SAP S/4HANA for EHS: what is the "factory" field in Safety Instructions?

[Paulo_Pinto]

Dear community, I need some clarification

I'm implementing SAP S/4HANA Workplace Safety - Health and Safety Management in an OnPrem installation, release 2023.

In the "Manage Safety Instruction" Apps, there are several fields related to "Factory" (see image for details), that don't return any values when I open the search and select tool (Fiori's "F4"):

When trying to create a new safety instruction, this data is mandatory, but I can't get any data:

"Factory" is not a Master Data object, and I can't find it in Customizing. Also the SAP Help documentation seems to be of no help.

Can some expert be kind enough to elucidate me?

My many thank yous in advance

Paulo Pinto

[michaelf_ · Accepted solution]

Dear Paulo,

the "factory" is special kind of EHS Location which must be set up in the customizing. It's a little tricky to understand it just from a written explanation, so I'm going to make an example.

As the "factory" is a special kind of EHS Location, we start with an exemplary location structure:

(1) ACME Industries

(1.1) ACME Europe

(1.1.1) ACME Germany

(1.1.1.1) ACME Plant Walldorf

(1.1.1.1.1) Storage Area WDF-A

(1.1.1.1.2) Storage Area WDF-B

(1.1.1.1.3) Production Area WDF-A

(1.1.1.1.4) Production Area WDF-B

(1.1.1.2) ACME Plant Berlin

(1.1.1.2.1) Storage Area BER-A

(1.1.1.2.2) Storage Area BER-B

(1.1.1.2.3) Production Area BER-A

(1.1.1.2.4) Production Area BER-B

(1.1.2) ACME Norway

(1.1.2.1) ACME Plant Oslo

....

(1.2) ACME Americas

....

Now, we have to decide on which level (which is represented by the Location Type) we want to create the Safety Instruction on which Plant. As an example, we can decide that the Safety Instruction can only be created for the Location Type "Facility" for the two German Plants. So, we have to define a clear/structure taxonomy of Location Types:

Level of Location Structure	Location Type
1	Company
2	Continent
3	Country
4	Plant
5	Facility

Applying this for the example location structure, we'd have the following location types and (important!) plant attribute maintained against the EHS Locations:

Level	Location	Location Type	Plant
1	(1) ACME Industries	Company
2	(1.1) ACME Europe	Continent
3	(1.1.1) ACME Germany	Country
4	(1.1.1.1) ACME Plant Walldorf	Plant	1010
5	(1.1.1.1.1) Storage Facility WDF-A	Facility	1010
5	(1.1.1.1.2) Storage Facility WDF-B	Facility	1010
5	(1.1.1.1.3) Production Facility WDF-A	Facility	1010
5	(1.1.1.1.4) Production Facility WDF-B	Facility	1010
4	(1.1.1.2) ACME Plant Berlin	Plant	1020
5	(1.1.1.2.1) Storage Facility BER-A	Facility	1020
5	(1.1.1.2.2) Storage Facility BER-B	Facility	1020
5	(1.1.1.2.3) Production Facility BER-A	Facility	1020
5	(1.1.1.2.4) Production Facility BER-B	Facility	1020
3	(1.1.2) ACME Norway	Country
4	(1.1.2.1) ACME Plant Oslo	Plant	2010
2	(1.2) ACME Americas	Continent

Now, we can get into the customizing for the Safety Instruction (for Substances) in IMG:

Environment, Health and Safety -> Health and Safety Management -> Risk Treatment -> Safety Instructions -> Configure Safety Instructions for Substances

To set our "Facilities" in Germany (1.1.1.1.1 to 1.1.1.2.4) as Factories so that we can use these to create a safety instruction for, the following entries have to be maintained:

Plant ID	Location Type	Structure	Form Object name	Form Object (Output Mgmt.)
1010	Facility	SAP_SI_GERMAN	EHHSS_FSI_PDF_FORM_SAFETY_INST
1020	Facility	SAP_SI_GERMAN	EHHSS_FSI_PDF_FORM_SAFETY_INST
...

Let's say, as another example, the Norwegian Plant is quite small and safety instructions shall only be created on a Plant level, we add the following entry:

Plant ID	Location Type	Structure	Form Object name	Form Object (Output Mgmt.)
2010	Plant	ZEHS_SI_NORWAY	EHHSS_FSI_PDF_FORM_SAFETY_INST

To answer your initial question about "What is the Factory" ?

The factory is a combination of Location Type and Plant ID. Based on the configuration of the Safety Instructions, you can restrict on what location types / plants the Safety Instructions can be created on. Based on the type of Safety Instruction (Substance, Equipment, Generic), the Factory might be a different set of Locations. Same applies for the Hazardous Substance Inventory.

I hope this explanation helps you in understanding the Factory concept.

With kind regards,

Michael

[Paulo_Pinto · Accepted solution]

Thank you Michael!