Business Expertise

There are different types of requirements I have done within a company,

- Projects
- Change Requests
- Services
- Incidents & problem management

These requirements can impact one or more of the following areas,

- Business documents - transactional data, orders, invoices, etc.
- Master data - material, customer, pricing data
- Reporting - lists of combined data
- Process flows - which process steps

Whatever new issue or thing needs to be solved or setup, it's always necessary to get the requirements clear. It is relevant to ask some questions,

- What exactly is needed to be changed or fixed?
- Why do you want it changed, what is the reason?
- Where or in what areas is the change needed?
- Is there a workaround possible? Is there an alternative solution?
- What is the impact? Is it local or regional, does it concern a few or many people?
- Does it impact other business processes or ways of working?
- What is the urgency, are people hindered in their working now or can it wait?
- What is the priority? How fast does it need to be done? Can other processes go first?
- What resources are available, where and when?
- When does it need to be done, in which timeframe?
- Can we replicate the requirement or issue? Can we do it in the test environment? - Who are the responsible contacts/ key users?

Many people ask too little information. To have a good clarity saves a lot of time and having to come back many times over. Also make sure it is agreed on & registered so that the users will not come up with 'extra requirements' on the last moment, causing potential delay to what you are working on

Once there is clarity on the requirements and approval, it's good to make a plan and do your improvements step by step, for example,

1. Definition - Define the project scope, goal, restrictions
2. Measuring - inventarise the requirements
3. Time Schedule - setup a time planning
4. Team Charter - Assign the team/ group
5. Analysis - examine the requirements and possible solutions
6. Development/ Implementaton - Build the solution
7. Unit Testing - do technical and functional testing
8. Acceptance testing - let the business do testing
9. Cut over plan - inventarize each activity needed to be done, configuration, development, master data, etc.
10. Approval - after succesful testing, gather approvals for the solution going live
11. Go live phase - Implement the solution
12. Control & Maintenenance - user manuals, training sessions, etc.

Some different business processes are written here below

Sales & Distribution (SD-LE)

Sales & Distribution Processes (SD)

Order to Cash Process (basic)

Process Area: Sales & Distribution (SD)
Purpose: a standard business process to sell goods to a customer

1. Sales Order - Create an order to sell goods for a customer who ordered a product
2. Outbound Delivery - Create a delivery document to ship the goods to the customer
3. Sales Invoice - Create a billing document to invoice the customer who bought your goods

Order to Cash Process (contract)

Process Area: Sales & Distribution (SD)
Purpose: a standard business process to sell goods to a customer

1. Quotation - Create a quotation of offering a proposal to a potential customer
2. Contract - Create a definitive contract of the goods or service you are providing and in which timeframe
3. Sales Order - Create one or more sales orders to sell goods for a customer who holds the contract
4. Outbound Delivery - Create a delivery document to ship the goods to the customer
5. Sales Invoice - Create a billing document to invoice the customer who bought your goods

Order to Cash Process (extended)

Process Area: Sales & Distribution (SD)
Purpose: a standard business process to sell goods to a customer

1. Sales Order - Create an order to sell goods for a customer who ordered a product
2. Sales Order Confirmation - Send out confirmation of the received sales order to the customer, by generated message output through E-Mail, EDI, etc.
3. Sales Order Release - sales document can be released by status profile
4. Sales Order Credit Check - check to see if the customer of the sales order has enough credit limit
5. Outbound Delivery - Create a delivery document to ship the goods to the customer
6. Delivery Picking - pick the available goods from the shelves in the warehouse and add them to the picking list
7. Delivery Packing - pack the selected goods
8. Delivery Confirmation - Delivery can be confirmed
9. Transport planning - Delivery can be planned for transport
10. Post goods issue - When the truck with the goods has left the premisis, the goods are deducted from the stock
11. Sales Invoice - Create a billing document to invoice the customer who bought your goods
12. Accounting document - Display the financial document with the debit/ credit G/L accounts that is generated from the invoice

Order to Cash Process (interface)

Process Area: Sales & Distribution (SD)
Purpose: a standard business process to sell goods to a customer with EDI functionalities

