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Purpose

Supply Chain Coordination is one of the key functional areas within the SAP Supply Chain Management (SAP SCM) solution and comprises supply chain event management (SCEM) and supply chain performance management (SCPM).

Supply chain event management provides visibility across the entire supply chain, while supply chain performance management provides metrics and reporting options that you can use as the basis for optimizing your supply chain.

SAP Event Management (SAP EM) is the application within the SAP SCM solution that provides or improves visibility within your logistic processes, both in planning and in execution. The flexibility of the application enables you to map, control, and check all required business processes.

The role-based approach of SAP EM makes it possible to view the same business process from various points of view:

  • As a manufacturer you are interested to know, for example, whether the different service providers have delivered your raw materials used in production on time and in the correct quantity.

  • As an individual service provider you are interested to know where a means of transport or packing materials that contain your product/material are located and at what time, for example.

  • As an individual customer you are interested to know when the supplier delivers the materials that you have ordered, for example.

You can use SAP EM to process messages about the events in business processes, to notify those involved in the supply chain in various ways about business events that have occurred, and to make this information clear.

To optimize reaction times and improve quality and customer satisfaction, you can actively notify persons responsible to make them aware of critical situations or exceptions.

If you work with data warehouse systems, such as SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence, SAP EM supports you in evaluating your results. As a result, you receive detailed information about the factors in your supply chain that lead to critical situations and you can reduce or eliminate them.

SAP EM integrates both internal and external partners from your supply chain, and allows you and your partners to gain a cross-company overview of your processes.

You can implement SAP EM in all planning and execution processes within logistics.

For example:

SAP delivers visibility processes (for example, for deliveries in a shipment) that describe the business process flow and execution in an SAP system landscape.

For more information about the visibility processes, see SAP Service Marketplace at   service.sap.com/scm   Supply Chain Event Management   Visibility Processes.  

Integration

SAP EM provides event processing across the entire supply chain. It communicates with application systems such as an SAP ERP or an external system, and transfers data to the SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence. There you can perform analytical queries for decision-makers. SAP delivers an application interface that makes it easier to connect SAP EM to an SAP system and to configure it in the SAP system. If you integrate SAP EM with an external system, the respective customer project is responsible for the interface.

Features

You use SAP EM to:

  • Transfer data that is relevant to supply chain event management (SCEM-relevant) from the application system to SAP EM

  • Process and then evaluate event messages

    This allows you to monitor the progress of processes (for example, goods issue, receiving and processing purchase orders, production end, or shipment).

  • Automatically monitor and trigger reactions to process steps that have not occurred or are overdue (for example, proactively notify the decision-maker in the case of a delay or an unreported proof of delivery)

  • Gain an overview (status, location, and process flow queries) of SCEM-relevant objects and thereby find out the current information about an object at any time

  • Exchange information between partners (for example, using EDI, the Web, or XML)

  • Notify partners (for example, by e-mail or SMS)

  • Analyze data in a data warehouse system and adapt future event processing

The following figure provides an overview of the simplified process flow in SAP EM:

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text.

Example

Tracking a Customer Delivery

You want to track a customer delivery and create the delivery in SAP ERP. This automatically triggers the monitoring process in SAP EM. The system transfers planned data from the delivery to SAP EM where it generates expected events with reference to the delivery. Other partial processes, for example, picking or packing the delivery, send status messages to SAP EM. If you use SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence with SAP EM, you can analyze and evaluate the event progression.