IDF LMB First Steps Towards ESOA

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IDF - LMBFirst Steps Towards E-SOA
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LMB - Who We Are

• Israel Defense Forces Logistics Medical
  Branch (IDF-LMB) has two functions within the
  IDF
• Logistics Covering almost any aspect of
  logistics for the IDF - food, energy, spare
  parts, transportation, munitions, construction,
  clothing and office supplies, medical supply and
  maintenance
• Medical Services Serving the entire IDF
  population medical needs in every aspect
  including managing infirmaries, hospitals and
  field medical units

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Agenda

• SAP Implementation at LMB
• Our Road to Enterprise SOA
• Summary

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IT History of LMB - Technologies Systems

• The LMB has been using information systems for
  logistics management since 1955, when the first
  computer was introduced to the IDF.
• During the past five decades many applications
  have been developed to mange every aspect of the
  LMB operations.
• In the last decade it has grown increasingly
  difficult to maintain and tightly integrate such
  a large number of applications based on almost
  any technology imaginable.
• In October 2001 it was decided by the head of LMB
  to start a project to replace all those aging
  applications with one application SAP R/3.
• The chosen name for the project was Prolog
  symbolizing a new beginning.

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SAP Product Implementation Timeline

• 4/2004 Go Live with R/3 system Logistics
  Centers
• 4/2004 Go Live with XI 2.0 system
• 1/2005 R/3 4.7 ext 200 upgrade
• 5/2005 Go Live with SAP BW and SAP Enterprise
  Portal
• 11/2005 mySAP ERP 2004 upgrade
• 11/2005 XI 3.0 upgrade
• 8/2006 Go Live with CRM 4.0 for Interaction
  Center
• 8/2006 Analytics xApps Ramp-Up project
  completed

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Current LMB IT Landscape

• Legacy systems running variety of technologies
  platforms
• SAP systems based onIBM MF Windows platforms
• Large number of users with wide geographical
  distribution
• A unified in-house developed printing solution
  for the entire organization

EP 6.0
BW 3.5
NW Development Infrastructure
XI 3.0
Informatica ETL System
CRM 4
ERP 2004
Legacy Systems
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Agenda

• SAP Implementation at LMB
• Our Road to Enterprise SOA
• Summary

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E-SOA Motivation Necessary Preparations Pilot
Project Growing Up Implementation
Dilemmas Identifying BI Needs
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E-SOA Motivation of LMB

• SAPs vision towards E-SOA reflected by the
  NetWeaver platform solutions
• SOA acceptance in the industry
• Web services technology matured
• In search of ways to leverage SOA LMB found
  business processes that can be made more flexible
  and efficient

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E-SOA Motivation Necessary Preparations Pilot
Project Growing Up Implementation
Dilemmas Identifying BI Needs
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E-SOA Necessary Preparations

• Study of E-SOA concepts technologies
• Setting up a development environment (NWDI)
• Building development team roles
• Forming a development methodology
• E-SOA Pilot
• Development team training
• Continuous enhancements of the development
  infrastructure
• Reexamination of previous decisions throughout
  the process

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E-SOA Motivation Necessary Preparations Pilot
Project Growing Up Implementation
Dilemmas Identifying BI Needs
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Pilot Project - Custom SD xApp

• Considerations taken when choosing the pilot
• Painful process for the user
• Short development cycle
• Failure is not critical - replaces an existing
  process
• Small scale deployment
• Highly involved users

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Original SD Scenario
Sales Order Confirmation Transaction
Outbound DeliveryCreation Transaction
Shipment
Sales Orders
Outbound Deliveries
The User Material Manager

• Not easy to use
• Slow completion ofentire process

User works in multiple transactions,not fully
customized for his needs.
Decision supporting informationIs only available
in the corporate BI reporting system (BW)

