Inventory management and material requirements planning (MRP) utilization are truly dependent on each other. Almost 10 years on SAP and we have realized that MRP driven-demand planning and forecasting continue to feed and impact optimal inventory management techniques. The challenges and business expectations to maintain the right inventory mix at optimal costs to support projects has grown exponentially in the utility industry. It is to be noted that SAP Plant Maintenance work order data quality is a critical contributing factor to MRP in support of best inventory management methodologies, along with MRP materials master data such as lead times, safety stock, and vendor performance.
As Southern California Edison continues its tech journey down the path to SAP S/4HANA®, in collaboration with our work management teams, we refreshed our strategies within IPSEC model when it came to materials master data governance and data quality. We began to start using SAP to effectively manage all our materials master data, MRP settings, procurement, vendors, transmission and distribution (T&D) field needs, and any other discipline that we required. We have made minor business and technology custom enhancements to support better inventory management techniques.
In this presentation, I will take you on the journey that we took to get to a place that has set us up for an environment where we use data management as a strength and to its competitive advantage by integrating with work management to save inventory carrying costs with elevated focus on inventory and vendor management.
Key Business Benefits:
- Forecasting of long lead, single, and sole source materials within bills of material (Initiate)
- Accurate MRP demand signals by closing unwanted reservations (Plan)
- Material recirculation within the network locations to minimize stock outs (Schedule)
- Better management of safety stocks, MRP settings, and vendors (Execute)
- Advanced perfect line rate (PLR) management (Close and Effectiveness)
