Chapter Introduction 1

Transcription

1 Chapter Introduction 1 Introduction SAP R/3 is the world s leading standard software for the support of business processes in accounting, logistics, and human resources. At the start of 1999, over 20,000 R/3 customer installations were in use throughout the world. SAP R/3 supports the business processes for enterprises in a uniquely integrated form. Data and functions are available at all workstations where they are required without redundancy, and they are fully integrated with each other. SAP R/3 takes the everincreasing networking of business management tasks into account in the most optimum manner. Activities in the areas of safety at work, health services, and environmental protection are increasingly being integrated into business management processes and require appropriate software support. With the integrated R/3 architecture, SAP offers the ideal platform for these tasks. For this reason, SAP, prompted by a large number of customer requirements, has undertaken to integrate business operations and activities in the area of EH&S using a software solution within the framework of R/3. Since 1997, SAP has been offering components for these activities with SAP EH&S. In addition to the actual functions of these components, basing SAP EH&S on the R/3 platform provides a multitude of other advantages that could not be achieved using non-integrated standalone systems or, if it could be achieved, only with considerable additional cost and effort: Integration into operational processes in accounting, logistics, and human resources Client-server architecture with wide-area network capability Availability on all relevant hardware platforms, operating systems, databases, and user interfaces Scalability of the computer systems in accordance with the user s performance requirements Standardized graphical user interface Support for currently more than 30 languages, including Asian languages, with the option of creating multi-language scenarios Concepts for the logical integration of distributed systems Communication with non-sap systems and data transfer from older applications Sophisticated authorization concepts that effectively prevent the misuse of data and functions Worldwide SAP organization for customer service and user support 1-1

2 1 Introduction Integrated functions from the EH&S areas are necessary in all parts of the supply chain of a productive enterprise, from sales through production planning, human resources, materials management, production, maintenance, and distribution, to the transportation of the finished goods. The following diagram shows how SAP EH&S fits into all sides of the supply chain. Fig. 1-1: SAP EH&S and the Supply Chain Examples of the many tasks integrated in business processes in the area of EH&S include: Shipping material safety data sheets (MSDS) with deliveries of chemical products Retrieving substance information and reports for inquiries and quotations and throughout the entire sales and distribution logistics Checking whether dangerous goods can be transported on all modes of transport Entering data on the registration (legal approval) of a substance in a recipient country In order that you may be able to execute these and other tasks reliably and efficiently, SAP EH&S offers your enterprise an effective instrument for: Keeping to statutory requirements Fulfilling self-set corporate objectives and guidelines Optimizing your business processes Implementing and further developing set best business practices Automating processes Increasing customer satisfaction Demonstrating your environmental and safety standards in public Transforming tasks in the EH&S areas from cost factors into competitive advantages 1-2

3 Introduction 1 SAP EH&S gives your enterprise substantial global competitive advantages. To fulfill the demands of your enterprise, SAP has created a portfolio of EH&S components that can be inserted seamlessly into the R/3 System. Fig. 1-2: The World of SAP EH&S SAP followed the priorities articulated by its customers for the sequence in which it has tackled creating this range of components and bringing them onto the market: Product Safety (from R/3 3.0F) Dangerous Goods Management (from R/3 4.0B) Industrial Hygiene and Safety (new in SAP EH&S 2.5A) Occupational Health (new in SAP EH&S 2.7A) Waste Management (new in SAP EH&S 2.7A) This sequence reflects the history of the SAP EH&S project, which has been running for a number of years in close cooperation with leading enterprises in the international chemical industry and other branches. As the list below illustrates, SAP EH&S is a valid solution for all industries and branches of industry, in particular with the inclusion of the new areas Industrial Hygiene and Safety, Occupational Health, and Waste Management. The list of current SAP EH&S customers already contains companies from the following industries: Chemical and pharmaceutical Mining, oil, and gas Metal Paper Food Automotive industry and suppliers Aircraft manufacturing Semiconductors Shipping and transport 1-3

4 1 Introduction The SAP EH&S portfolio will continue to develop beyond the five areas mentioned. In close cooperation with you, the customer, SAP identifies other relevant topic areas and turns these into practical software applications according to the priorities you define. In order to be able to offer SAP EH&S functions to companies that also want to use these functions on an existing R/3 platform, concepts from the Business Framework Architecture were used for the first time for an SAP product available on the market. The individual SAP EH&S components are accordingly available based on different R/3 releases and can either be installed in an existing R/3 System or run in an additional instance of an R/3 System. This makes it possible to integrate SAP EH&S into the existing system landscape in accordance with the conditions and requirements of a wide range of customer system scenarios. The integrated database helps to avoid the errors and data inconsistency that today increasingly plague companies with non-integrated standalone systems. The figures below show two of many possible examples of how to use SAP EH&S. Fig. 1-3: Customer Scenario 1 - One R/3 System for Everything 1-4

