Good & bad sides of SAP 2

[777axa]

I'm totally new to SAP.
Could anybody describe in a few words SAP's advantages over competitors' systems and its shortcomings.
Also:
Is it super flexible?
What programming languages do I have to know in order to use it?
Can the solutions /projects be modified/adjusted easily?
What is the amount of programming involved?

Thank you in advance!

 

[jsuros]

SAP is the real thing in ERP systems. It has modules that implement all data needs for business. This is not the case for most of it's compeditors, some of whom claim ERP status for little more than Invoices & Inventory control.

As a Programmer I have personally dealt with the Sales, Purchasing, Inventory Management, Production Planning, Quality Management, and Human Resources functionality in R/3. They all work togather, and they all have a huge amount of flexibility in how they can be made to work. This is both good and bad.

The good news is that you don't have use them all if you don't want to. Every company I have ever heard of implements the stuff they need as they need it over several years. SAP is extremely stable and scales up to, literally, any size business.

The bad news is that SAP is very complicated to configure. This problem is solved by throwing a lot of money into getting everything set up correctly. Super flexibility requires Super understanding of business needs.

As far as programming goes, SAP's internal language is called ABAP. It is a proprietary, data-centric, scripting language that resembles PASCAL or FoxPro. The best way to learn it is to buy the book "ABAP Objects" (ISBN#0201750805) and work through the examples. SAP functions can be called from other languages using DCOM or Java, and there is a movement afoot to allow some of the internal programming of SAP programs to be written in Java. Eventually. For now you need to know ABAP.

 

[777axa]

Thank you very much, jsuros!
2 more things.
1. Can business buy SAP modules and configure them the way that they reflect existing business processes and imitate for some degree familiar interfaces on staff computers?
2. Do modifications require involvement of SAP specialists or company's IT dept. can handle the job?

Your help is really appreciated!

 

[jsuros]

Let's see. In order:

1)

I believe R/3 is purchased all at once and you install the modules as you please. SAP supplies a lot of resources (documentation,training) for matching the behavior of your R/3 system to your business processes. They are very good at this, and there is a whole ecosystem of 3rd party consultants and businesses who specialize in this integration problem.

The Reports, data management Transactions, and printed Documents in R/3 can all be modified by the customer. The problem of modifying R/3's screens to look like legacy systems has solutions in home grown programming, 3rd party products, and the various ways in which data can be passed back and forth between outside data systems. My company (Kyocera America, Inc.) uses a mixture of custom Transactions, modified Reports & Transactions, and outside systems. We anticipate it will take years to get everything rolled into SAP.

2)

Short answer: Both. There is lots of training available for your IT staff if you want to develop internally. ABAP isn't all that difficult, and you should have some programmers of your own who understand the difference between changes you can make and changes that will require outside help.

Configuration (internal settings rather than program changes)of R/3 is a huge field and you will need specialist consultants from time to time. With help getting started, your IT dept will be able to manage your system very well.

 

[JerrySmith]

First analyze your business requirements for looking at SAP. Is SAP what you want or is Oracle. It's not appropriate for all businesses. Also - why do you want to replicate your current system in SAP. Too many people do that and don't find an ROI. ROI will come as a result of re-engineering your business processes, eliminating duplicate reports, eliminating silos of info...

SAP IS very flexible...when you are putting it in.
It is NOT very flexible once you put it in.
It's like concrete that way....can be molded etc...however once it's set...and you have data embedded in the transactions it's very hard to manipulate. Need to chip it away or break it apart completely (ie start over) if your original design isn't well designed up front.

Pro: It's unbelievably integrated. Tracks just about everything, who changed what, what they changed it from, where documents have originated..etc.
CON: It's unbelievably integrated. Once there is data in a transaction...and the transaction is closed, it's hard if not impossible to "update" the data to someone's new view of what the data should look like...changing material hierarchy for instance. That's why it's imperative that the master data be 100% correct. Otherwise you embed dirty data into your system and will get bad reporting results.

PRO: It's realtime. Update a record now and everyone with access sees it.
CON: That's different for those cultures used to dealing with Batch systems where they add the records this morning but have all day to "correct" it before it impacts the system.

