Production Order in xMII

[Former Member]

Hi,

I need to get the Production Order and Recipe Data from SAP.

After reading the Forum, I got that there are 2 ways...

1. Using IDOC

2. Using JCO Action

Can you please tell me How to configure SAP to send this data to xMII

Also if there are some web service available in SAP which can send this data to xMII.

Thanks,

Piyush

[Former Member]

There will be ESA services (if not released already) for ERP 2005 that will provide query capabilities for Production Orders.

One of the challenges is that you probably want to implement a "change-based" mechanism. You are likely only interested in new or changed orders.

That will be a bit trickier to implement. This is the reason that some people still prefer the IDOC-based approach, as it implies a conscious decision to "send" the order to xMII.

Best regards,

Rick

[Former Member]

When the Manufacturing ES community group met in New Town Square a few months back, I mentioned to Sahu that there was no provision to subscribe to IDOCs - they were only going to provide the ability to poll. He was under the impression most implementations employ a client to poll the service that holds the master data. I don't think this is true and even if it is, it's only because the service lacks event-driven interfaces to begin with. A self-fulfilling prophesy driven by circular logic.

It seems to me that it wouldn't be that hard to provide a web service which allows a remote system to subscribe to an IDOC-like structure passing in a "callback" service endpoint and any (optional) "change pointer" criteria. I don't think any of the SAP folks were particular enamored with the idea but all the non-SAP participants understood the idea and agreed.

-tim

[Former Member]

Makes sense to me! I guess we've lived in the practioners world and have a different perspective.

Unfortunately, you need to factor in that there are some technical "legacy" issues that make change detection very difficult. Somewhere along the chain, someone would need to maintain a copy/cache and do delta comparisons against the list of "change rules". Actually, there may be potential applications of MDM as the engine for this, but I'm not sure how deeply anyone has looked into it. The historical approaches have involved "user exits" (ABAP code) that could do the checking on the server side.

In the new "ESA by design" solution announced this year, change-based event agents at the business object level are part of the core architecture.

All that said, in my twisted mind, I look at the problem a bit differently - why couldn't SAP expose a bunch of enterprise data (master data or dynamic data) as OPC UA data elements supporting a notification-based subscription? This way, consuming apps (MES, custom, HMI/SCADA) could get rich data, including browsing of available data, in a well known way.

This is something we're looking at in SAP Research right now...

- Rick

[Former Member]

OPC eh? Remind me again when SAP was going to add OLE to Netweaver?

-tim

[Former Member]

The nice thing about OPC UA is that it is (mostly) platform neutral. There are interfaces at a couple levels, including some binary interop even for non-Windows platforms. There is an ANSI C core implementation for Linux/*nix/Embedded applications, and there will likely be a Java wrapper as well. Plus, of course, a .NET implementation.

- Rick

[Former Member]

Hi Rick,

I think the idea from an MES view is to pull data from SAP ERP as and when it is ready to operate. So i was looking for an approach that using xMII JCO connector i give a BAPI call and get the list of process order; then select one and get the details of that....

I have downloaded the templates from the links mentioned above bt these gentlemen and tried to study that.

To begin with I am not able to configure JCO Action block as i am getting an error back while executing 'Get List' for the SAP RFC LIST.

the error is "Partner Not reached. host localhost Service 3300"

I have checked that there is no TCP/IP service running at 3300..

can you please tell me which service should run on SAP end the enable this JCO based accesss.

My SAP system and xMII both are at one machine and the OS is Windows2003 server.....

Thanks,

Piyush..

[satyanarayan_sahu]

Hi Piyush,

You can explore using the available webservices to pull data from ERP. As this is the future direction, i would recommend to explore more with the Enterprise services.

The following manufacturing ES webservices are currently available and many more are coming in the next Enhancement package:

Production/Process Order

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Find Production Order by Elements

Find Production Order by Work Centre

Read Production Order

Production/Process Order Confirmation

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Maintain Production Confirmation (Asynch)

Confirm Production Confirmation( From ERP )

Create Production Confirmation(Synch)

Production Planning Order

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Read Production Planning Order

Find Production Planning Order by Elements

Repetitive Manufacturing Confirmation

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Maintain Repetitive Manufacturing Confirmation (Asynch)

Confirm Repetitive Manufacturing Confirmation (From ERP)

Create Repetitive Manufacturing Confirmation (Synch)

Batch(Identified stock)

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---

Find Batch by Elements

Read Batch

Change Batch

Create Batch

Change Batch Plant Assignment

Create Batch Plant Assignment

You can find the detail of the each of these services from ES workplace. Here is the link:

http://erp.esworkplace.sap.com/socoview(bD1lbiZjPTgwMCZkPW1pbg==)/enterpriseservices.asp?&packageid=...

We have a ES Bundle(Integration of Manufacturing Execution Systems) which basically addressed: how best a MES system can get integrated with SAP ERP.

Here is the link to the ES Bundle:

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/wiki?path=/display/espackages/home&;

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Sahu

[Former Member]

Hi,

Thanks for this information. I will look more closely on the web services offered by SAP. It would be great if SAP itself can give an xMII transaction which gets the MES users the B2MMLs. Mainly my interest is

1. Material Master Data (Material Schema)

2. Resources (Equipment) Master Data (Equipment Schema)

3. Process Order (Production Schedule)

4. Master Recipe (or All the Recipes which are available for a plant) (Product Information)

Is there anything already existing for this in SAP or something is planned in ECC 6.0?

