28 July 2022

Logging changes in the production order

Changes to production orders cannot be documented in standard SAP. This changes with the CONSILIO solution, which is based on SAP standard objects and can be activated for any objects.

Logging of changes made to production orders is not possible in SAP Standard today. If an employee changes the date or the quantity of the product, the production order allows this without further ado and the old data is overwritten without being recorded anywhere. What the document originally looked like and who changed it can no longer be traced.

The issue of lack of logging is a familiar one in both discrete manufacturing and process industries. Common changes include demand quantities - when the supplier requests a quantity change after the order is entered, or components - when a worker on the assembly line realizes that the wrong components were entered and initiates a component adjustment. In the process industry, for example, components must be changed due to product returns caused by quality defects. In all of these cases, the planner or shift supervisor must call up the existing production or process order and manually change the data afterwards. However, which data was changed on which day and by which person cannot be traced in the SAP standard.

This is exactly the problem CONSILIO addresses with its solution for logging changes to production orders.

Log changes with CONSILIO add-on

The CONSILIO solution logs all changes that were made after the production order was saved for the first time. The log can be found directly in the production order under the "Change documents" tab. The tab appears automatically after the first change in the order. The log not only shows the changed object, the old and the new value, the date and time of the change, and the user who made the changes. It lists all dependent data on which the last change has an effect. For example, when the basic start date is changed manually, the dependent dates such as scheduled start or basic finish date also change automatically and are also displayed in the log. The deleted values are displayed in red for user-friendly operation, while the newly added values are displayed in green. Since the solution is based on the SAP standard, the log represents the usual and familiar format and structure of logging:

Display change documents

If you want to get an overview of all changes in all production orders, the standard report RSSCD100 is available. Here, various selection options can be used, for example, to display all changes of a user or all changes of the last week. The results are displayed in tabular form and contain additional values per document number, such as transactions in which the respective production order was changed, field and object names and much more information. The usual standard sorting and filtering functions are also available here and can be used to improve clarity.

Stay close to the SAP standard

Die CONSILIO-Lösung zur Protokollierung der Änderungen an Fertigungsaufträgen ist sowohl auf einem ECC-System als auch unter S/4HANA einsetzbar. Sie ist zwar im eigenen Namensraum entwickelt, basiert jedoch auf SAP Standard User-Exits. Das heißt, dass für die Änderungsbelege die Standardfunktionen und -schnittstellen verwendet werden. Das hat den Vorteil, dass Änderungen, die von Fremdsystemen vorgenommen werden, ebenfalls im Protokoll festgehalten werden.

Die zu protokollierenden Objekte werden bei der Implementierung der Lösung frei definiert. Werte, die nicht benötigt werden, können aus der Protokollierung explizit ausgeschlossen werden. So kann das Add-on an eigene unternehmerische Bedürfnisse angepasst und die Datenerfassung schlank und übersichtlich gehalten werden.

Zur Protokollierung werden SAP-Standardfunktionen und SAP-Tabellen CDHDR und CDPOS verwendet. Die protokollierten Daten können im SAP Standard archiviert werden: entweder in bestehendem Archivierungslauf oder als eigenes Objekt.

Summary

The CONSILIO add-on "Change documents on production orders" is a simple but extremely helpful solution that can be used to document and track all changes. The newly gained transparency makes it possible to identify the sources of errors and recognize optimization potential. The solution, which is based on SAP standard, is self-explanatory and requires no user training.

Lack of logging is a well-known problem in discrete manufacturing as well as in the process industry. The CONSILIO add-on "Change documents to production orders" is a simple but extremely helpful solution that documents and tracks all changes.

Jonathan Alon, Solution ConsultantCONSILIO GmbH

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