Introduction

SAP AG is a German company as well as part of the name of its main software product, SAP R/3. SAP R/3 (or SAP as it is most commonly known) is an ERP system.

ERP stands for Enterprise Relationship Management, a term which rarely means anything to anyone who does not work with computers or systems for a living. An ERP system allows a company to use computers in most (if not all) of their processes. From ordering stock, to issuing invoices, to hiring employees ERP systems can support these functions. ERP systems are produced by many companies, Peoplesoft, Baan and JD Edwards to name but three.

History

SAP was started in Walldorf, Germany by a number of ex-IBM employees who had a bright idea. They figured out that if you had an ERP system that could be sold as a number of modules which can communicate, or work on their own that you could sell the product to more people.

The Basic Concept

Every part of SAP can work on its own, or in conjunction with other parts of SAP. For example, if you have a small company, and you only want to control stock within your warehouse using your computer system, you need only buy the part of SAP which controls stock.

SAP also allows your computer system to grow with your company. If the company above decided later on that now that there are a lot of people working for the company they want to do their own payroll processing rather than send it out to an external company, they need only buy the new SAP 'module' and then they can!

The concept's pretty simple isn't it? Then again, most really good ideas are, look at the paperclip - not the world's most challenging design, yet someone came up with it.

The Main Modules

The main modules in SAP are:

MM - Materials Management. This module allows you to control elements such as inventory, stock control, purchasing etc.

SD - Sales and Distribution. This module allows you to deal with customers requesting to buy things, creating quotations, shipping products to customers etc.

FI - Financial Accounting. This module allows you to handle cash flow, management accounting, cost accounting etc. (all the really boring bits!)

PP - Production Planning. This module allows you to deal with all production processing, and if linked with FI can be used to create accurate cost reporting.

PM - Plant Maintenance. This module is usually used in conjunction with PP, in that its primary purpose is to schedule machinery for use, plan maintenance etc.

PS - Project Systems. This module allows for the planning and costing of projects. If projects planned with this module are agreed and go ahead, the module can also track any costs associated with this project, manpower used etc.

HR - Human Resources. The module deals with all personnel and training issues from hiring to firing, salary to pensions.

As you have no doubt worked out by now, SAP can be a very complex environment, or a very simple one depending on the requirements of the business in which it is being used.

Every SAP system needs one module in order to make it work. This is known as the BASIS module. Within the BASIS module are all the settings for real tech-heads, all of the database settings and all of the code for new programs just for that specific company are done using the BASIS module.

Programming in SAP

Programming in SAP is done in a specific language only used by SAP, this is called ABAP. ABAP is a fourth generation language, which means that it looks quite a lot like a lot of instructions that a human being without any programming knowledge can follow, with a little bit of 'computer speak' thrown in for good measure. It has been described as programmers as a type of cut-down version of SQL with a little bit of COBOL thrown in for laughs.

ABAP stands for Advanced Business Application Programming Language, it is what is known as a procedural language. In procedural languages the commands written in a program are executed in the order that they are written, this is as opposed to Object Orientated languages (such as Java or C++) where the code is executed when it is called by other elements in the system.

Links to SAP information

SAP Homepage

SAP Fan Club A place to meet people who really know lots about SAP