implementing #S/4 HANA, #simplelogistics

In a previous blog post I got pretty enthusiastic about Hasso Plattner’s promise of making it easy to switch from ECC 6.0 over to S/4 HANA. Now, eight months later, I am spending Thanksgiving weekend at a client site which is struggling (like I have never seen before) to go live with “simple logistics” and other S/4 HANA applications. All I can help with is to define a process for the generation of a production schedule that they need to have ready before next Monday, when they plan to flip the switch. All the other technical problems I can’t help with as I am not familiar with the new S/4 HANA features (neither are any of the other consultants, I believe, as it’s a bit difficult to get documentation… to say the least). But even the stuff I know from ECC and all previous versions of SAP Logistics… a lot of it isn’t there anymore! It got cut out during SAP’s “simplification” efforts for S/4 HANA. And they “simplified” everything that wasn’t used much (not considering that the reason it might not have been used much was because it wasn’t known.

Ok… so let me understand this: good functionality was taken out in the new, “enhanced” (and more expensive) version of SAP software because it wasn’t used much? Because an MRP type V V was badly documented and very rarely taught to any user, you take it out of the feature list? Because no one was ever able to make good use of fantastic functions like picking from various scheduling levels in the production version (so that you can use different planning objects and different levels of detail in different planning horizons)… simply made unavailable? And because only few people could figure out how to use the grandiose sequencing board to schedule a flow line by takt, you disable that entire feature? How should I now schedule the final assembly line here at my client?

I find it very worrisome that for the first time in my 27 year SAP consulting carrier, I find myself dealing with a newer version that has less functionality than the old. And that is being called “Simplification”?

Oh well… as I am walking around the office, I run into (rather almost trip over) people that have spent the last 4 weeks working day and night… some going up to 4 days and nights on 3 to 4 hours of sleep. That is no “simple” feat at all!