Switch from Production to SAP PP

[Former Member]

Hey, Hi, I Morya Ajit, Completed 4 years as a production Planning and Control Engineer, in a manufacturing company.

I want to switch to SAP. Is it necessary to do SAP certification coarse?

Also, do i have to leave my job for the coarse.

[ShrutiJoshi]

Hi Ajit

I have friends who have switched from being Production Managers to SAP and each has their own ways based on the kind of risk they can take and the money they can afford to spend. Since you are coming from a different background completely, certification improves your chances a lot of getting a good job.

Some people leave their job and do certification through the classroom training. Post completing the certification they look out for SAP job. At times the institutes from where the certification is done do help out in getting good placements. This approach can be taken if you are ok the quit job and take the risk involved. Also you should not be under the impression that you will get a job immediately after certification. It may take some time but you will get it definitely. So need to have patience.

Another approach that some people take is they find a SAP end user job somewhere. That helps them to gain some experience (though not on configuration as a consultant) but at least makes them aware of the technology usage. Simultaneously they opt for an online learning course which spans around 4 months and keep preparing for the certification on their own through the online guided learning.

So its upto you how you want to proceed.

[Former Member]

Hi Ajit,

I am very glad to know that you have 4 years of experience in production Planning and Control Engineer, normally its difficult to get people who has domain experience in these subjects.

As you have experienced in these areas learning SAP would be very good for you especially if you proceed to learn SAP Production Planning as well as Controlling module as Production Planning has very close integration with Controlling module for the areas of Product Costing as well as Profitability analysis other than Cost Center, profit center, cost element and internal order accounting.

So even you proceed to learn Production Planning module make an attempt to learn controlling module as well as much as you can, both are very nice combination and its very rare to find this combination and industry eagerly needs these kind of people who can be ideal resource for manufacturing industries..

To answer your question whether certification is necessary, please remember certification is not the passport to enter into SAP or even to get a job as SAP Consultant as industry needs people who are knowledgable about process and talk and understand process as SAP is just a tool or software that helps to achieve that process running or execution.

So off course you can do certification but you can also take sap training from any institute of your choice and you will be assumed in the industry as trained hier or lateral hier from sap perspective.

At last I am happy to say that we need people like you who are knowledgable about business processes as because of domain knowledge but only need to know how to achieve those business processes using sap instaed of just becoming a by hearted sap configuration or functional consultant.

Wish you good luch.

Let me know in case you need any clarification and I would be happy to help you.

You can join me in linkedin if you like.

Thanks & Regards

Subhasish

[Former Member]

Thnk you for your Valuable information.

I have also heard that most companies hire a freshers and train them on SAP.