1. Customer places order - Customer places a (purchase) order in their system or places an order online through a portal
2. Interface - Order is transferred to the interface and forwarded to the correct destination. Often the message format is also converted
3. Company Middleware - Our own middleware picks up the message and translates it further
4. EDI Sales Order - Sales Order IDOC is generated in our system
5. Sales Order - If the IDOC was posted correctly, a sales order is automatically created in our system
6. Outbound Delivery - Create a delivery document to ship the goods to the customer
7. EDI Dispatch Advise - Delivery document is sent to an external warehouse if picking and packing is needed, or send to an external logistics company (3PL) if supply planning & truck planning is not done by our own company
8. EDI Shipping/ Warehouse Confirmation - operations such as picking, packing, transport planning, post goods issue, and so on are confirmed and sent back to our system. There can be different IDOCs sent together or one IDOC at a time
9. Delivery update - Delivery status gets updated in our system by the IDOCs
10. Sales Invoice - Create a billing document to invoice the customer who bought your goods
11. EDI Invoice - Electronic invoice is sent to the customer by IDOC
12. Accounting document - Display the financial document with the debit/ credit G/L accounts that is generated from the invoice

Purchase to Pay Process (basic)

Process Area: Material Management (MM)
Purpose: a standard business process to buy goods from an external vendor

1. Purchase Order - Create an order to buy goods from the vendor
2. Goods receipt - Receive the goods on our company stock
3. Vendor Invoice - Receive and process the invoice that the vendor sent your company to pay for the bought goods

Purchase to Pay Process (extended)

Process Area: Material Management (MM)
Purpose: a standard business process to buy goods from an external vendor

1. Purchase Requisition - Create a pre-request to order goods. This document can be used for planning and can a lso be automatically generated by material requirements planning (MRP)
2. Purchase Order - Create an order to buy goods from the vendor. Make sure your confirmation keys are correct which determine if a delivery needs to be done or not or only a goods receipt confirmation
3. Purchase Order Release - The document has to be approved by a manager or higher, depending on the total price of the ordered materials
4. Inbound Delivery - Create delivery document to deliver the goods to our premisis
5. Goods receipt - Receive the goods on our company stock. The goods receipt process can also be split in,
- Goods receipt into blocked stock
- Goods receipt transfer from blocked stock to unrestricted stock
6. Vendor Invoice - Receive and process the invoice that the vendor sent your company to pay for the bought goods
7. Accounting document - Display the financial document with the debit/ credit G/L accounts that is generated from the invoice

Stock Transport Order

1. Stock Transport Purchase Order - Create order to move goods from one plant and storage location to another
2. Outbound Delivery - Create outbound goods movement document
3. Post goods issue - Post the outbound delivery goods issue at the source plant
4. Goods receipt - Post the goods receipt in the destination plant. This may also be a two steps validation

Subcontracting

1. Subcontracting Purchase Order - Create an order to send multiple components to an external company who will create one finished product for you.
2. Outbound Delivery - Create outbound goods movement document
3. Post goods issue - Post the outbound delivery to goods issue the components
4. Goods receipt - Post the goods receipt of the finished product

Production Process (basic; make to stock)

Process Area: Production Planning (PP)
Purpose: a standard business process to manufacture goods on stock

1. Production Order - Create a 'Make to Stock' production order to manufacture goods. Schedule your production order with a start and finish date, check the operations to be done
2. Production Order Availability Check - check the available stock, stage the materials
3. Production Order Release - Approve your order to build the item
4. Production Order Print - Print the production order papers for the goods to be made and the material components to be used in which location
5. Production Order Confirmation  - Confirm all operations/ tasks in the production order
6. Goods Movements - All components used are deducted from stock, the finished product(s) are added on stock. The goods movements can be done individually or as part of the previous production order confirmation step
7. Transfer Order - If your company maintains stock on warehouse level, if needed, transfers from and to the correct storage bin like the picking storage bin and production storage bin can be done

Production Process (basic; make to order)

Process Area: Production Planning (PP)
Purpose: a standard business process to manufacture goods per sales order

