SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition: A Ready-to-Run Cloud ERP
SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition is a ready-to-run cloud ERP. For those new to the acronym, ERP is “Enterprise Resource Planning”. ERPs streamline and optimize business processes, primarily: accounting, inventory management, human resources, customer relationship management, and supply chain management.
This post is about how the Makini Open Industrial API™ integrates with SAP S/4HANA. Not that accounting and HR don’t interact with industrial systems, but supply chain management (and its inventory management component) are more in our Makini wheelhouse, so this article focuses on Supply Chain, Asset Maintenance and Inventory Management.
According to the product page for SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Supply Chain, “at a time where supply uncertainty is at an all-time high, agility is the name of the game.” This agility translates to real-world “things-on-trucks-and-ships” benefits like:
- planning and scheduling of goods in transit,
- transparent material flows,
- superior warehouse management,
- predictability of asset maintenance, and
- reduction of breakdowns in assets, and supply chain processes.
Of course, Inventory Management is a component of Supply Chain Management. This e3zine blog post describes “How SAP S/4Hana Simplifies Inventory Management.” Inventory management done right equals efficient retail and manufacturing operations, leaving no revenue on the table. Done wrong: “supply chain disruptions, causing significant financial losses.” Yikes!
Ready-to-Run Cloud ERP, Meet Ready-to-Run Cloud API ♥️♥️♥️
It should be no surprise that we are very excited to remind supply chain and inventory leaders about Makini’s important API integration with S/4HANA.
First, SAP Is a Leader in the 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises, so who wouldn’t want to connect with a leader like that? The MQ report calls out that “SAP S/4HANA Cloud is suitable for organizations that need a comprehensive set of capabilities for complex supply chain, manufacturing and finance business processes.” Such complex processes must connect the multiple systems that move goods from port to port, warehouse to warehouse.
But bespoke, self-coded integrations or internal APIs become brittle breakpoints. On the other hand, a universal, cloud-native API strengthens ERPs across four important dimensions: system integration, data access, automation, and customization.
System integration
An API allows SAP S/4HANA to connect and integrate with other systems, aside from Makini. These might be CRM (Customer Relationship Management) or e-commerce platforms. The API allows data sharing between systems in real-time, which reduces the need for manual data entry and input errors.
Data Access
The Makini API can provide access to data stored in S/4HANA, allowing asset managers to extract insights and analyze operational performance. With more data-driven decisions, supply chains and inventory management operate more efficiently.
Automation
APIs make it far easier to automate numerous routine tasks within an ERP, such as data entry or reporting. Automation also helps improve efficiency and reduce errors.
Customization
Finally, the Makini API allows developers to customize ERP functionality at scale. For example, an organization may use an API to easily add new features or modules to their ERP, or to integrate with specialized software tools.
Why the Makini API is Perfect for the Job
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant analysis cited SAP S/4HANA’s strength in technology platform capabilities, such as process automation and application development. When connected to the Makini Open Industrial API, those capabilities become even more fluid, powerful and dynamic. And the act of connecting the two only takes a couple of minutes.
If you don’t believe us, try it here, by testing a connection between Makini and SAP S/4HANA. If you have experience connecting other systems or APIs to S/4HANA, you’ll see how much easier and faster it is to connect Makini.
Once you integrate Makini with S/4HANA, you’ll see improvements to these supply chain and inventory management use cases:
- Purchase orders can be easily represented in the system,
- Schedule work orders,
- Communicate inventory stocks of spare parts in real-time, and link preventative maintenance plans to inventory,
- Represent physical assets in S4/HANA,
- Represent sites – locations to which assets are assigned, and
- Communicate defects as work orders that represent breakdowns.
If you’re not quite ready to test the connection between Makini and your instance of SAP S/4HANA Cloud on your own, contact us and we’ll walk you through it.
Let Makini help you take the next step in modernizing and digitizing your supply chain operations!
Related resources
- The SAP S/4HANA integration with Makini
- Test the connection between SAP S/4HANA Cloud and the Makini API
- Generate OEM equipment data for a new S/4HANA deployment
- The Makini API reference documentation
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