SAP Event Management Use Cases – Part 1

By Kevin Wilson October 29, 2015 by Kelly Kuhlman

How can we leverage SAP Event Management (EM) functionality?

This is a great question because, after all, SAP EM is a tool that is designed to provide end-to-end business process visibility and exception management. Much like you would leverage a workflow solution to enforce certain activities to take place at the right time by the right people, SAP EM is a tool to provide this process visibility and exception management. Every enterprise architect should have SAP EM as an option in their toolkit. Reveal is the recognized world leader in SAP EM implementations, with more than 20 successful implementations spanning the globe from Canada and the U.S. to Germany, Switzerland, and Australia. We have a very deep background in the supply chain process and in particular the automation of it through electronic data interchange (EDI) and the integration aspects needed from suppliers and for customers. Understanding these processes and how they integrate with each other allows us the ability to deliver for our client’s unique solutions that include SAP EM as the overall gatekeeper of all that is “good and evil” in the process.

With that being said, below is a list of processes that are making use of SAP EM to fill certain holes:

1. Track and Trace – The extended supply chain has made it critical to understand when things are not going according to plan. Suppliers, carriers and freight forwarders operating in different geographies all affect the ability to deliver to customers on time, so what we see is more and more folks adopting SAP EM to track their products on shipments and check the estimated arrival/delivery times against the customer’s expected delivery date. If there is a mismatch, then raise an exception and begin the process to minimize its impact. Serialized Track and Trace is also a hot topic here, and SAP Object Event Repository (OER) plays a big role here, too, but SAP OER just runs on the SAP EM platform! Yup, it’s an SAP EM scenario with a few unique pieces specific to serialization. But all you need to know is that if you require to keep and maintain the pedigree of your serialized items, then it must ultimately reside in SAP EM and inside SAP OER if you need electronic product code information services (EPCIS) query and capture functionality, together with centralized number range management.
2. Supplier Network Collaboration – Within SAP Supplier Network Collaboration (SNC), we use SAP EM to track Responsive Replenishment and the Procurement Process. Direct integration with the Alert Framework allows you to send exceptions directly to the supplier — always before any supply chain deviations that affect the supplier are uncovered.
3. Transportation Management – SAP Transportation Management (TM) handles order management, freight planning and tendering, freight execution and monitoring, freight settlement. Well, the execution and monitoring part of SAP TM is provided for by none other than SAP EM. Tied to carrier notifications (preferably via EDI 214, 315 messages) the status of pickup, departure, loading, unloading, and arrival all are captured against the freight units. In SAP TM, we also track freight orders, freight bookings, resources, instructions, and transportation units. Below is a sample of what the Ocean Carrier Booking scenario looks like:
   
4. Global Trade Services (GTS) – SAP EM provides full visibility into the customs operations process (import and export documentation), once again by integrating with the related SAP EDI messages. Exception management is implemented to mitigate international trade activities that are performed outside the plan. An example SAP EM screen for export documentation tracking is shown below.
   

These are some exciting use cases for SAP EM, but I’m leaving some of the best for next time. I will write a follow-up to this post to conclude the list.

Tags: EDI, EPCIS, SAP Event Management, SAP GTS, SAP OER, SAP SNC, SAP TM, SAP Track and Trace