1. Sales Order - Create an order to sell goods for a customer who ordered a product
2. Availability check - an ATP (available to promise) check is done if there is enough stock and the sales order is scheduled. Also by the transfer of requirements, a requirement is passed to directly create a production order after saving the sales order. This is done without MRP planning
3. Production Order - Create a 'Make to Order' production order to manufacture goods
4. Production Order Release - Approve your order to build the item
5. Production Order Confirmation  - Confirm all operations/ tasks in the production order
6. Goods Movements - All components used are deducted from stock, the finished product(s) are added on stock
7.. Outbound Delivery - Create a delivery document to ship the goods to the customer
8. Sales Invoice - Create a billing document to invoice the customer who bought your goods
9. Accounting document - Display the financial document with the debit/ credit G/L accounts that is generated from the invoice

Planning Process (basic)

Process Area: Production Planning (PP)
Purpose: a standard business process plan available stock together with all the different stock requirements through Material Requirements Planning (MRP)

1. Stock/ Requirements List - Check the list per material group, material and plant to see available stock. There can be a fixed stock there, stock needed by sales orders, stock to be planned by planned orders, stock components to be added by purchase requisitions/ purchase orders and finished stock products to be added by production orders
2. MRP Run - Carry out the Material Requirements Planning (MRP) for the materials and plants
3. Stock/ Requirements List  - Look at the new stock situation. Stock should be rescheduled accordingly to optimally allocate it for the business documents. If additional stock is needed within certain dates of the planning horizon, planned orders or purchase requisitions are automatically generated

Long Term Planning Process (advanced)

Process Area: Production Planning (PP)
Purpose: a standard business process for planning stock through long term planning (LTP)

1. Long Term Requirements - Create planned requirements for a long term planning
2. Planning Scenario - Create a planning scenario for the period
3. Long Term Planning Run - Plan the materials through a LTP (long term planning) planning run, which is similar to a MRP run
4. LTP Stock/ Requirements List - Check the results of the planning run by viewing the available & planned stock
5. Copy planning version - copy the planning version to MRP
6. Copy simulation planning to MRP - copy the simulation planned orders from LTP to MRP
7. Stock/ Requirements List  - Look at the new stock situation.

1. Independent Requirements (PIR) - Enter independent requirement quantities per planning version for a material, product group of requirements plan for maintaining demand management. For example each week we need 50 PC of material 10000 and 30 PC of material 10001
2. MRP Run - Carry out the Material Requirements Planning (MRP) for the materials and plants
3. Stock/ Requirements List  - Look at the new stock situation. Stock should be rescheduled accordingly to optimally allocate it for the business documents. If additional stock is needed within certain dates of the planning horizon, planned orders or purchase requisitions are automatically generated

Stock Counting Process (basic)

Process Area: Inventory Management (MM)
Purpose: a standard business process to count the stock in different plants and storage locations

1. Counting Document  - Create a document used for counting stock levels. Enter the material numbers (material names), plant and storage locations to be counted
2. Enter Count  - Inventorise the stock in the warehouse and enter the actually counted quantity
3. Post Differences  - Post the differences between the current stock and the count stock. A goods movements document with the quantity difference (positive or negative) should be made
4. Print Differences  - Print list of stock differences
5. List Stock  - Check your modified stock levels after the inventory differences

Transfer Order Process (basic)

Process Area: Warehouse Management (WM)
Purpose: a standard business process to transport goods from one warehouse location to another

1. Goods receipt - receiving new goods on stock from for example a purchase order or production order
2. Change Inspection Lot - change the to be inspected materials lot and status
3. Results Recording - record the results, like the characteristics values such as temperature, humidity, power etc. depending on the type of product
4. Defects Log - log any defects found during inspection of the materials
5. Usage acceptance - decide if you want to accept the goods or not

Quality Notification

1a. Sales Order - create sales order document
1b. Purchase Order - create purchase order document
1c. Production Order - create production order document
2. Quality Notification - create an issue or defect depending on one of the above documents
3. Quality Notification - create a follow up action depending on the notification, like create a sales order to give goods to the customer, create a returns delivery to return purchased goods, etc. Put the status to in process
4. Document flow - the responsible department should process created the follow up documents
5. Quality Notification - put the status to complete once everything is done

Please note that business processes may vary a lot depending on the business requirements, the processes that are already in place, the software, the available resources, the time to do it, the situation, and so on.

Chris van Zuiden, 2024 (c)