2.0 Business Process

Introduction

The Transportation Costs analysis was developed in 2007 to attend the Rhodia users of Logistic processes. The solution had usage several DSO’s and just one cube with many detailed information. The number of tickets about inconsistency of data and bad performance some of triggers to develop a new application, in this case much more robust and covering also the Solvay data and its users.

The TIERS project was started in the begin of 2015, using a remodelling by layers Layered Scalable Architecture (LSA), in our case: propagation, business, reporting and virtual layers. The current transportation datasources from Rhodia were reused with low change and all datasources from Solvay were activated with low enhancements. Some additional master data were created to avoid duplication of data in different providers, like shipment document, shipment cost item and delivery item.

The development of project was request by the logistic areas and Jean Baptiste concentrated all the requests and generated the functional specification.

The project was started in April/2015 and it was deployed in December/2015 with all users trained.

Objective of the application

The objectives of this application is as follows:

• To create One unique, common and consolidated reporting space and solution.
• for the Solvay group
• Rationalization of the “live” solutions and reduction of evolutions requested
• To have a solution which is maintainable and sustainable.
• To streamline and Enable productivity actions on Shipment costs
• Drillable solution - allowing possibility to detect & analyse problems by showing the link from aggregated figures down to document in SAP.
• Few “core” queries/workbooks design for application (=> Use BW analysis functionalities and not just as extractor).

Benefits

The benefits of creating this solution

• Revamped reporting BW solution based on RCS (WBP-TR002) but built on old historical architecture (no project on this application for years) - mainly designed for cost reporting.
• Only aggregated monthly data available on PF1.
• Specific solution (cross legacies) built for CO2 footprint with activation of some standard extractors on PQ1.
• More than 250 existing queries in SAP => almost impossible to maintain on an efficient way, most of then not or almost not documented.
• Some previous experiences of common transversal reporting tools : WISE (working cap.) and SPRINT (Purchasing and Procurement).
• “Drillable” solution - allowing possibility to detect & analyse problems by showing the link from aggregated figures down to document in SAP.
• Few “core” queries/workbooks design for application (=> Use BW analysis functionalities and not just as extractor)

Business Processes

The key associated business processes

logistics business processes

Air,

Road,

Sea and

Rail.

The TIERS project consists in implementing a simplified global reporting solution for transport  process, from planning to invoice to meet the requirements from GBUs users, SBS users and transport buyers, including processes from both companies (Solvay & Rhodia).

This solution will provide:

• automatic & consolidated BW reports on shipment costs
• based on data coming from the ERPs from both legacies (Solvay – PF1, Rhodia – RCS)
• enabling to drill-down to the ECC object at the origin of the detailed figures 
• updated on daily basis 

3.0 Application Feature Overview

This section contains Information about the existing Workbooks and the respective BW queries.

The application loads data of the transportation shipments, deliveries and shipment costs from ECC (Solvay and Rhodia) into BW.

It is done daily using delta process via process chain schedule.

4.0 Functional Specification

This section approaches the concepts/definitions used in all the reports and required to understand the data from the reports.

4.1 General Data/Calculations 

The data required to build the various reports

1 - Shipment cost details analysis

• Propose a detailed analysis of shipment cost accruals, detailled by materials. Make shipment costs accruals understandable.
• Allows benchmarking between materials, between customers.
• Gives some possibilities of drill down to get details on a macro figure.
• Public: sites log managers / GBU log process teams, base for Qlikview reportings

2 - Shipment cost vs invoice analysis 

• Propose advanced cost analysis functionalities including invoice / accrual comparision and other ratios that can't be available at material level.
• Detect / evaluate unbilled payables.
• Audit tarif calculation
• Public: finance / controlling, sites & GBU logistics managers, data log and support teams

3 - Shipment status and events 

• Technical Name: BW_QRY_MVSDTR01_0012

• Propose tracking of events on shipments. without cost considerations.
• Propose a reporting on volumetry : number of files (delivery or shipment) per flow, average value on some indicators...
• Load plan of shipping points

• Public: LOG data and support teams, GBUs sites log managers and sites operations supervisors, Transport managers

4 - CO²  Emissions

• Technical Name: BW_QRY_MVSDTR01_0013
• The propose is to show the calculations about quantity of carbonic gas that is released in atmosphere considering all the shipments by zone
• Public: users that manage the environment effects and reports to governments

5 - Shipment Events 

• Technical Name : BW_QRY_MVSDTR02_0001

• The propose is to show the events (problems) involving the hauliers that happened during the logistic process 

• Public: GBUs sites log managers and sites operations supervisors, transport managers

Reporting Requirements by user profile:

Targeted users have been grouped in 3 user profiles depending on the reporting activities they will handle.

Cost analysis needs :

• Detailed mapping of calculated costs (accruals)
• By haulier
• By site / plant
• By ship_to (customers)
• By shipment or shipment attribute like shipment departure point / destination point / mode / type)
• By delivery or delivery attribute like shipping condition, shipping point...

