Product Compliance: Transition to SAP S/4HANA

[JohannesReichel]

Summary

You are currently using Product Compliance (Product Safety and/or Product and REACH Compliance) in SAP ECC. You are now considering to move to SAP S/4HANA.

Business Requirements

Product Compliance comprises the following main components:

• Product Marketability and Chemical Compliance: ensure compliant products for certain markets
• Dangerous Goods Management: ensure compliant transport
• Safety Data Sheet and Label Management: ensure compliant hazard communication

Please note: The classic Product Compliance solutions in SAP ECC have been re-named:

• SAP EHS Management Product Safety => SAP Product Safety
• SAP EHS Management Product and REACH Compliance for Discrete Industries  => SAP Product and REACH Compliance

Solution Options

When moving to SAP S/4HANA the following options are available for Product Compliance:

1. "New functionality": SAP S/4HANA for product compliance
2. "Classic functionality": SAP Product Safety and SAP Product and REACH Compliance
3. "Compatibility Scope": continue using classic functionalities as part of the SAP S/4HANA compatibility scope

Characterization of the Solution Options

Option 1: "New functionality": SAP S/4HANA for product compliance

SAP S/4HANA for product compliance is a complete renewal to make best use of the capabilities that come with the S/4HANA platform:

• New process model
• SAP Fiori apps
• New data model, CDS-based
• New integration into product master, sales, delivery, procurement, transportation
• No full scope yet, Innovation roadmap

Option 2: "Classic functionality": SAP Product Safety and SAP Product and REACH Compliance

• (Almost) All features of “SAP Product Safety”  and “SAP Product and REACH Compliance” (not available anymore: Waste Management, MSDS Maker, Genifix) 
• SAP GUI transactions
• Specification database, Workbench approach
• Full scope, No functional enhancements

Option 3: "Compatibility Scope": continue using classic functionalities as part of the SAP S/4HANA compatibility scope

• All features of “SAP Product Safety”  and “SAP Product and REACH Compliance”
• Full scope, no functional enhancements
• End of usage right by end of 2025

Please note:

For Option 1 and Option 2, the product compliance capabilities are technically part of the corresponding SAP S/4HANA on-premise or cloud options (option 2 only in private cloud), but require a separate license. This means that there is no need to implement a separate add-on for product compliance. However, the product compliance capabilities in SAP S/4HANA are not covered by the SAP S/4HANA user licenses.

Availability, Use rights, and Mainstream maintenance

Option 1: "New functionality": SAP S/4HANA for product compliance

• Available in current SAP S/4HANA release (cloud and on-premise), no additional add-on
• Full functional scope planned by 2026
• additional license necessary
• Maintenance follows general SAP S/4HANA maintenance

Option 2: "Classic functionality": SAP Product Safety and SAP Product and REACH Compliance

• Available in current SAP S/4HANA release (only private cloud and on-premise), no additional add-on
• switch of license necessary
• SAP S/4HANA release 2029 will be last supported release for classic functionalities. 

Option 3: "Compatibility Scope": continue using classic functionalities as part of the SAP S/4HANA compatibility scope

• usage only possible until end of 2025

Criteria to determine the most suitable target solution

Deployment Preference

• Public Cloud: Only Option 1: "New functionality" is currently available 
• Private Cloud: all options are available, however,  the infrastructure for WWI-Server and EHS-Expert servers are not included. This must be either handled by the customer himself or customer needs to ask SAP / hyperscaler to handle this in addition.
• On-Premise: all options are available

Functional Scope

• Option 1 does not yet cover the full scope of product compliance capabilities compared to Option 2 and 3.
• Therefore, evaluate what product compliance functionalities are required today and in future and compare the evaluation with the different options while considering the innovation roadmap for Option 1.

Time of SAP S/4HANA Transition

• Before 2026: compare functional scope and in case Option 1 does not cover critical and required capabilities consider Option 2 or Option 3 (end of usage right end of 2025!)
• After 2026: full scope of Option 1 might be available, consider moving to new functionalities as part of Option 1

Level of Process Redesign

• Brownfield, i.e. no or only limited level of process redesign: Option 2 or Option 3 (end of usage right end of 2025!)
• Greenfield, i.e. high level of process redesign: Option 1 (if functional scope available). Alternatively, Option 2, however, latest after SAP S/4HANA release 2029 a transition to Option 1 is mandatory.

Decision Tree

Conclusion

From a strategic roadmap perspective, Option 1 with the new functionalities is the right option. However, as the functional scope might not yet cover all requirements, Option 2 could be an alternative for an interim period until SAP S/4HANA 2029. 

[christoph_bergemann]

Hello

thanks for your document. In the current situation it is still not clear how to move from old to new solution. the main hurdle (from my point of view) is the "data migration".

What do we have?

In EHS Classic we can extract data by:

1.) EHS Standard Export

2.) Using Outpuvariants

3.) ALE

The Product Compliance tool currently support only one "input" option for data migration.

I am missing the piece "in between".. we need an IT approach to use the EHS Classic data (somehow) to map the structures to the target etc.

It is not feasible to do this process manually (imgaine you have "only" 25.000 REAL_SUB and may be 75.000 material numbers).

Is there any plan on SAP side to help here? At some point in time (because of Roadmap): anybody must use "Product Compliance". Without any migration approach.. not a good idea to go on.

In a nutshell: will SAP deliver options to go with in the next years? Based on curretn updated SAP Roadmap.. we do not have much time to get support by SAP.

What i can imagine is this: forget about "old content" (3E content) as the content (including phrases etc.) is part of the new software... but how  migrate the data?

Any idea here?

C.B.

PS: we know that step by step will provide Public Apis; but still the "mapping" part is not clear....

PPS: based in so called "3E Adapter" approach: You muts use EHS Classic very "primitive" to have an easy migration. Even with 3E adapter: hard work.. (based on current version of 3E Adapter).

[christoph_bergemann]

Hello

in the mean time SAP is providing more and more public APIs for "read" and "write" of data.  But still is is not clear how to "move logical" the data from A to B.

One of the hurdles are: if you are not sing SAP/3E data model: the "move" is very complex. If you use customer driven proeprties. Move is not possible.

We will investigate the 2025 release (if available) to again do a kind of "prestudy" to list he pros/cons in the data migration.

As well: there is still some hope that the so called 3E Adapter might help.

C.B.

[phermant1]

Hello,

I'm interested to know more about this data migration and especially for composition impacts.

It seems that the best way for composition is to be recreated with S/4 content provided data, for example based on CAS or EINECS numbers. For chemical companies this is unsufficient to retain all properties. For discrete manufacturing, the history of BOM and link to product compliance is also a challenge.

Is there any specific blog to follow with this subject ?

[christoph_bergemann]

Hello phermant1

regarding current options to "migrate" data: take a look to sap help (help.sap.com). Data is (currently) migrated by using SAP standard tools. The issue is: not only "EHS" data is important to understand: the "new" link of material to so called compliance view is a well important ( i skip details: just taek a look in SAP help).

Your topic of "BOM" is a little it more complex (but i need to skip details here).

the "composition" part depends on how you use currently SAP EHS classic. 

Any how: we will see this year the next version of Product Compliance. This is still not complete (Refert to SAP Roadmap). But it is a good idea to check NOW data migration options.

C.B.