Chapter 3 Flashcards
(17 cards)
ERP Systems
What are the goals for implementation?
- Integration of internal (and possible external) business processes in order to achieve higher productivity and efficiency.
- Creation of a new technological basis for establishing reengineered or completely new business processes.
ERP Systems
Characteristics
- Company wide information system or data base on a common plattform.
- integration of all applications of the company.
- enables company specific configuration of the systems.
Integration of ERP Systems
- range/ scope of integration: number of business functions and processes.
- direction of integration: horizontal/ vertical
- object of integration: may contain data, function, activities, processes, methods, programs.
Important requirements for ERP Systems
Functionality:
- integration of all business functions necessary
- clearly defined workflow
- non-redudant data storage
Technology:
- e business
- up-to-date system architecture
- up-to-date data base technology
Cost efficiency
-life cycle costs vs (economical) benefit
Process orientation in modern ERP Systems
- structure of ERP systems is based on functions like sales and distributions, Material Management, Financial Accounting, etc.
- today: consideration and design of independent business processes within companies.
- recommendations: implementation along business process models.
Set-up of an ERP System
documents: “no posting without documents”
- Every event creates one or more documents.
- These documents are related to each other and can show the evolution of a process in all steps.
- A document can only be generated if all necessary data are correct annd complete.
Facts about SAP ERP
- SAP is market leader
- worldwide availlability
- interconnection posibilities to suppliers and customers
- extension to new technologies (eg, ebusiness solutions)
Characteristics of SAP technology
-SAP fulfills all requirements for ERP Systems
-client-server architecture
>definition: cooperative information processing where tasks between different applications are allocated to connected computers.
> goal: optimisation of computing power and capacity
>SAP ERP typically three tiers: presentation layer, application layer, database layer
Adaption of SAP ERP is stages of Expansion to Hardware Resources
- presentation server: arbitrary number of PC´s work stations. TASK: Presentation of applications
- application server: processing of application programs and communication with the database server
- database server: database on a central computer. TASK: administration and allocation of stored data
Executions of transactions
activities of business processes and corresponding data flows are represented in SAP by transactions.
two main steps: interactive dialog, data storage (new or changed data)
Interaction between c/s layers in the SAP System
- The user calls an application from the presentation layer (eg. “create new customer”)
- The application is provided by the application layer (application server)
- The presentation layer provides the corresponding screen with its masks and data fields. The presentation layer is responsible for the graphical representation of the data.
- The user inputs the data and confirms it.
- The input is forwarded from the presentation layer to the application layer where it is processed and provided to storage in the database (“posting”)
- The data is stored in the database layer.
Work processes
-Execution of all operations, which are requested from application programs in SAP ERP, in form of work processes.
Components of work processes
- screen processor: execution of user interaction and the screen flow logic.
- ABAP/ 4 processor: execution of the processing logic and communication with the database interface.
- Data interface: establishing and terminating connections between work, process and data base; enabling the access to database tables.
Types of work processes
- dialog work process: deals with request from an user to execute dialog steps.
- update work process: executes database update requests.
Administration of information exchange
- > dispatcher: link between SAPGUI and work processes
- receives requests for dialog steps from the SAPGUI and directs them to a free work process.
- in the same way: redirecting output resulting from the dialog step back to the user.
- distribution from transactions to work processes.
Master Data
Master data is key business information that supports transactions
Master data already exists and is used in the operational systems
Transactional data
Transactional data describes business events.
It is the largest volume of data in the enterprise.
It is typically handled in operational applications.
