End-to-end traceability
A single thread, the raw-material batch, connects master data, planning, sourcing, receiving and invoicing. All naturally integrated into SAP.
We follow a raw-material batch through 8 moments of the source-to-pay chain, without leaving SAP. Here’s the edited summary (~35 min) of the live demonstration of the gaps and their solutions, with chapters, plus the typical questions you may have too.
Webinar recap · ~35 min · 8 steps · Life Science WG questions
Note: the original session was delivered in Spanish. For this English version the audio has been re-voiced and some presentation slides replaced for the translation; the live SAP demo footage is unchanged.
Innova and AUSAPE’s Life Science working group followed an excipient batch through 8 steps of the source-to-pay process in SAP: from master data creation to supplier invoice posting. Each stop showed a gap in standard SAP and how the Innova S2P suite closes it, with native integration into SAP ECC and S/4HANA and deployable in 4-8 weeks.
A single thread, the raw-material batch, connects master data, planning, sourcing, receiving and invoicing. All naturally integrated into SAP.
Each stop comes from requirements found in pharma, food and beverage and other perishables-driven projects: expiry, FEFO, GxP, GS1.
The suite is integral but modular: deploy the app your company needs and the rest can wait. Fiori and BTP are optional, not prerequisites.
Click each stop to see the gap in standard SAP, how we solve it, and jump straight to that chapter of the video.
Real questions from the discussion, with the summarized answer and a link to the relevant solution.
They follow SAP practices: every interaction with standard documents (POs, business partners, materials) uses standard BAPIs and APIs. Functionality SAP does not cover natively uses tables in Innova’s SAP partner namespace, and everything lands in standard documents and transactions, no risk to finance or costing consistency. One app is already certified for S/4HANA Private Cloud. They are configurable products, not custom builds. See SiTRACK and the rest of the suite.
Regulatory testing usually extends the standard 4-8 week timeline somewhat depending on each company’s policies, and the experience has been positive. Innova includes an annual warranty, support and updates service, including patches for vulnerabilities found in SAP libraries, that sustains compliance over time. Relevant for receiving with SiMA and data governance with SiDM.
In Life Science most suppliers use the GS1 standard, with application identifiers for manufacturing date, expiry and supplier batch: with a small configuration, each identifier fills its field automatically. If a supplier doesn’t follow GS1 it gets harder; the recommendation is to require the standard. Plus, SiMA’s internal relabeling gives you full control for physical inventory and transfers.
Two proven solutions: use the classification system (an external-batch characteristic storing the full string without touching the standard field), or the suite’s cross-cutting extension points, exits that hand control to a customer program to map, truncate or convert the code per the agreed rule (e.g. with 3PLs). Applies to receiving with SiMA.
The suite includes supplier onboarding: our SiDM Vendors app gives the winning supplier portal access to upload data and documents, which can then follow an approval flow to create the vendor (or BP in S/4HANA).
The apps respect SAP’s native flows: their operations always land in standard documents and transactions, which eases adoption of SAP’s new approach of using standard APIs to integrate with the ERP. We are currently running an assessment of the apps to start migrating to standard APIs only and extract the non-standard business logic to SAP BTP and other environments.
Two uses shown in the session: in SiDM, a service that analyzes the customer’s real data with machine-learning tools such as Databricks to build the field and view rules that make material creation simple and robust; and in SiPRO, AI-powered invoice capture that extracts number, dates and amounts from the XML or PDF and matches them against the PO and goods receipt.
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