• Some decision are made without all of the
  information available at grasp

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Improved SD Scenario
Shipment
Outbound Deliveries
Sales Orders
The User Material Manager
Confirm Create delivery
Sales Order Handling Services
Outbound Delivery Handling Services
BW Decision supporting Information
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E-SOA Motivation Necessary Preparations Pilot
Project Growing Up Implementation
Dilemmas Identifying BI Needs
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Taking a Bigger Bite -Inventory Level
Forecasting xApp

• Business scenario
• Field warehouse stock levels are maintained
  according to a forecast process running in the
  ERP system
• Automatic outbound deliveries are created
• Field units warehouse managers are not SAP users
• Business requirement
• Field units warehouse managers should be part of
  the Forecast process inputs

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The Solution Provided
Forecast results for my items (Inventory level,
etc.)
My warehouse Items
Selected item consumption history From BW system
Update inventory levelsTo mySAP ERPForecast
process
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E-SOA Motivation Necessary Preparations Pilot
Project Growing Up Implementation
Dilemmas Identifying BI Needs
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The eBusinessCredit Management Project

• Business Scenario
• Israeli military personnel are entitled to a
  yearly quota of credit points
• Credit authority is responsible for managing the
  eligibility for points
• Military and civilian stores provide goods
  (Clothing, Sporting goods, etc.) in exchange to
  credit points
• A new web-enabled application was provided that
  replaced an old legacy system

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Solution Overview
Military Stores
Manager Reports
IDF Soldiers
Credit Authority
EP WebDynpro Runtime Environment
Self Service Depot
eBusiness Credit system mySAP ERP 2004
SAP NetWeaver BW
HR Credit point eligibility and balance
management for each personnel
MM Inventory management at military stores
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Implementation Architecture Dilemmas

• Business logic layer
• Development inside existing backend systems
• Development from scratch over new NWDI
  platform
• Orchestrate process with BPM?

• Data persistency layer
• Not a dilemma?

• User presentation layer
• User familiarity
• Development duration
• Deployment simplicity
• Response time

SAP GUI
WebDynprofor Java
User Presentation Layer
Legacy
XI
AS Java
ERP 2004
Business Logic Layer
AS Java DB
ERP DB
Data Persistency Layer
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Technical Implementation Dilemmas

• XI as the central hub for services?
• Security
• Performance overhead
• Development Maintenance expenses
• Web service vs. RFC
• How to print?
• How to provide offline capabilities?

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Business Consultant Work Process
Current
Demanded
THE BUSINESS CONSULTANT WILL NEED TO CHANGE HIS
WAY OF THINKING ON HOW TO IMPLEMENT BUSINESS
PROCESSES
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E-SOA Motivation Necessary Preparations Pilot
Project Growing Up Implementation
Dilemmas Identifying BI Needs
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Organizational BI Needs

• Intuitive BI approach for managers
• Holistic point of view for the users
• Need for online information from operational
  backend systems

Which SAP technology can fulfill these goals?
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SAP Analytics xApps Ramp-Up

• Analytics xApps Ramp-Up project took place on
  July 06
• Analytics business packages were not fully
  suitable for our business scenarios
• No development skills were needed for building
  custom xApps
• Visual Composer provided us with rapid
  development for combined operational BI
  applications
• Hebrew support issues were handled successfully

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Custom xApp Material Manager Model
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SCM Business Package Warehouse Workload History
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SCM Business Package Warehouse Stock Analysis
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Agenda

• SAP Implementation at LMB
• Our Road to Enterprise SOA
• Summary

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Summary

• Enterprise SOA Not just a new tool A new
  concept, new technology, new working methods
• New consultant work-process
• New development skills
• Experience taught us Adoption should be taken
  gradually and in small paces
• E-SOA will provide long-term benefits

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What Lies Ahead?

• Role Oriented xApps development
• Making information available to everyone
  (including Non-SAP users)
• Formalizing Visual Composer working procedures
• Business consultants training on Visual Composer
  usage
• Platform upgrade to NetWeaver 2004s
• Upgrade to ERP 2005
• MDM (Master Data Management) Implementation pilot

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Thank you!
Questions?

• Yoadsn_at_gmail.com
• bashzv_at_gmail.com