When you produce, sell, and ship products, you must comply with regulatory and stakeholder requirements for ingredients, registrations, provision of safety data sheets, labeling, packaging, and safe transportation. SAP S/4HANA Cloud helps fulfill these requirements while also ensuring product marketability, reducing compliance costs, and protecting your brand.

This blog provides you with the latest and greatest innovations that our SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2105 release has in store for you in the area of Product Compliance. To name just a few highlights:

  • Regulatory content update
  • New SAP Fiori app to manage regulatory graphics
  • New SAP Fiori apps to maintain data for safety data sheets (SDS), sections 9 and 10
  • Enhanced SAP Fiori apps for unpackaged and packaged dangerous goods products to manage the control and emergency temperatures
  • … and more.

In case you do not need all the information below and just briefly want to get an overview of the release highlights, please watch this video with the top 3 key innovations:

Release video: SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2105 for Product Compliance: Top 3 key innovations.

Compliance Data Foundation:
Regulatory content update

Companies are facing complex and specific regulations in the market. With the ability to validate regulatory compliance early in the product development cycle, you avoid the risk of having to rework formulations containing banned or restricted substances or, worse, recall products if they do not meet regulatory obligations. or customers’ requirements.

With the update and enhancement of the integrated regulatory content, you stay compliant with your product portfolio using the most recent regulatory updates.

With the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2105 release, SAP provides the following new and updated compliance requirements in each solution area:

With the update and enhancement of the integrated regulatory content, you stay compliant with your product portfolio using the most recent regulatory updates.

With the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2105 release, SAP provides the following new and updated compliance requirements in each solution area:

Product Marketability:

  • 44 updated compliance requirements with this release
  • In total 136 compliance requirements (Substance list check pattern) available now

Safety Data Sheet Management:

  • 29 updated compliance requirements for components with occupational exposure limits
  • 5 other updated safety data sheet-related compliance requirements
  • In total 84 compliance requirement for Safety Data Sheets available now

Dangerous Goods Management:

  • 9 updated compliance requirements with this release
  • In total 14 compliance requirements available now.

Figure 1With the update and enhancement of the integrated regulatory content, you stay compliant with your product portfolio using the most recent regulatory updates.

Note 1: For more information about SAP Content for Compliance Requirements, please click here to access the SAP Help Portal.

Note2: The related scope items are31G (Chemical Compliance Approval for Purchased Material and Supplier), 31H (Assess Marketability of a Product), 31J (Chemical Compliance in Sales), 3VR (Manage Safety Data Sheets for Products), 3VQ (Safety Data Sheets in Sales), 3FC (Assess Dangerous Goods for a Product), 3G8 (Dangerous Goods in Sales)

 

Compliance Data Foundation:
Delivery of embedded phrases and their translations

The idea of Phrase Management is to provide standardized texts, called phrases, to consumers. These consumers could be, for example, applications that provide valuable help for specific fields, or document generation services that put texts in documents. A phrase is used in SAP S/4HANA Cloud for product compliance as a value for specific fields, such as in the compliance requirement World First Aid Measures or simply, Colors. Phrases contain standardized text strings that are provided in different languages. These phrases are used for processes and documents needed for transporting and selling your products in many different countries/regions. Phrases are provided as SAP content for complying with regional, national, and international regulations.

With the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2105 release, we provide the following new and updated compliance requirements in each of the following solution areas.

  • Embedded phrases for Specific Uses and Restrictions on Use as well as embedded phrases for EU and US Hazardous ingredients.
  • There are new embedded phrases for Chemical Product Categorization and additions to phrases in Safety-Related Properties.

 

Compliance Data Foundation:
Manage Regulatory Graphics

In regulations for hazardous substances, such as the Global Harmonized System (GHS), or in dangerous goods regulations, graphics are used to convey specific information. The GHS uses pictograms to alert users of the exposure dangers when handling a hazardous substance. The pictograms are, for example, required on the labels of hazardous chemical products.

In dangerous goods regulations, graphics are used on labels and provide the main information regarding the characteristics and dangers associated with the dangerous goods and how to handle a package.

Graphics used in Product Compliance are delivered as content by SAP. The graphics are grouped in graphic collections and are assigned to a compliance requirement version. Those collections can be viewed in the Manage Regulatory Graphics app.

Demo 1: Delivery of regulatory graphics such as handling and marking labels for dangerous goods.

 

Dangerous Goods Management:
Enhanced SAP Fiori apps for unpackaged and packaged dangerous goods products

With the 2105 release for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, we enhanced the SAP Fiori app to manage packaged dangerous goods for your products with capabilities to:

  • assign additional handling labels and markings for packaged products
  • define the control and emergency temperatures and include them in the dangerous goods descriptions for relevant packaged products (such as peroxides and other self-reacting substances).

Figure 2Dangerous Goods Management – Inclusion of control and emergency temperature in dangerous goods description for relevant products.

 Additional Details

If the regulation requires it, you can define the control temperature for packaged products. The control temperature is the highest possible temperature at which certain self-reacting substances, such as peroxides, can be safely transported.

You can also define the emergency temperature for packaged products. For substances that require transport under controlled temperatures, the emergency temperature is the temperature at which you must initiate emergency measures if temperature control is somehow lost.

After defining them, you can include the control and emergency temperatures in the dangerous goods descriptions for the relevant products

Remark concerning the “Labeling” section:

This section is not complete yet, more functionality is required to be able to support the packer in the warehouse or to support a labeling system.

