Friday, February 26, 2010

Enterprise Carbon Management using SAP Product & REACh Compliance 2.0

Dear Friends,

Enterprise Carbon Management and Product Carbon Management is one of the Principle operational risks companies facing today. Comprehensive solutions should consist of green house gas monitoring, management and reporting capability. Last year SAP acquired CS and re-branded it as SAP Carbon Impact for specifically supporting the carbon calculation and Product Carbon calculation – which is a very good tool to capture GHG inventory, Offset project management, reduction targets etc. However integrating such reduction targets in the main Logistics system is a challenging requirement, the recent release of SAP Product & REACh Compliance 2.0 – would be a useful means to close this gaps.

Organizations can leverage the capabilities of SAP CI, SPRC 2.0 together with SAP BusinessObjects to ensure streamlined process for enterprise wide carbon management. SPRC 2.0 can be used to actually set requirements, check for carbon volumes from different suppliers and use SAP BusinessObjects for optimal decision supporting – using what if analysis.

In SAP EH&S – Carbon related property tree is created to accommodate the capture of key information related to Carbon Management, if required set its volumes in logistics checks and use the SPRC supply chain communication process to capture carbon volumes and also use the supplier self service to enter the details of carbon from shipping documents. For each product, the Bill of Materials, the shipping information utilized. Using the SAP Carbon Impact the total quantity of carbon can be calculated using built in equations.

These are some of the functionalities built into SAP Product and REACh Compliance 2.0 – which can be utilized for Enterprise Carbon management

•Organizational master data from the existing systems - default integration in to logistics and financial data
•The advantage of separating the carbon attributes as environmental characteristics easy handling of information and maintaining the data in the existing data structures.
•Characteristics to attribute carbon relevant - phrases and characteristics value assignment can be used for maintaining carbon relevant information
•Task management and workflows can be configured for supply chain communication and internal data management
•Partner and contact information to find customers for the supply chain collaboration – built in supplier self service for managing and accessing carbon relevant information and using SAP CI for carbon computation.
•Automatic xml or email processing data for importing carbon relevant attributes from supply chain communication
•Built in Report creation and report management and portfolio analysis
•Web services for posting carbon information to Climate registries for probable cap and trade management.
•Possible extension of making use of SAP BusinessObjects – Dashboards for sophisticated what if analysis
•Using SAP CI and SuPM integration for strategy management

Thanks

Sunday, February 21, 2010

REACh Compliance 1.0 to SAP Product and REACh Compliance 2.0 – My journey along

Dear Friends,

It’s almost two years back when I first started working on SAP REACh Compliance. My first exercise understood the development of eSDS based on existing SAP EH&S Classes and characteristics and creation of Extended SDS Template using WWI report tool. By the time it completed we ventured into mapping and interfacing with IUCLID – after a thoughtful discussions we finally concluded it should be based on XI technology with the support of MDM.

At that time the company where I was working (Satyam) participated in SAP REACh Compliance Ramp Up initiative. After a brief stint of one to two days- it becomes SAP REACh Compliance 1.1. When SRC 1.1 is released it has basic functionalities like i) Organizational Data management ii) Material Management iii) Substance Management iv) Legal Process Management v) Supply Chain Communication and vi) Document Management Integration. With the release came two very exciting WebEx presentations on SRC 1.1 with accessibility to wonderful configuration documents. I believe it’s the first time in the history of SAP EH&S product landscape that – literature of that sort was made available publicly. I believe Dr. Marko together Kieran are trendsetters for the availability of literature, which is now carried to almost all new releases of SAP EH&S and Sustainability products.

When SAP REACh Compliance 1.1 is released there were definite missing segments like missing bulk material assessment functionality, SIEF integration segments and IUCLID5 interface. Even at that time was not clear how SAP intended to support Use and Exposure Assessment – as SRC released only Use Descriptors for carrying out Risk Assessment. Even by that time REACh Pre-Registration activity was completed, then it is also realized that there is a missing a Registration Projects integration– Pre-Registration activity – by which all the non available legal entities to be created automatically with a indication about nature of data that should be shared with them.

Then after a span of about 4 months – SAP released SP02 with a useful set of functionalities like integration of Phrases into Material Master and Bulk Material Assessment functionality, Campaign management functionality and Portfolio Reporting capability.

After a span of almost 1 year SAP released major extension of SAP REACh Compliance 1.1 –called SAP Product & REACh Compliance 2.0. This new product encompasses almost all the functionalities of legacy Compliance for Product software. The major features like supporting IMDS, AIAG/IEEE, RoHS, China RoHS and IPCPDMC Conversion Services. Registration Project Management and IUCLID5 Integration for meeting the Product Compliance Management, Component Management, Supply Chain Collaboration Management including Supplier Self Service and Reporting.

The release of SAP PRC supports and matures the REACh Compliance 1.0 to a full fledged module supporting– Cost Monitoring, Volume Monitoring, Endpoint Management, Registration Project Management, SIEF project and Data Export and Reporting as per the original SAP REACh Sales Presentation. One thing which I noticed is this product evolved almost in parallel to REACh Regulation and it has also given me an insight into Product Maturation cycle and how a product evolves into complete offering based on regulatory requirements. Though I have seen the functionality of CfP very closely, would like to work on SPRC sooner or later.

Now what I look forward to is a definite "Best Practices scenario demonstrating the requirements of REACH using SAP EH&S, SAP Product and REACh Compliance and 3rd Party Tools" - which reminds me of very beautiful quote “ Miles to Go before I sleep” in Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening – there is so much to learn and accomplish in one's life !

Thanks

Friday, February 12, 2010

Lessons from Toyota - Extending to REACh !!!!

Dear Friends,

Recently Toyota recalled some 2.3 million vehicles to correct an unintended acceleration caused by a software failure while switching between different means of break mechanism. To those who are not aware of it – In electric brand Toyota applies two types of breaks – while switching from mode of break mechanism to another system breaks hold for less than second, making the passenger feel momentarily that his engine breaks are failed.

Assume the similar challenge for REACh Compliance, when a SuperPaint manufacturer produces products, using substances which are not registered or for those there is not Use and Exposure is recorded? The historic recall of toys or recall of cell phones few years back is just a tip of the iceberg, as far as exceeding levels of restricted substances can do damage to the business. The recent extension of SAP REACh Compliance 1.1 to SAP Product and REACh Compliance 2.0 (called SPRC 2.0) will be of immense use for regulatory requirements like RoHS, China RoHA, AIAG, IMDS and REACh.

SPRC helps in automatically identify all substances that fall under the regulations using logistical, production and purchasing processes and continuous tracking for substance complianceOverview of Capabilities of SAP Product and REACh Compliance 2:

- Managing the specification Data
- Worklist based management of specification data
- Automatic / Manual Compliance checks against varous check processes
- Supply Chain communication for additional data - using Supplier portal and Campaigan management
- Compliance analysis and compliance reporting including electronic data exchange by means of various exchange formats, for example AIAG and IMDG.


Thanks