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Which is the 'lead' system - MDM or ECC?

Former Member
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Problem: One SAP instance. 6 Million SKUs, of which 800,000 are 'regularly' used - the rest are there 'just in case' a customer calls and wants to order one. Need to support the transactional SAP system and provide support for electronic and print catalogs. Considering 2 options:

Option 1: Put all 6 Million in MDM first and send only 800,000 regularly used to ECC. While in Order Entry, users could search the 800,000 first, else 'punch out' to search the larger file in MDM. If found, could 'drag' back into ECC, using templates to create an Item/Plant record in ECC.

Pros: MDM seems to have better, more friendly import tools than ECC.

MDM is more flexible with respect to adding fields, structures.

Reduces transactional volume in ECC.

Cons: Requires enhancement to allow punch out from ECC, pull back and create record in ECC.

MDM does not standardly support all the fields needed by ECC to transact against. Either these fields would have to be put into MDM or the Product Services Group would have to first create the item in MDM and finish it off in ECC.

Option 2: Put all 6 Million in ECC and send only the ones that need to made electronic or print catalog ready to MDM.

Pros: Order Entry users can conduct all the searching in one place.

One flow of item information (ECC->MDM) seems more standard.

No need to do the enhancements listed above.

Cons: 'Clutters' up ECC with items that 'may or not be used' - volume impacts?

ECC is apparently lacking mass create/maintain tools for 'ordinary' business users - true?

Thoughts about with option makes the most sense?

Thanks.

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Former Member
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<i>Cons: Requires enhancement to allow punch out from ECC, pull back and create record in ECC.

MDM does not standardly support all the fields needed by ECC to transact against. Either these fields would have to be put into MDM or the Product Services Group would have to first create the item in MDM and finish it off in ECC.</i>

This is not too big of a problem, because interfacing with XI can solve this issue. For example, placing a material in MDM will not create a material number (which is required by SAP), but you can create a material number with ALE and then send an aknowledgement to MDM (using ABAP API or XI) to update material number (MATNR) in MDM. What sort of enhancements are you referring to?

MDM certainly has better import tools for the average business user. And SAP is pushing the product very hard. I think MDM is supposed to be used as a system to manage all of your data. It certainly is a bit easier to do here than in ECC. But because we haven't started seeing too many case studies of MDM being deployed, it's difficult to say how SAP would recommend this scenario be built out.

Former Member
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My five cents on this...

I do think that there is no clear direction yet on how SAP would envision the central master data maintenance scenario's. So far, most of the documented scenario's, customer testimonials and SAP demo's are focused around data harmonisation and data consolidation. So, in both these scenario's ECC ( or other systems) are still concidered to be the point of entry...

The only thing that SAP has published around central master data maintenance, is a guide on how to use "guided procedures" to aid central master data maintenance... pointing towards some Portal/CAF/XApps to allow central maintenance. At the end of the workflow/guided procedure, the new data is stored into SAP MDM. But if you think SOA, from an end-user perspective, it would make no difference if finally new product is created in SAP MDM or if you create it in SAP ECC. Certainly if both ECC and SAP MDM would expose the "create product" transaction as a webservice, it would be as easy to do in SAP MDM as in SAP ECC. The work on the portal could be the same... As long as you stick to one master.. would it make a difference ?

So, SAP folks, what am I missing here ?

Dirk