Stay tuned on the progress of this function as in the future release, SAP will continuously add more features here:

  • the completion of Section „Labeling“ is planned in the next release.
  • in addition, a description template string is needed which builds together with the Marking Text for the Package. This feature also on the Roadmap.

Figure 2Dangerous Goods Management – Inclusion of control and emergency temperature in dangerous goods description for relevant products

 

Safety Data Sheet Management:
New SAP Fiori apps to maintain data for safety data sheets (SDS), sections 9 and 10

With Safety Data Sheet Management, you can organize the legally required safety data sheets, in defined translations, by country/region and regulation. Without the provisioning of a safety data sheet, products cannot be sold into markets.

Safety Data Sheet Management is integrated into checks documents in the value chain, such as stock transfer orders, sales orders, and delivery notes, to prevent products from being sold into markets if the required safety data sheets are not available. If the required safety data sheets for a product are not available, a warning is raised, the person responsible for the document is informed, and the product steward specialist receives a request to provide the missing data.

With the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2105 release, we enable customers to manage data for SDS sections 9 and 10 for safety data sheets, labels, and reports. You can also use this data for the classification of products according to different hazardous substances or dangerous goods regulations.

Just as a reminder:

  • Section 9: here you provide information on the Basic Physical and Chemical Properties like Flashpoint or Flammability.
  • In Section 10 you describe the reactivity hazards of the chemical and the chemical stability information.

Figure 3Enable customers to manage data for SDS sections 9 and 10 for safety data sheets, labels, and reports.

 You can use this app to:

  • Edit and release physical-chemical properties of an unpackaged product.
  • Enter and edit numerical values and ranges of physical-chemical properties of an unpackaged product, such as particle size, particle size distribution, density, viscosity, solutions, pH, phase transitions, and many more.
  • Enter and edit numerical values and ranges of safety-related properties of an unpackaged product, such as burning rate, minimum ignition energy, thermal decomposition temperature, and many more.
  • For some fields, type a value and select from the approved phrase list, such as assessment of flammability of liquids, methods for closed cup and open cup, and so on.
  • For some fields, type a value and select from the approved phrase list, such as state of matter, odor, color, and so on.
  • Delete the in-progress version of the physical-chemical properties of an unpackaged product.
  • Set data to Not Applicable or to No Data Available.
  • The phrases in the Additional Statement field can be extended with the Manage Phrase-Enabled Fields app.
  • View the details of the released physical-chemical properties of an unpackaged product.
  • Create a new version of released physical-chemical properties.

With the 2105 release, we provide also flexibility for customers to extend and adapt calculated data over their expert knowledge. We have also

    • A Release concept to control when information is ready to be used
    • You can use translated standardized text phrases

And finally, we give you the option to provide additional notes and attachments for further explanations.

 

Work View of Unpackaged Products and Raw Materials

With this feature, you can get an overview of the data available in the system for a given raw material or unpackaged product. The data is organized similarly to a safety data sheet – it is grouped and sorted identically. This allows you to easily manage the data received from your suppliers and maintain it in the system.

Figure 4Simplify the data management processes for all SDS-relevant data, by grouping and ordering the data identically to SDS sections.

You can use this app to:

  • View the safety data sheet relevant data for a raw material that is available in the system.
  • View the processing status of the data.
  • View the person who is currently assigned to work on the data.
  • Navigate within the sections and update the data based on information from the supplier.

 

Integration of Product Compliance into Purchasing

With this feature, dangerous goods checks and safety data sheet checks are now integrated into purchasing documents.

For compliance-relevant products, the system carries out compliance checks when a purchaser is creating or editing a stock transfer order. The system verifies, for example, whether a safety data sheet is required and whether the relevant safety data sheet is available in the defined languages. For products that are classified as dangerous goods, the system also checks whether transportation of the product is allowed, forbidden, or restricted. Depending on the outcome of these checks, the system sets the corresponding status for the item. Based on the item status, the system also sets a status for the whole document in the header of the document and, if issues arise during the checks, blocks the item or the whole document.

Figure 5Prevent non-compliant procurement processes.

Key Features:

  • Block items if no compliant transport is possible
  • Dangerous goods checks for:
    • Purchase orders with own transport responsibility
    • Intracompany and intercompany stock transport orders
  • Intercompany sales processes.

 

Thanks for reading this blog post. Stay tuned!

 

If you want to learn more and actively engage with SAP subject matter experts on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, join our SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Community. This platform which is available to SAP S/4HANA Cloud customers and partners has a clear mission: deliver an interactive community to engage with one another about best practices and product solutions.

For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, check out the following links:

  • SAP S/4HANA Cloud release info here
  • Jan Gilg SAP News Center article here
  • Sven Denecken’s SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2105 Release Blog
  • The Link Collection for Product Compliance here
  • Latest SAP S/4HANA Cloud Release Blogs here and previous release highlights here
  • Product videos on our SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA YouTube playlist
  • SAP S/4HANA PSCC Digital Enablement Wheel here
  • Early Release Webinar Series here
  • Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast here
  • openSAP Microlearning for SAP S/4HANA here
  • Best practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud here
  • SAP S/4HANA Cloud Community: here
  • Feature Scope Description here
  • What’s New Document here
  • Help Portal Product Page here
  • Implementation Portal here

Follow us via @SAP and #S4HANA, or myself via @VoglerChrist and LinkedIn

Randa Khaled

Randa Khaled

Author Since: November 19, 2020

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