Thanks for the help..

Regards,

Piyush

[Former Member]

How would you pull a <i>change</i> to a Material, BOM, Routing, or Order?

-tim

[Former Member]

Also, how does the MES know when an production (or planned) order is ready to be downloaded? Shouldn't orders be pushed from the ERP?

Thanks,

-tim

[satyanarayan_sahu]

It's currently in plan.

Sahu

[satyanarayan_sahu]

In the selection variant you can specify the selection criteria based on which you download those orders which needs to be downloaded. I hope this helps.

Sahu

[Former Member]

Right, we can provide filter criteria in the request so we don't get back every record, but polling is still a very inefficient way to integrate two systems. Does the MES check every day? every hour? every 10 seconds? How often do orders, materials, BOMs, documents, tools, work instructions, and routings change? All of these types of issues go away in an event-driven interface. It just a publish/subscribe model.

-tim

[Former Member]

I guess I wasn't convincing enough in New Town Square last month...

[Former Member]

Hi,

You are right in a way that the Data is to be pushed as n when ready. But what i mean was the MES should also be ready to execute. If not then Data still needs to be deposited somewhere .... and MES checks when ready to execute. (its like checking your mailbox and see if something is there). Where as the pull (Kinda polling) is used....SAP itself acts as a mailbox.... you go there with a Filter and see whats for you....

Regards,

Piyush

[Former Member]

We have encountered this behavior in one case of discrete, repetitive manufacturing, but not in discrete make-to-order nor assembly-based manufacturing (Aerospace & Defense). In these later cases, the ERP knows when to release the production order to the shop floor and does so. They are all "push" interfaces.

In the repetitive scenario, we've seen two methodologies:

1. planned orders are firmed based on a threshold of when they would be valid (e.g. within the next 2 days). These firmed planned orders are pushed to the MES.

2. planned orders are never sent to MES automatically. A shop floor manager will browse the available planned orders in SAP, then pick and choose the ones he wants sent to MES. This scenario has two impementation strategies:

.....2a. manager uses SAP to browse, choose, and push the planned order to MES

.....2b. Visiprise has written an xMII-based app that provides the "planned order browser" for the shop floor manager (he doesn't log into SAP). He then chooses the planned orders he wants and xMII will pull them from SAP and push them to the MES.

In the last scenario (2b) and only that scenario would the ES MES web services be of use to us. It is not a common use-case.

-tim

[satyanarayan_sahu]

Now, i am very sure that you are not convinced in Newtown Sqr office workshop.

[former_member202329]

Hi Piyush,

If you are considering using idoc for sending the control recipe then please go through the following article in SDN <</people/dipankar.saha3/blog/2007/04/20/how-to-send-control-recipe-data-from-ecc-to-sap-xmii

Hope this is useful to you.

~Deepak

[Former Member]

Piyush,

If you are going to pursue the IDOC method then you can check out the the xMII Wiki for the guides on how to setup the ALE in SAP in order to push down IDOCS to xMII. Go here: https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/wiki?path=/display/xmii/main

Using JCO is much easier in my opinion and much faster. For this you must determine which BAPI's to call and to make sure they are "Remote Enabled". If so then a simple connection to that system will allow you to call the said BAPIs. We have also created some Module specific templates which you can use as your starting point. THis would include full xMII Business Logic transactions on how get Production Order data and so on. For that follow this:

From the SDN -- Click the "Downloads" link at the top of the page

Clik on "Manufacturing" toward the bottom of the page and to the right

From there just click "SAP xApp Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (xMII) Templates"

Here is the direct link to the xMII Templates Page: https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/webcontent/uuid/90537bfe-fd6b-2910-fda3-b04f1... [original link is broken]

[Former Member]

Hi Alin,

Can you please elaborate what you mean by "those BAPIs are Remote enabled".

I am anyway not able to connect to SAP system as some error is coming while to get the list of BAPIs.

Please tell me if any configuration (to enable some service) in SAP is required (the error i am getting is Partner not reached: host locahost Service 3300)

Thanks,

Piyush

[former_member202329]

Hi Piyush,

Have you configure the SAP connection in xMII? Before using any BAPI, you need to perform SAP system configuration using "SAP Server Configuration" under 'Data Services' in xMII Menu. Here you will have to enter server details with client, system number and login credentials. You can easily get the server details from server properties in SAP Logon Pad.

Once the server is configured in xMII, you can use any BAPI in this destination using a JCO action block.

Hope this helps.

regards

Deepak

[Former Member]

Hi Deepak,

Thanks for the info. I could get all info in SAP logon PAD. it was a wrong system number i was giving. I could Execute the Templates i downloaded from SAP and could get the XMLs.

Regards,

Piyush

[Former Member]

Piyush,

What details are you trying to get? Is it Production Order list and Control recipe details?To get Production Order List you can use JCO action and call BAPI_PRODORD_GET_LIST. And for Control recipe list also you can use JCO Action block.

Please elaborate what your requirement so that I can help you...

You can also find many SAP template transactions present in SDN that can be of great use...

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/webcontent/uuid/90537bfe-fd6b-2910-fda3-b04f1... [original link is broken]

Hope this helps,

Ajitha