SAP Modules Overview

A. SAP FI Module

where FI means Financial Accounting – essentially this SAP module delivers your regulatory ‘books of record’, including

* General ledger
* Book close
* Tax
* Accounts receivable
* Accounts payable
* Asset Management (SAP AM)
* Consolidation
* Special ledgers


B. SAP CO Module

The CO stands for Controlling – basically the SAP Module which allows you to manage your internal cost/management accounting, including

* Cost elements
* Cost centres
* Profit centres
* Internal orders
* Activity based costing
* Product costing


C. SAP PS Module

PS is Project Systems – this SAP Module is where you can manage your projects, large and small, including

* Make to order
* Plant shut downs (as a project)
* Third party billing (on the back of a project)


D. SAP HR Module

The HR is for Human Resources ... people are the important part of this SAP module, including

* Employment history
* Payroll
* Training
* Career management
* Succession planning


E. SAP PM Module

where Plant Maintenance is the PM – this SAP module is where you maintain your equipment (e.g. a machine, an oil rig, an aircraft etc), including

* Labour
* Material
* Down time and outages


F. SAP MM Module

One of the most important SAP Modules where MM is Materials Management - underpins the supply chain, including

* Requisitions
* Purchase orders
* Goods receipts
* Accounts payable
* Inventory management
* BOM’s
* Master raw materials, finished goods etc


G. SAP QM Module

QM stands for Quality Management in this SAP module – improve the quality of your goods, including

* Planning
* Execution
* Inspections
* Certificates


H. SAP PP Module


One of the really big SAP modules is Production Planning – manages your production process, including

* Capacity planning
* Master production scheduling
* Material requirements planning
* Shop floor


I. SAP SD Module

Another one of the large SAP modules is Sales and Distribution – from order to delivery, including

* RFQ
* Sales orders
* Pricing
* Picking (and other warehouse processes)
* Packing
* Shipping

J. SAP BW Module

Where BW stands for Business (Data) Warehouse which includes the following main functions:

* Data extraction from source systems
* Some technical and functional transformation of the data
* Storage of the data in what are called Infoproviders
* Reporting (which uses Infoproviders)


K. SAP ABAP

Is not really a module - it stands for Advanced Business Application Programming and this is the is the structured programming language for custom development including reports.

What is ERP ???

ERP, which is an abbreviation for Enterprise Resource Planning, is principally an integration of business management practices and modern technology. Information Technology (IT) integrates with the core business processes of a corporate house to streamline and accomplish specific business objectives. Consequently, ERP is an amalgamation of three most important components; Business Management Practices, Information Technology and Specific Business Objectives.

In simpler words, an ERP is a massive software architecture that supports the streaming and distribution of geographically scattered enterprise wide information across all the functional units of a business house. It provides the business management executives with a comprehensive overview of the complete business execution which in turn influences their decisions in a productive way.

At the core of ERP is a well managed centralized data repository which acquires information from and supply information into the fragmented applications operating on a universal computing platform.

Information in large business organizations is accumulated on various servers across many functional units and sometimes separated by geographical boundaries. Such information islands can possibly service individual organizational units but fail to enhance enterprise wide performance, speed and competence.

The term ERP originally referred to the way a large organization planned to use its organizational wide resources. Formerly, ERP systems were used in larger and more industrial types of companies. However, the use of ERP has changed radically over a period of few years. Today the term can be applied to any type of company, operating in any kind of field and of any magnitude.

Today's ERP software architecture can possibly envelop a broad range of enterprise wide functions and integrate them into a single unified database repository. For instance, functions such as Human Resources, Supply Chain Management, Customer Relationship Management, Finance, Manufacturing Warehouse Management and Logistics were all previously stand alone software applications, generally housed with their own applications, database and network, but today, they can all work under a single umbrella - the ERP architecture.

In order for a software system to be considered ERP, it must provide a business with wide collection of functionalities supported by features like flexibility, modularity & openness, widespread, finest business processes and global focus.

(www.topbits.com)

What is SAP ???

SAP, started in 1972 by five former IBM employees in Mannheim, Germany, states that it is the world's third-largest independent software vendor. The original name for SAP was German: Systeme, Anwendungen, Produkte. It means "Systems Applications and Products." The goal of the company was to provide large enterprise customers with the ability to interact with a corporate database in real-time. Today, the company states that its goal is "to offer the industry's most comprehensive portfolio of business performance and optimization solutions for companies of all sizes."

SAP's first software application was a financial accounting software suite that ran on a mainframe and was known for its stability. It eventually became known as the R/1 system. The "R" stands for real-time. During the 1980s, the company went international, and the second iteration of the R system (R/2) accommodated different languages and currencies. In the 1990s, the third iteration (R/3) moved from the mainframe to a client/server three-tier architecture composed of a database, software applications and a common graphical user interface (GUI). SAP used the name R/3 until the 5.0 release. At that time the name was changed from R/version to ERP Central Component (ECC). The most current version as of November 2009 is ECC 6.0.

When the Internet became pervasive, SAP responded by providing companies with the software they needed to sell goods and services online. Their product portfolio got a Web interface and was rebranded MySAP.com. MySAP was designed to be a corporate Web portal with role-based permissions for employees . The company promoted how SAP "solutions" could link commerce conducted over the Internet (e-commerce) with traditional bricks and mortar commerce to provide one seamless view of the business. Next came SAP NetWeaver, the company’s development and integration platform and middleware component, and Business Suite, a bundling of SAP’s enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), product lifecycle management (PLM) and supplier relationship management (SRM) applications. In 2008, SAP purchased Business Objects, a French enterprise software company that specializes in business intelligence (BI), which marked a major change in the company’s BI strategy, which was previously focused around SAP's Business Explorer tools.

Current products include:

• SAP NetWeaver - service-oriented technology platform (SOA) for integrating information and business processes across diverse technologies and organizational structures. NetWeaver provides the foundation for other SAP software bundles.

• SAP Business Suite - software applications for large organizations and international corporations. The applications support core business operations such as supply chain managment, warehouse management, sales, customer relationship management and administrative functions. SAP offers software for 25 vertical industries, including banking, insurance, chemicals, healthcare, retail and consumer products.

• SAP Business All-in-One solutions, SAP Business ByDesign and SAP Business One - software products that address the needs of small and mid-market companies.

(searchsap.techtarget.com)