Fergus Nolan

SAP ABAP / WM Consultant with RF

HOMEResumeAvailabilityContactRatesRF*GENIESAPconsole Ergonomics

PREV BACK NEXT

Two interface Architectures, SD and MM internals and user exits.

April 1996 to December 1997
ABAP coding, design, user exits, interface architecture and high-volume real-time interface technical lead for a North-East pharmaceuticals and consumer products manufacturer.

Modules: SD, MM, IM, PP, FI, HR, Basis.
Tools: ABAP tools, screen paintr, GUI designer, RFC, ALE, IDOC, EDI, Classification, CPIC.
Other: AWMS external warehousing system, Manugistics, Unix scripts, MVS, Unix, FTP

Two implementations: PP and a separate SD/MM/IM/FI/HR project for this consumer products and pharmaceuticals manufacturer 'with the best logistics in the business'.
Designed/built FTP-based file transfer architecture with integrity features, simple API, operational and batch interface and multi-platform connectivity.
Created high-volume interface to SD from external warehousing system AWMS(Advanced Warehouse Management System, McHugh Freeman). This system asynchronously reformatted inbound file transfers from AWMS and created RFC transactions, eventually performing goods issue and inventory transactions via BDC on the SAP side. The FTP architecture (from point 2 above) was re-used for this project. Sophisticated parallelization techniques were used to maximize throughput in this major SAP bottleneck. In depth restartability was provided with custom screens to support troubleshooting and restart jobs stalled by business errors. Statistical analysis of product mixes in sales orders was used to model locking behavior and availability of the Oracle lock buffer so that operational parameters could be predicted. In depth error analysis tools were provided for operational support. ALE and Idocs were used, plus all the SAP system development tools.
Manugistics interface.
A large number of user exits in the SD and order entry system. These mainly involved truck cube estimations using UOM data in the material master to flag multi-truck orders to be split, and to implement order minima. This required in-depth understanding of the SAP Unit of Measure data and code.
User exits to support use of the Export Licensing system to implement pharmaceutical licensing checking.
Custom code and configuration to use batches for lot recall and for controlling chain of custody for controlled pharmaceuticals.
Initial conversions in the Material Master and SD areas, including use of standard SAP conversion functionality.
Implementation of the Classification system for custom fields in the logistics areas.
All work and documentation was subject to extremely rigorous checking for by separate oversight groups from financial audit, quality control and validation for FDA and DEA purposes.