SAP Implementation for Global Bicycles Corporation

This article discusses the SAP implementation for Global Bicycles Corporation, including the data warehouse solution using SAP BW and BO, market leaders in data warehousing, and workflow processes for inventory management and production. The article also covers the display of materials, inventory balance, material inventory, requirements list, bills of materials, and product routings.

Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
SAP Implementation
Student Name
Institution
Date
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
1.0 Introduction
Global Bike Inc. is a leading wholesale bike brand which sells various bikes and accessories
across the world with their major customers in US and Germany. Robert Jones is the manager of
several sales organizations at GBI and he primarily manages the sales activities across the
organization (Chen and Sun, 2015). At the end of each month he receives sales report which does
not aid him in making strategic business decisions.
All the day to day transaction of sales data is recorded in an existing OLTP system (SAP ERP)
which will serve as the source for loading the data into our Data warehouse. We are integrating
data from multiple OLTP data sources which is SAP, SAP Net Weaver BI and Non SAP. SAP
BW is used for implementing the data warehouse solution for GBI Bike Inc. where in the
Extraction, Transformation and Load of the source data is performed for loading source data into
Enterprise data warehouse. SAP Business Objects if used for multidimensional analysis of the
sales metrics and analyzing the Key Performance Indicators (Day and Day, 2009).
Workflow
Global Bicycle Incorporated (GBI) uses the production process to manufacture goods to place
into inventory and to fill customer orders received from the fulfillment process through sales.
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Display
Materials
View
Inventory
Balance
View
Material
Inventory
Display
Requirements
List
Display Bills
of Materials
Display
Product
Routings
Create Initial
Inventory
Balances

Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
1.1 Background
The major objective of implementing this Business Intelligence solution is to enable easy access
of data and models to provide business managers with the ability to conduct analysis. It will also
help to transform the data to information which will be used to make key decisions and will
finally be converted into actions (Schiff and Warren, 2017). The major area of focus is the sales
data extracted from disparate OLTP which will be loaded into an Enterprise Data Warehouse
after cleansing/scrubbing and transforming the data.
The major players in the market for Data Warehouse implementation are:
 Teradata: It has been rated as the market leader in the data warehousing space for the
past 15 years by Gartner’s 2014 Magic Quadrant. The company is on top of its game with
new tools, innovations and capabilities, including Hadoop based technologies
 Oracle: It is known for high performance, scalable and optimized data warehousing.
There are an estimated 390,000 oracle DBMS customers across the globe
 IBM: It provides us a solution for Data warehouse implementation with IBM Cognos
Data Manager (ETL) and IBM Cognos (Business Intelligence)
 SAP: SAP Business Warehouse can be used for tightly integrating the warehousing
capabilities for a single version of truth and designing business intelligence solutions for
accelerated operations.
The Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for 2015 depicts the market leaders for implementation of
DW solutions:
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
FIG 1: Magic Quadrant for data warehouse and data management solutions for analytics
The most optimal solution to cater to the needs of Global Bike Inc. is to implement a solution
employing SAP BW & BO as close to 80% of our data is being sourced from SAP systems.
Hence, it will enable us to tightly integrate large proportions of SAP data into a single version
truth (Nashine, 2013).
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Display
Materials
View
Inventory
Balance
View
Material
Inventory
Display
Requirements
List
Display Bills
of Materials
Display
Product
Routings
Create Initial
Inventory
Balances
Step 1: Display Materials

Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
Display all the below raw materials, semi-finished goods, and finished goods.
Description Number Type Storage Location
Brake Kit BRKT1000
Chain CHAN1000
Derailleur Gear Assembly DGAM1000
Hex Nut 5 mm HXNT000
Lock Washer 5 mm LWSH1000
Packaging PCKG1000
Pedal Assembly PEDL1000
Socket Head Bolt 5x20mm BOLT1000
Touring Aluminum Wheel TRWH1000
Touring Frame-Red TRFR3000
Touring Handle Bar TRHB1000
Touring Seat Kit TRSK1000
Touring Tire TRTR1000
Touring Tube TRTB1000
Warranty Document WDOC1000
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
Touring Aluminum Wheel Assembly TRWA1000
Deluxe Touring Bike (red) DXTR3000
Step 1.1: In the “SAP Easy Access” screen, follow the navigation path below:
Navigation
Logistics  Materials Management  Material Master  Material  Display  Display
Current
Step 1.2: In the “Display Material (Initial)” screen, enter the following information:
Field Name Data Entry
Material
Step 1.3: Click on (ENTER).
Step 1.4: In the “Select View(s)” pop-up, highlight the “Basic Data 1” row.
Step 1.5: Highlight the “Purchasing” row.
Step 1.6: Highlight the “MRP 1” row.
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
Step 1.7: Highlight the “MRP 2” row.
Step 1.8: Highlight the “General Plant Data / Storage 1” row.
Step 1.9: Highlight the “Accounting 1” row.
Step 1.10: Highlight the “Costing 1” row.
Step 1.11: Click on (SAVE AS DEFAULT VALUES).
Step 1.12: Click on (CONTINUE (ENTER)).
Step 1.13: In the “Organizational Levels” pop-up, enter the following information:
Field Name Data Entry
Plant
Stor. Location
Step 1.14: Click on (SAVE AS DEFAULT VALUES).
Step 1.15: Click on (CONTINUE (ENTER)).
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
Step 1.16: In the “Display Material BRKT1000” screen, click on the icon.
Step 1.17: Click on (ENTER) until you reach the last tab.
Step 1.18: Click on (ENTER).
Step 1.19: Refer to the beginning of this step to display the rest of the raw materials.
Step 1.20: In the “Display Material (Initial)” screen, enter the following information:
Field Name Data Entry
Material
Step 1.21: Click on (ENTER).
Step 1.22: In the “Select View(s)” pop-up, deselect the “Work Scheduling” row.
Step 1.23: Click on (SAVE AS DEFAULT VALUES).
Step 1.24: Click on (CONTINUE (ENTER)).
Step 1.25: In the “Organizational Levels” pop-up, enter the following information:
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
Field Name Data Entry
Stor. Location
Step 1.26: Click on (CONTINUE (ENTER)).
Step 1.27: In the “Display Material TRWA1000” screen, click on the icon.
Step 1.28: Click on (ENTER) until you reach the last tab.
Step 1.29: Click on (ENTER).
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
Step 1.30: In the “Display Material (Initial)” screen, enter the following information:
Field Name Data Entry
Material
Step 1.31: Click on (ENTER).
Step 1.32: In the “Select View(s)” pop-up, click on the icon.
Step 1.33: In the “Organizational Levels” pop-up, enter the following information:
Field Name Data Entry
Stor. Location
Step 1.34: Click on (CONTINUE (ENTER)).
Step 1.35: In the “Display Material DXTR3000” screen, click on the icon.
Exercise Deliverables
In the System:
 None
On Paper:
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
 Answer(s) to Question(s)
 Table(s) Filled Out
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
Look at the inventory balance of a raw material located within Dallas.
Step 2.1: In the “SAP Easy Access” screen, follow the navigation path below:
Navigation
Logistics  Materials Management  Physical Inventory  Environment  Stock
Overview
1: The transaction code to display a material’s inventory level? 
Step 2.2: In the “Stock Overview” screen, enter the following information:
Field Name Data Entry
Material
Plant
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Display
Materials
View
Inventory
Balance
View
Material
Inventory
Display
Requirements
List
Display Bills
of Materials
Display
Product
Routings
Create Initial
Inventory
Balance
Step 2: View Inventory Balance

Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
Storage location
Step 2.3: Click on (EXECUTE).
Exercise Deliverables:
In the System:
 None
On Paper:
 Answer(s) to Question(s)
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
In this step, you view the material inventory of all the materials maintained in Dallas.
Step 3.1: In the “SAP Easy Access” screen, follow the navigation path below:
Navigation
Logistics  Materials Management  Inventory Management  Environment  Stock
 Warehouse Stock
The transaction code to display a material’s inventory level? 
Step 3.2: In the “Display Stock of Material” screen, clear out the “Material” field.
Step 3.3: Click on (EXECUTE).
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Display
Materials
View
Inventory
Balance
View
Material
Inventory
Display
Requirements
List
Display Bills
of Materials
Display
Product
Routings
Create Initial
Inventory
Balance
Step 3: View Material Inventory

Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
Exercise Deliverables:
In the System:
 None
On Paper:
 Answer(s) to Question(s)
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
Look at the stock/requirements list for the touring aluminum wheel assembly.
Step 4.1: In the “SAP Easy Access” screen, follow the navigation path below:
Navigation
Logistics  Materials Management  Inventory Management  Environment  Stock
 Stock/Requirements List
2: The transaction code to display a stock/requirements list? 
Step 4.2: In the “Stock/Requirements List” screen, enter the following information:
Field Name Data Entry
Material
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Display
Materials
View
Inventory
Balance
View
Material
Inventory
Display
Requirements
List
Display Bills
of Materials
Display
Product
Routings
Create Initial
Inventory
Balance
Step 4: Display Requirements List

Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
Step 4.3: Click on (ENTER).
3: The material type of the wheel assembly? 
 At this time, the screen is blank. This will not be the case when performing the production.
Exercise Deliverables:
In the System:
 None
On Paper:
 Answer(s) to Question(s)
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
Display a BOM for the wheel assembly and then display a BOM for the bike.
Step 5.1: In the “SAP Easy Access” screen, follow the navigation path below:
Navigation
Logistics  Production  Master Data  Bills of Material  Bill of Material  Material
BOM  Display
Step 5.2: In the “Display material BOM” screen, enter the following information:
Field Name Data Entry
Usage
Step 5.3: Click on (ENTER).
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Display
Materials
View
Inventory
Balance
View
Material
Inventory
Display
Requirements
List
Display Bills
of Materials
Display
Product
Routings
Create Initial
Inventory
Balance
Step 5: Display Bills of Materials

Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
Step 5.4: Click on (BACK).
Step 5.5: In the “Display material BOM” screen, enter the following information:
Field Name Data Entry
Material
Step 5.6: Click on (ENTER).
Step 5.7: In the “Display material BOM: General item Overview” screen, review info.
Exercise Deliverables:
In the System:
 None
On Paper:
 Answer(s) to Question(s)
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
Display the product routings for the wheel assembly and the touring bike.
Step 6.1: In the “SAP Easy Access” screen, follow the navigation path below:
Navigation
Logistics  Production  Master Data  Routings  Routings  Standard Routings 
Display
Step 6.2: In the “Display Routing: Initial” screen, enter the following information:
Field Name Data Entry
Material
Step 6.3: Click on (ENTER).
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Display
Materials
View
Inventory
Balance
View
Material
Inventory
Display
Requirements
List
Display Bills
of Materials
Display
Product
Routings
Create Initial
Inventory
Balance
Step 6: Display Product Routings

Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
Step 6.4: In the “Display Routing: Operation Overview” review the routing information.
Step 6.5: Click on (BACK).
Step 6.6: In the “Display Routing: Initial” screen, enter the following information:
Field Name Data Entry
Material
Step 6.7: Click on (ENTER).
4: The importance of routings? 
Exercise Deliverables:
In the System:
 None
On Paper:
 Answer(s) to Question(s)
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
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Display
Materials
View
Inventory
Balance
View
Material
Inventory
Display
Requirements
List
Display Bills
of Materisl
Display
Product
Routings
Create Initial
Inventory
Balance
Step 7: Create Initial Inventory Balance

Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
2.0 Problem Analysis and Design
We will perform a detailed requirement analysis process which will help us to identify the key
business needs that the BI solution must address.
2.1 Identification of the key stakeholders
For this business requirement we have identified our key stakeholders as Robert Jones, sales
manager of GBI, Sales team, Marketing team, Finance team, R&D team. Huge volumes of sales
data is generated from day to day activities and this needs to be managed and analyzed
efficiently by these stakeholders for developing effective sales and marketing strategy for Global
Bike Inc.
2.2 Capture Stakeholder’s Requirements
In this step we identified that our stakeholder’s require a holistic view of data from multiple sales
organizations within Global Bike Inc. which would give them access to clean, concise, coherent,
non-redundant, de-duplicated data. This data will be used by the stakeholders to meet key
business objectives by performing descriptive analytics, prescriptive analytics and predictive
analytics.
2.3 Categorize Requirements
In order to make the analysis easier we have broadly group the stakeholder’s into 4 categories:
2.3.1 Functional Requirements
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
We require a Business Intelligence solution which will address the needs of the stakeholders for
easy access of summarized data along with the capability to slice and dice the data across
multiple dimensions like product category, region etc.
2.3.2 Operational Requirements
Integration of the data from multiple operational source systems into the Data Warehouse model
through Extraction, Transformation and Load of data. The data from the data warehouse can be
divided into multiple data marts to cater to specific business areas. Business Intelligence tools
and analytical tools will be employed to perform end user capabilities such as data mining,
reporting and creation dashboards.
2.3.3 Technical Requirements
Utilization of SAP Business Warehouse and SAP Business Objects to implement the Business
Intelligence solution for Global Bike Inc. We will be additionally using Tableau 9.2 to perform
visual analytics on our sales metrics.
2.3.4 Transitional Requirements
Data should be completely migrated from our legacy systems into our DW. There is need to plan
and schedule the frequency of the ETL process based on the various factors like the volume of
data, end user requirements etc. Since we are recording day to day sales transactions, daily load
of data should be ideal for GBI. Regular data reconciliation process should be performed to
validate the data with the source systems. There is need to plan for effective change management
process which would include documentation update, cross training of staff etc.
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
3.0 Design of Data Warehouse Model
Based on the analysis to cater the needs of key stakeholders, a resolution has been made to
implement a data warehouse solution with a hub and spoke architecture. There is implementation
of this solution because of the need to access historical as well as current data from the system
for analytical processes. In the Data warehouse model Operational Data store will enable us to
capture a snapshot of current from the operational systems, on the other hand Enterprise Data
warehouse will house the historic as well as current data. In addition, this architecture supports a
single version of truth (i.e. Enterprise data warehouse) which will act as a source for various
subject oriented data marts. This would help us target specific decision support systems like sales
data mart, customer data mart, inventory data mart. This solution is also very cost effective
because it involves a single Extract, Transform and Load process.
4.0 System Solution
Based on the market expertise, there is need to implement SAP BW policy in combination with
the SAP BO to work as the resolve for the BI reporting for the GBI sales organizations. The SAP
Business intelligence landscape is depicted below:
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
FIG 1: The SAP Business Intelligence Landscape diagram
There are a number of advantage of using the SAP BI platform some of which are listed below:-
 Performance and Scalability
 Integration with Business Objects
 Development Efficiency
 Simplified configuration and Operations
 High ROI
 Cross-Application Visibility into Business Process Performance
 Permanent data storage
 Improved Customer Service Levels
 Increased Capacity Utilization Rates
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
 Proactive Decision Making Enabled by Real-Time Data
 Compatibility with SAP HANA (Real time analytics)
 Bad data is Quickly Identified by SAP BW [1]
SAP Business Objects business intelligence (BI) solutions provides business top and factually
recognized BI customer-friendly applications that control the Enterprise Reporting necessities. It
enhances business necessities such as ad-hoc enquiring investigation about interactive or multi-
dimensional data bases, report formatting or KPIs or data visualizations, SAP Business Objects
BI resolutions offers common BI site that enhances customers in making real data centric
business assessments.
 The customers are able to effortlessly form ad-hoc enquiries and control influential data
examination to attain corporate vision irrespective of the database policy complication.
 The SAP BI resolutions eases Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) through provision of a
common, scalable, greatly accessible, and integrated BI enterprise policy with an award
winning service leaning architecture.
 Executing SAP BI resolutions restructures BI processes through enhancing the customer
data application process.
 The SAP Business Objects offers the structure for obtaining information as well as its
analysis which assists the management in coming up with proper data centric decisions
which assist in improving the bottom line and upholding operative firmness and
effectiveness in the long run.
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
5.0 Architecture
There is resolution of applying the Hub and Spokes data warehouse design. In Hub and Spokes
design, the information is transferred from databases applied in functioning systems into a DW
performance area, followed by a DW layer then at the end a set of followed data stores. The
information is reproduced from one database to another with the use of the ETL. The Hub and
Spokes design is as showed below:
FIG 2: Hub–and–spoke data warehouse architecture
6.0 Data Warehouse Development Approach
The Inmon’s approach is used for data warehouse design and development over Kimball’s
approach.. A number of advantages are associated with this approach:
 Easy maintenance
 Enterprise wide data integration
 High initial costs but subsequent project development costs are much lower (which is the
case here as we are planning on expanding to other business areas outside of sales) [4]
There is implementation of the Hub and Spoke architecture using Inmon’s approach for the sales
organizations. Despite the high initial cost, this architecture allows us to expand our Business
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
Intelligence scope to other business areas like finance, procurement etc. This is contrary to the
Kimball approach where independent data marts are built for the corresponding business areas.
These data marts are then integrated to an EDW. However, this approach can turn out to be
costly during integration of the independent data marts.
6.1 Data Model
There is creation of SAP to uphold the necessities of sales structure.
FIG 3: GBI Sales Organization dimensional data model
6.2 Design
The Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) process we have designed for the GBI Sales organization is
depicted in the diagram below.
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
FIG 4: 5 major processes involved in ETL
FIG 5: Data flow for loading master data for Sales Organization
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
FIG 6: Data flow for loading transactional data for Sales Organization
The data thus loaded into the InfoCube can now be used to create queries and integrate with SAP
BO Analysis for Excel add-in and can be analyzed from Excel.
Conclusion
The systems improve the customer support by improving the customer center and better
integration of Woolworths’ processes for easy customer issues handling. The CRM system is not
aimed just to increase sales, but also to improve the company processes, which include customer
service center. Moreover, ERP system will integrate different departments of Woolworths, and
therefore it would be easy to solve customers’ issues when the company’s processes are
controlled from a single computing application. Therefore, Woolworths can benefit from these
expert systems and with proper implementation; not only sales will be increased, but customer
service will be improved as well.
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Running Head: GLOBAL BICYCLES CORPORATION
References
Chen, Q. and Sun, T. (2015). A model for the layout of bike stations in public bike-sharing
systems. Journal of Advanced Transportation, 49(8), pp.884-900.
Day, M. and Day, M. (2009). Data, Databases, and Communities. Nature Precedings.
Schiff, A. and Warren, M. (2017). Implementing A Business Intelligence (BI)/Corporate
Performance Management (CPM) Solution: Challenges Faced By A Major National Retailer.
Journal of Business Case Studies (JBCS), 13(2), p.63.
Nashine, H. (2013). Existence of best proximity points: global optimal approximate solution.
Sarajevo Journal of Mathematics, 9(2), pp.231-241.
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