M31221 Digital Business Applications - University of Portsmouth

Assignment Report

Assignment Description:

To construct a formerly referenced report answering the ‘Project Brief' below. The typed report, which MUST be prepared individually by each student. The report should exhibit thorough understanding of the following key concepts learned in the module:

• ERP's need & objectives, specifically SAP S/4HANA
• Interrelated business processes
• Enterprise structure, integration & configuration
• Use of transaction and master data
• Business process design (procurement process of stock and consumable materials)
• Process execution
• Reporting and analytics

By the time you submit your report, you will have completed the SAP lab work, and will be able to screenshot images of the system. Students have to incorporate the concepts learned in the sessions and support their report with the screenshots of the key contents covered in the sessions. Screenshots should be labelled, with a brief description, along with necessary theory.

The Project Brief:

You are an Operations and Systems Director of a very fast growing manufacturing company. Currently, the company uses a customised, decentralised ERP system as a means to plan and account for business operations and performance. You need to evaluate alternatives that can centralise all the company's data into one single system. You have been looking at systems that have been chosen by companies in a similar situation in the past, including Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. You are aware there are many ERP software vendors in the market, and so you may need to shortlist two, and decide which one is best of those.

You need to decide how you will organise the project, how you will select the chosen software, how it is installed (choosing both software and hardware). You will need to consider company culture, project management, and bringing the workforce along with you.

You also need to consider how quickly your chosen system achieves a return on investment that your chosen ERP software should provide - and how extendable it is for the future - so it grows with you. This may restrict your choice of software and/or vendor.

You have discovered that the market leader is SAP S/4HANA, but that other vendors have their good points. You will need to decide if you will buy all computing infrastructure to run the system yourself, or whether you should choose software that runs in the cloud. You'll need to decide on the merits of both methods.

You have agreed with your fellow directors (the Sales & Distribution Director, the Procurement Director, the Production Director, and the HR Director), that whatever software is chosen, it must organise and centralise the data of all those functional areas to deliver efficient business processes that report results in real time.

Required elements for the report:

Your report must incorporate the following elements:

• A front cover with title, student number, and word count.
• A formal report format (you can use a template found in software like Microsoft Word)
• A ‘List of Contents' with page numbers on every page except the cover
• A short abstract describing the report's findings in summary
• An introduction describing how you researched your report
• The choices of ERP systems you evaluated, with illustrations of each part you recommend
• Your findings, with reasons and description of the chosen system in detail
• You must include screenshots from each learned topic covered in the module
• A list of references (either found on Moodle - lectures/cases - or elsewhere).

You may use up to 2500 words in your report, excluding the title/ title page, the content page, references, and any appendices. EVERYTHING ELSE IS INCLUDED IN THE WORD COUNT. You might consider using diagrams to illustrate things thus using less words.

Assignment Objectives:

You will configure the enterprise structure and business processes learned in the sessions. After setting up the organisation units and process parameters, you will create necessary master data and test the business process.

Pre-requisites:

You should be familiar with navigation in the SAP GUI 7.50 system and S4HANA Configuration and Customization Implementation Guide (SAP REF IMG-transaction SPRO).

Warning: When working with other classmates at the same time in the same transactions within S/4HANA Configuration (transaction SPRO), tables will tend to lock up and you will only be able to display them. This is due to the fact that the system will not let multiple users work in the same transaction at the same time. To get passed this message, wait until the current user is finished in the transaction and then proceed.
Marking of your report

Assignment 2, ‘Digital Business Application Report', is worth 60% of the DBA (M31221) module mark. High marks will be given for a comprehensive report drawing on the theory we have covered in lectures, and the evidence of an understanding of role-driven business processes from screenshots and labelled screenshots produced during labs. You should ensure you meet the needs of the company as defined in the ‘Project Brief' above. Reports that leave out elements asked for in the Brief will receive lower marks. The typed response to the Project Brief is worth 40%, & the S/4HANA labelled screenshots the other 20%.

Word Limit

The word limit is 2500 words - excluding the title/ title page, the content page, references, and any appendices. The word count MUST be stated on the front sheet/ cover.

Referencing Requirements

You must reference all sources using the APA 7th Edition.

Attachment:- Digital Business Applications.rar