using MRP View Excellence is quite simple. The app is available in the SAP Store. Further information can be found here.