• Accrual versus invoiced value
• By shipment or shipment attributes.
• By haulier

• Time analyses
• By month of shipment completion (planned / actual)
• By shipment cost posting date

• Detailed accrual analysis by nature of cost
• Accrual net value by shipment cost item category
• Valuated condition by cost condition

• Ratio calculation
• Value per ton
• Value per KM
• Value per To/KM
• Value per container
• Value per shipment

Operation reporting needs:

• Volumetry (number of shipment & number of deliveries)
• Per GBU/plant
• Per Shipment Departure point/Shipment Destination point
• Per date (Year / Year-Month)
• Average payload per shipment
• Volumetry (number of containers)
• Per GBU/plant
• Per Shipment Departure point/Shipment Destination point
• Per date (Year / Year-Month)
• Average payload per container
• Haulier evaluation 
• % OTS shipment (planned completion = actual completion) 
• % OTD shipments (planned shipment end = actual shipment end)
• Number of event / Type of event / Number of shipment
• Leadtime analyses
• % of shipments with calculable transit time
• % of shipments with calculable queue time
• % of shipments with calculable “on site time”
• Average Actual transit time (shipment end - shipment completion)
• Average “queue time” (loading start - check in)
• Average “on-site” time (completion - check in)
• Average booking leadtime (shipment start - planification date)

C02 Footprint :

• Tons and Distances by mode
• CO2 emission (by mode, by GBU…)

Perimeter

Currently the WBP Tiers Application contains data coming from the  PF1 and WP1 ERP server.

Data update

The data is updated daily around ~5 am Paris Time.

Access

Access to the Tiers Application has to be requested (See Getting an account).

Access is managed at company level, which you will need to precise when requesting the access : 

4.2 Process Detail 

This section represents the process with detail information for the application. Can include specific or special cases, complex logics , calculations, flows, among others.

4.2.1.  Report/Process Definition 

5.0 Non-functional Descriptions 

5.1 Usability

Usability is about the ease with which a User can learn to start using the solution and the ease with which they can use the system.  In addition to ease of learning and ease of use, usability also includes areas such as ease of recall, error avoidance and handling, accessibility among others e.g., 99% of metadata entry Users who have use the Maintenance Dashboard should be able to change filters, extract etc., when required.  Maintenance data will be centrally stored in the Google Cloud platform, which will be available to other applications e.g., and Dashboards if needed.

5.2 Regulatory Compliance

Software systems must comply with legal and regulatory e.g., GDPR requirements, this can change depending on country, organisation industry and / or region.  The software systems must be secure from unauthorized access.  The Maintenance Dashboard will comply with Solvay’s regulations and compliance e.g., access only granted to authorized Users.

5.3 Security

Security refers to essential aspects that assure a solution and its components will be protected against unauthorized access or malware attacks.  Important considerations related to security aspects of a system are User authentication, User authorization or User access privileges, data theft, malware attacks, data encryption, and maintaining audit trails, e.g., only Users with administrator access shall be able to create new accounts and assign data access privileges to the new accounts e.g.,

• All data will be encrypted in the dashboard
• Only authorised Users / Administrative Users will be able to access data.
• Maintenance data will be split between either SCO or ECO, and Users will only have authority to one Entity data.

5.4 Performance

Performance defines how fast a software system or a particular section of it responds to certain User actions under a certain workload.  In most cases, this metric explains how long a User must wait before the target operation happens e.g., the page renders, a transaction is processed, etc., given the overall number of Users now.  Performance requirements may describe background processes invisible to Users, e.g., backup and speed of data transfers. 

5.5 Reliability

Reliability is the ability of a solution or its component to perform its required functions without failure under predefined conditions for a specified time / period.  Reliability can possibly be specified in terms of average time system runs before failure occurs, percentage of operations completed successfully within a time / period, maximum acceptable failure probability, or number of failures within a period.  Reliability aspects are in reference to (but not limited to) evaluation of the system to be considered as reliable, classification of reliability defining failures vs. regular failures, and the impact of failure on business operations.  The Maintenance Dashboard will display data from the previous refresh of data.   

5.6 Scalability

Scalability refers to the degree to which a solution can evolve to handle increased amounts of work.  The increased amount of work could be in terms of the user base, transactions, data, network traffic, or other factors e.g., the system should be able to handle an additional load of a maximum of 5,000 Users every month for the next 6 months without any noticeable performance impacts.  

5.7 Compatibility

Interoperability is the degree to which the solution is compatible with other components.  It is a measure of how effectively the system interoperates with other software systems and how easily it integrates with external hardware devices.

Interoperability aspects to be discussed during elicitation are in reference to (but not limited to) software systems to be interfaced with along with data / messages to be exchanged and any standard data formats, hardware components to be integrated with, and any standard communication protocols to be followed e.g., Order Management system will push the order file into a secured file transfer protocol server from where it will be loaded into the system through a daily job.  To guarantee between Google Cloud platform and SAP BW Queries e.g., BW_QRY_MVPMOR01_0002, Solvay has introduced a new tool called Xtract (Xtract).

5.8 Availability

Availability is the degree to which the solution is operable and accessible when required. It is a measure of time during which the system is fully operational e.g., available for use and sometimes included as a Service Level Agreement (SLA) considering its criticality to the business, e.g., the system shall be at least 99% available on weekdays between 09:00 to 18:30 Central European Time (CET).

5.9 Refresh of the Data

Frequency, data, and time of the data refresh in the data product.