5 Introduction 1 Fig. 1-4: Customer Scenario 2 - Three Separate R/3 Systems You can read more about this subject in the Product Information Kit in the Customer Information brochure on the current release strategy. It is not just the architecture of R/3 and SAP EH&S that offers you great flexibility; the individual SAP EH&S components also have flexible data structures and processes that can be configured to meet the requirements of your business. For example, you can: Define classes (substance properties), characteristics, and properties trees according to your requirements Design your own EH&S reports using Microsoft Word Specify the shipping rules for material safety data sheets according to the requirements of your own company Define your own dangerous goods checks, embed them in the check process, and determine yourself how the business process continues In addition, the basic functions of SAP EH&S are independent of national laws and country-specific procedures, and are developed and marketed so that all regulations and country-specific requirements can be fulfilled worldwide. Examples of particularly important processes are also supplied in full with the software, such as the shipping and subsequent shipping of material safety data sheets in accordance with the rulings in the EU and USA. The following sections provide a brief overview of the main features of the SAP EH&S components in the Product Safety and Dangerous Goods Management components. 1-5

6 1 Introduction SAP EH&S Product Safety Component The SAP EH&S Product Safety component provides you with a flexible and efficient solution for Product Safety management processes. These include entering and managing the required data on substances and products, managing multilingual texts as phrases, generating and sending prescribed documents, and linking these processes into the operational processes in your company. For these tasks, the SAP EH&S software provides the eight subcomponents described below. These were conceived so that they are not only available as immediate functions of Product Safety, but can also be used as the basic infrastructure for the other main SAP EH&S components and for other new processes in the general R/3 System. You, the customer, can also use any of these subcomponents in accordance with your own requirements. Substance Management Substance management is the basis for all other SAP EH&S functions and provides the infrastructure for other applications in the R/3 System. It allows you to enter and identify all kinds of substances (pure substances, preparations, mixtures, polymers, and so on) and describe them, using properties. You can change and add to substance properties easily and quickly, and arrange them in custom-made properties trees. You can define and maintain compositions of preparations as required. Attributes in text form are supported here using phrase management. The authorization profiles supplied with the software allow you to differentiate between carefully defined access rights for different groups of users. Phrase Management Phrase management allows you to handle texts in standardized modules effectively in a number of languages. Phrases are managed in phrase libraries and grouped together in phrase groups. Using phrase sets, you can assign phrases to the individual characteristics of the substance properties. SAP EH&S can manage a number of phrase libraries, one of which is selected as the active library for data maintenance. A wide range of user functions, such as searching according to special selection criteria or using a where-used list, makes phrase management particularly user-friendly. Like substances, phrases are directly linked to engineering change management. Substance Information System In the substance information system, you can execute complex searches using substance properties. You can display the results in individually configured lists (output methods) and you can also display multi-level substance compositions. The properties tree can be used to search for properties. The data for a number of substances can be output per report. The last search parameters used are available for further searches to extend or refine the number of hits. You can search for identifiers, such as names, independent of their language. An interface to Microsoft Excel allows you to individually format and further process the data for the substances found by the search. 1-6

7 Introduction 1 Report Generation Report generation allows you to generate reports in multiple languages. These reports can contain data from the substance database, other R/3 components, and graphic symbols. You can configure the layout, content, and print format as required. Text modules can be included using the phrase-management function. The standard word processing program Microsoft Word is used on a server to design the reports and is linked to R/3, using the program WWI (Windows Wordprocessor Integration). The file format.rtf makes it possible to display the reports in all commonly used versions of Word without encountering problems. An EU material safety data sheet (MSDS), a TREMcard, and a standard operating procedure in accordance with German hazardous-substance laws are supplied as examples of report templates. Report Management Report management supports you in managing and releasing report documents, for example, material safety data sheets and labels. Status management makes it possible for you to set up a controlled release process in accordance with your requirements. When data is entered for a specific substance, a report is created from the report template for a specific language and jurisdiction, which is then available in the R/3 document management system (DMS) to all R/3 users in your company. This report is then turned into the final ready-to-ship report by entering the current data (such as the material number, company name, and logo) from the transaction that triggered report generation. The whole report-request process can therefore be triggered manually or automatically. Any changes to substances or phrases can be managed in a worklist. Report Shipping Report shipping is used to ship the finished reports in accordance with the valid legal requirements. You can also trigger delayed printing of the reports. As well as triggering report shipping automatically from SAP R/3 SD shipping processing, you can create a shipping order for reports manually. It is possible to bundle the substance reports according to various criteria (such as envelopes used, size limit, or recipient). Reports are subsequently shipped automatically using a date-controlled check routine. Subsequent shipping can also be triggered automatically if the report has changed due to relevant changes to substances or phrases. You can also ship reports that were entered as inbound documents. Report Information System In the report information system, you can display all reports on a substance in a report tree. In the report display, the current (released) version of a report is highlighted. Historical versions of a report can also be displayed. You can display or print each report. The report information system can also be started from a material for which reports are to be displayed. You can also use this function from the documents in R/3 SD shipping. 1-7

