In the previous chapter, you learned that workers use the Production Operator Dashboard (POD) as the central interface for interacting with the SAP Digital Manufacturing system. Depending on the specifics of your manufacturing process, you can use various POD variants to support different manufacturing scenarios. When performing discrete production processes, you can use the Operation Activity POD, the Work Center POD, or the Order POD. In process industries, you can (as of now) only use the Order POD to perform a process order.
Order POD
You can use the Order POD to manage all activities of one process order on one single screen. After the worker selects an order from a list, the system displays the following screen:
In the header section, you see the order information, for example, order ID, manufactured batch, the phase that the workers currently perform, material, quantity, and time information.
At the left, the system displays the list of operations and phases of the order. In our carbonated beverage example, these include mixing and bottling. At the right, you notice various tabs, for example, Phase Details, Work Instruction List, Quantity Confirmation, Material Consumption, and Activity Confirmation.
Typically, the POD layout guides the worker through the production process and they perform the following steps:
After starting the POD, the worker searches for an order and proceeds to the order details. Then, the worker selects the phase that they want to work on and chooses Start. In the background, the system changes the SFCs' status to Active. If required by your production process, you can start multiple phases for the same SFC and work on them in parallel.
The worker then reviews the phase details and work instructions and performs the production activities. For example, prepare the reaction vessel, withdraw components from storage and fill them into the vessel, and start the mixer program.
On the Quantity Confirmation tab, the worker confirms the quantities that they produced in the current phase. Here, they can confirm the yield and scrap quantity. The yield quantity is the amount of manufactured product during this step. The scrap quantity is the amount of product that they needed to scrap due to production problems.
On the Material Consumption tab, the system displays the list of components and their respective quantity to consume during the current phase. The worker selects the component (and, if applicable, the component batch) that they consumed and confirms the quantity. If unplanned components must be consumed, the worker also uses this tab.
SAP Digital Manufacturing offers helper functions to facilitate data recording, for example:
The Master Data Specialist can configure a formula that the system uses to calculate the consumed quantity based on the operator input. In the demo, you see that the worker withdraws sugar from up to three big bags. Instead of having to manually calculate the sum, the worker enters the amount they withdraw from each big bag, the system automatically calculates the sum and posts the respective quantity.
It's also possible to use integrations to tools on the shop floor, for example electronic balances, to automatically record the consumed quantity.
On the Activity Confirmation tab, the worker confirms the time that they spent performing this phase. The system accepts several activity types, for example, machine time and labor time so that the worker can confirm each activity type separately. Since each activity type has a different cost rate in SAP S/4HANA, this is important for correctly calculating the production costs.
Finally, when the worker has performed all steps of this production phase, they choose Complete. The system then updates the SFCs' status and the worker moves on to the next manufacturing phase, remaining in this POD until production is complete.
After production is complete, the worker posts the goods receipt of the produced material. If it's batch-managed, they can also update batch characteristics.
If you're experienced with manufacturing in SAP S/4HANA, the steps three, four, five, and seven sound familiar to you. This is exactly the data that you provide in SAP S/4HANA when carrying out a process order. Indeed, the Order POD is in practice used to carry out process orders that were imported from SAP S/4HANA into the SAP Digital Manufacturing System. Since the integration of both systems is beyond the scope of this learning module, it is addressed separately.
From a technical point of view, PODs in SAP Digital Manufacturing consist of plug-ins that the application consultant assembles when configuring a POD designed for your business requirements. In your production system, you can define various PODs and provide access to specific users or display the PODs at specific production resources. For example, a production resource where you only perform bottling requires a different setting than a production resource where you consume components and record inspection results.
Note
The Order POD offers more functions, for example, recording in-process inspection results with and without inspection points. Refer to the SAP Help Portal for more information.