Product tour of SAP Business Network Supply Chain Collaboration

Extend your planning or ERP systems to suppliers to share long-term unconstrained and constrained forecasts. Obtain suppliers' commitments to optimize supply plans throughout the planning horizon.

Receive intuitive early warning alerts if any potential shortage or noncompliance is identified. Gain tools to address these and improve assurance of supply and customer order promise dates.

Enable suppliers to use B2B integration, web entry, or Microsoft Excel interfaces to download forecasts and upload their commitments.

Collaborate with contract manufacturers and upstream component suppliers to gain efficiency and flexibility from outsourced manufacturing without losing visibility. Tiered suppliers can view your requirements.

Provide suppliers with early visibility into near to midterm production requirements based on a bill of materials. Demand changes automatically flow to suppliers from your planning system.

Share visibility into forecasted supply and demand across a finished goods bill of material with your contract manufacturers and upstream suppliers. Identify and address potential problems before they disrupt production.

Improve supply assurance by providing multiple tiers of suppliers with greater visibility into.

Get better visibility into supplier confirmations so you can sense if a change in requirements is feasible before you make the ask.

Work on supplier-managed inventory (SMI) programs where suppliers replenish items as needed based on agreed-upon minimum and maximum levels to reduce excess safety stock and increase responsiveness.

Get your buyers and suppliers at-a-glance views of current and projected stock levels. This shared visibility helps your supply chain improve fill rates, decrease stock-outs, and reduce excess safety stock.

Give your buyers intuitive alerts of any potential inventory shortages or overages to address potential issues before they become problems.

Grant suppliers greater visibility into your projected inventory so they can efficiently manage replenishment. This helps improve assurance of supply while controlling inventory costs.

Request quality inspections and results from suppliers to reduce time and effort of in-house inspections. Make usage decisions, improve process compliance, simplify collection of certificates, and reduce waste.

Communicate and respond to quality notifications and collaborate on deviations during manufacturing, inspection, or after goods receipt to address potential quality issues.

Monitor and track status of supplier response and completion of quality notifications.

Collaborate with suppliers on quality reviews where product or packaging specifications, change requests, customer complaints, and other unstructured information can be shared, updated, and tracked.