8 1 Introduction Data Exchange The possibility of communicating with other EDP systems and of importing data from them is a fundamental feature for implementing your SAP EH&S System. Data exchange (import and export) is possible for substances, phrases, literature sources, properties trees, report templates, SAP EH&S reports, and external reports. This means that it is possible to exchange data (including individual items of data following changes) with other systems, even outside R/3. For phrases, individual languages or phrase groups can be imported selectively. For non-sap EH&S documents, a defined interface is offered that also fully integrates inbound documents in report management. For structured substance data and completed substance reports, the necessary prerequisites have been created for replacing older applications or configuring distributed system scenarios. SAP EH&S Dangerous Goods Management Component Dangerous goods are substances and products whose properties can trigger or pose a hazard to public safety during carriage. Their transport is therefore subject to many national and international regulations. The correct handling of these regulations presents a cost-intensive and increasingly complex challenge for companies dispatching and transporting dangerous goods. SAP EH&S offers you a dangerous-goods management function that is fully integrated in the operative logistics process and can run automatically to a large extent in day-to-day business, providing you with an extremely efficient solution for your dangerous goods tasks. The three SAP EH&S components Dangerous goods master data Dangerous goods checks Dangerous goods documents provide you with all the functions that you require for your tasks. Dangerous Goods Management Master Data It is vital that correct and up-to-date dangerous goods master data is available for managing dangerous goods in accordance with the law. For the dangerous goods master data, SAP EH&S uses an enhancement to the material master and also offers a number of ways of managing substances in the substance database. Both of these together allow you to maintain your dangerous goods data efficiently and without redundancy, in line with the dangerous goods portfolio and the data scenario in your company in an optimum manner. SAP EH&S offers suitable data maintenance methods both for enterprises with just a few dangerous goods and for enterprises handling thousands of dangerous goods. The Dangerous goods master represents a dangerous goods-specific enhancement to the material master and provides all the necessary data on dangerous goods that is required for sales and distribution logistics. You can enter the data directly or make data available using a sophisticated Filling function. Filling retrieves the Regulatory data stored in the substance database, the rating in terms of regulations for dangerous goods in the Dangerous goods classification, and the relevant substance data. Filling also provides you with a user-friendly means of using external data sources such as old applications. 1-8

9 Introduction 1 You can create and manage the Regulatory data yourself in the various dangerous goods regulations, such as IATA-DGR, IMDG Code, ADR, ADNR, RID, or 49 CFR, in listed substances within the substance database. The wide range of import and update functions of the substance database and this data design in particular allows you to fill the listed substances as required using external data sources, and you can therefore use the data offered by qualified data providers, for example, to further reduce your costs for dangerous goods management. With Dangerous goods classification, SAP EH&S provides a new master data object in the substance database that allows you to rate your dangerous goods by a simple reference to the regulatory data in dangerous goods regulations. The referencing techniques of the substance database enable you to pass these on to all substances affected and thus automatically to all materials assigned. This data design of the dangerous goods master data makes it possible for you to maintain data efficiently and securely, even for large quantities of dangerous goods, owing to the lack of redundancy. Dangerous Goods Checks Dangerous goods checks ensure that the many regulations in the area of dangerous goods are observed. Checks can, for example, determine whether dangerous goods may be transported on the mode of transport intended. In SAP EH&S, dangerous goods checks have been uniquely integrated as part of the sales and distribution process. The delivery and shipment documents (from SAP EH&S Release 2.5A these also includes customer inquiry, quotation, and order) are the starting point for the checking process. The checks can be started automatically or manually. The information in the route stages entered is used automatically for the dangerous goods checks. SAP EH&S contains a powerful check processor for dangerous goods that you can use to specify your own check schemata with individual configurations for selecting check modules, their sequence, and how their results are further processed by the system. The check results are documented in a detailed check log. A lock for documents with critical check results enables you to prevent goods deliveries that do not conform to the regulations. Dangerous Goods Documents SAP EH&S provides you with easy-to-use solutions for creating the dangerous goods documents laid down by law and for outputting the necessary dangerous goods data on other required documents, both in paper form and as electronic data interchange (EDI). Both functions are fulfilled using mechanisms in the R/3 component SD (Sales & Distribution). The delivery note and packing list are extended to include dangerous goods data. R/3 SD output control manages the specific dangerous goods documents, and prints and sends them automatically. Refined language control makes it possible for the necessary texts to be automatically entered on the documents in the correct languages for the route stages and the regulations. 1-9