 

[777axa]

Thank you very much jsuros & JerrySmith !
To find out the rest of the details & answers I'll probably have to read some books on SAP.
For now I think that I'll give a try to a different package - it is a brand new ERP modeling software for non-programmers and it looks like that it has a number of serious advantages over the SAP (as you described it).
The vendor pointed to the same shotrcomings of SAP :
1. not flexible after the implementation
2. needs programming
3. you have to except SAP's way of business processes to some degree
4. can't imitate existing user interfaces (for smooth transition)
and a lot more.
I'm not sure if it will be a smart decision on the long run, but it is very appealing to have a visual system with lots of tools that I, non-programmer can use to modify, extend and adjust our company's solution according to our business model.
The biggest scare in our small company is that everybody will have to learn new interface. Now we can't even change a field or a button on any form without weeks of warnings, lectures and animated tutorials.
OK, enough of that.
Thank you for you help!

 

[prateekraj]

Hi 777axa, I found this particular discussion intresting as I was also looking into joining the SAP. In your last reponse of OCT 22, you mentioned as follows:
******* "For now I think that I'll give a try to a different package - it is a brand new ERP modeling software for non-programmers and it looks like that it has a number of serious advantages over the SAP"******
I am keen to know what you are refering to.As I am also not a programmer.
Do you think you can give me the information
Thanks.

 

[abap1]

Hi, I am a non-programmer. I have some experience in configuring SAP. What ERP-software are you talking about, where you do not need programming skills? I have come around SAP pretty well without programming. However, I have just finished an ABAP (SAP-programming) course to get deeper into the subject.
ANke

 

[777axa]

Sorry prateekraj & abap1 for the delay ,
I didn’t expect anybody asking me about ERP since I’m new to this SAP forum.
I don’t think that it would be ethical to give out the name of this new system here.
I’ll check if they allow posting of email addresses.
Regarding “no programming” ERP thingy.
It was developed in Europe (as SAP).
English version is available but has no English Help yet.
So, I'm waiting.
If you are familiar with Delphi or VS.NET you’ll feel at home in a few days (hours?)
May be you have heard that the next version of VS.NET (due in 1-2 years) will not require “hand coding”.
Well, this program does the same – you are connecting the components visually.
In case of our business my knowledge of MS Access is almost enough for managing and modifying ERP modules.
Why it is the best solution for us?
Our business automation is terrible at this moment but the owner is against changing the existing business processes and business model because it worked very well for him and he is ahead of the competition.
With this ERP software we will be imitating most of our existing interfaces of several legacy software we’re using now. We don’t want any confusion from regular workers. With this software we’ll connect all the departments on the background using the existing Access databases (presenting data as if it was one DB) and then if everything will be OK the software will generate a new version of combined DB (MS SQL server version in our case). This generated DB is very unique and has self-adjusting structure. You’ll never have to manage or even to open it (a big plus for us since we don’t have ITs and DBAs).
So, on any stage I can add new modules to the solution or radically change it and DB will be re-structured automatically.

Administration staff will have to be trained to use new interfaces and tools (mostly because of the advanced reporting and analyzing tools such as Decision Cube).
The big advantage for them – they can do work from any PC in the World connected to the Internet (regular workers can do the same too but we’ll not tell them).

The program’s raw interface looks a bit like mixture of Windows Explorer, Excel & Delphi. The Business model is defined and re-arranged visually in the “windows explorer” and “nested hierarchy” windows.
For Users and Administrators I will be creating Forms, Reports, iDocs & Decision Cubes based on Queries and sending interfaces by email as “shortcuts”.
If users have the core of the program installed on their machines – the “shortcut” they have received will present itself as a Form, a Report & …
So, for me installing different interfaces for 50 users – will be 1 click of a button.
For supplier, Reps and partners there will be browser based interfaces with XML data exchange.
Price (approx. from Euro):
$200 for user place, $1,200 for Enterprise Server and $1,000 for XML web server.
No coding.
If you are going to assemble or upgrade your PC today do you need soldering iron and wires to put together working system you want? In 99 out 100 cases – NO.
We use components and plugs today.
But not so many years ago it was the only way - slow and expensive like most of the legacy ERP system.