EDI and SAP integration – Part 2: Don’t Do It for the OEM – Do It for You

• Automotive
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What problems can be solved and what new benefits can be gained by integrating Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) with SAP ERP? This question was explored at an Aimtec-organised workshop with presentations by Business Development Manager Adam Heller and SAP SD Consultant Tomáš Pašek. This article focuses on the second part of the workshop, devoted to SAP SD.

Why integrate EDI into SAP?

In the first part of the workshop, Adam Heller listed many good reasons to integrate EDI into SAP. Tomáš Pašek went on to add plenty of evidence showing this is a beneficial investment with surprisingly fast RoI. But before you decide for this investment, you need to have a well-considered approach and a deeper understanding of the processes. “Implementation based just on a manufacturer’s OEM requirements isn’t the right motivation. The real reasons should be digitalisation, process acceleration and cost savings,” Pašek explained.

Specifically, this means that, thanks to the automatic integration of systems, there is no longer any need to manually transcribe call-off deadlines and ordered quantities – received via email or in Excel – into SAP.

The benefits of fully integrated EDI and SAP systems

One of the main benefits of fully integrated EDI and SAP systems is the elimination of the need to work with your customers’ WebEDI portals. Although these portals offer certain benefits, they’re a more time-consuming alternative to traditional EDI communication. Describing the two processes, Pašek said, “When using a customer portal, you have to log in and type in information about the delivery, and only then can you print your labels, delivery notes and transport documents. When a partner has been hooked into SAP directly over EDI, you have the whole process under control. You print out everything as it’s needed, invoice the delivery, and the ASN IDoc that’s sent off to the customer’s EDI system is generated automatically.”

He then noted that, even though the IDoc structure will be replaced by a newer technology based on the original IDoc format when transitioning to the cloud version of SAP S/4 HANA, knowledge of IDoc will remain useful.

Key transactions in SAP for EDI

Certain basic transactions are essential for EDI to work efficiently within SAP. “The central focus is the WE20 transaction, which is used for configuring the partner connected over EDI and all the messages we want to exchange with them. For every partner, we choose the type of messages we need – typically call-offs and delivery-level ASN and likely an invoice,” Pašek explained.

OVAI and OVA9 are other important transactions that have long been used in the automotive industry for the receipt of call-offs. The OVAI transaction is used for unique identification of a customer within SAP, while OVA9 supplements the settings for call-off processing.

Risks during the implementation of EDI into SAP

Pašek demonstrated the potential risks during the implementation of EDI into SAP against the example of a major supplier for an important OEM. “Before implementation, it is essential that you determine whether the system will be purely based on call-offs or whether it will include orders as well,” Pašek emphasised. This decision is key, because SAP bases its work with short- and long-term call-offs upon it. “There mustn’t be any mistakes here; otherwise you’ll have to repeat the whole deployment,” was his warning regarding the potential stumbling blocks.

The printing of labels required by the OEM was another challenge. “Labels are configured in the VV61 transaction, and the output can be displayed in the VL74 transaction for a specific document and handling unit. The trouble appeared when the OEM required a small local change – which would, however, have to be applied to labels used for a large number of customers. A direct intervention in the code due to a specific customer would be an unsystematic intervention,” Pašek explained. One possibility would be to create a new label, but if similar requests were to come from multiple customers, you would quickly end up with several versions of labels. During internal changes of any kind within SAP, you would then have to test every version, which is time-consuming.

To avoid these problems, Aimtec developed the Partner Enhancement Manager, a tool allowing you to make local changes to global configurations. “With just one click, you can easily define the business case for which a specific change should be made,” said Pašek.

Aimtec offers a number of other clever tailor-made tools and solutions for implementing EDI into SAP, for example in deliveries and invoicing – both standard and self-billing.

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