SAP Smart Sensing


What Is Smart Sensing?

Sensors have been used in industry for decades to capture specific parameters like temperature. Smart sensors are an evolution of legacy sensors and leverage recent advances in technologies like Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud. Unlike a traditional sensor, a smart sensor can perform advanced tasks such as data conversion, data processing, analytics, and communicating with external devices and the cloud. Many smart sensors can do self-assessment and self-calibration, making them an essential part of digital twins. The data from smart sensors can be leveraged for a plethora of applications, like predictive planning.

What Is Smart Sensing?

Sensors have been used in industry for decades to capture specific parameters like temperature. Smart sensors are an evolution of legacy sensors and leverage recent advances in technologies like Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud. Unlike a traditional sensor, a smart sensor can perform advanced tasks such as data conversion, data processing, analytics, and communicating with external devices and the cloud. Many smart sensors can do self-assessment and self-calibration, making them an essential part of digital twins. The data from smart sensors can be leveraged for a plethora of applications, like predictive planning.

What Is SAP Smart Sensing?

Smart sensing is a capability within the SAP Internet of Things offering that leverages SAP Fiori to identify and track physical objects maintained in SAP S/4HANA. The identification and tracking is done primarily by scanners and smart sensors. Compared to classic IoT scenarios, the SAP smart sensing approach brings the following advantages:

  • Tracking of single events rather than recording of continuous data streams significantly reduces the amount of data to process.
  • Using auto-ID tags instead of sensors reduces costs.
  • Tagging of single items that are part of a delivery or a handling unit allows for a finer granularity and higher precision of the data collected.

While the applications can span multiple functions, a key function that can leverage smart sensing extensively is supply chain. With the help of smart sensors and other technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning, organizations can build smart, kinetic supply chains, as highlighted in this webinar.

Key Considerations for SAPinsiders

SAP smart sensing is a robust capability to help organizations build components of the intelligent enterprise. However, there are certain key aspects that SAPinsiders need to keep in perspective when embarking on this journey:

Understand the difference between conventional and smart sensors. As mentioned earlier, sensors have been used in industry for a while, but smart sensors take this capability much further. Understanding the “smart” aspect of sensors will allow you to understand where and how to use them.

Think beyond just tracking. While there is no doubt that smart sensors can help track flows or processes in real time, the data often captured by these sensors can be used extensively for generating additional insights. Key advanced analytics approaches like simulation, optimization, and predictive analytics can be leveraged using this data to generate new insights for organizations.

Think end-to-end. A powerful capability of smart sensors is that they can be used to build end-to-end solutions, specifically in process intense functions like supply chains. You can design end-to-end solutions to make your enterprise more resilient and agile.

911 results

  1. Demand Sensing Improves Short-Term Demand Forecasting at Arla Foods

    Published: 19/November/2019

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    Published: 01/July/2005

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    Smart Forms is a tool first delivered with R/3 Release 4.6 for printing and sending documents via email, Web, and fax. The supporting technology allows you to configure and deploy Smart Forms as a workflow-based or event-driven functionality. Find out more about Smart Forms and see how to implement it or convert existing SAPscripts to...…

  3. Download Smart Forms with the Data Types Required for Easy Activation After Upload

    Published: 17/February/2014

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    SAP Professional Journal Muhammad Ramzan explains how to get your Smart Form download with all the information it needs so that you can activate it successfully after uploading it to a target system. Key Concept The term template method describes a design pattern. The ZSAPLink class features abstract methods that are called by the SAPLink...…

  4. Leveraging Smart Grid and AMI Using SAP Application Suites

    Published: 28/September/2012

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    Discover how to administer and use smart grid, advanced metering infrastructure, and smart meters to improve consumer experience and optimize associated energy and operational costs. Gain an understanding of the fundamentals, application, and impact of these emerging technologies and how the SAP Business Suite helps deploy and leverage the value they provide. Key Concept Smart...…

  5. Launching a Smart City Initiative

    Published: 18/December/2017

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  6. Upload SAP Smart Styles at Once with an ABAP Program

    Published: 28/June/2013

    Reading time: 5 mins

    Use ABAP code to upload custom Smart Styles in your SAP system in bulk. With it, you’ll be able to upload more than one Smart Style in one attempt instead of selecting every Smart Style one by one. Key Concept SAP Smart Styles are used to format printing documents that companies normally send outside the...…

  7. Save Time by Downloading All Your SAP Smart Styles at Once

    Published: 15/December/2011

    Reading time: 6 mins

    Use ABAP code to create a utility that allows you to download standard or custom SAP Smart Styles. With it, you’ll be able to download all SAP Smart Styles or a selection that you have defined, eliminating a normally laborious process. Key Concept SAP Smart Styles are used for formatting of printing documents that companies...…

  8. Save Time by Downloading All Your SAP Smart Forms at Once

    Published: 14/October/2011

    Reading time: 5 mins

    Use ABAP code to create a utility that allows you to download standard or custom SAP Smart Forms. With it, you’ll be able to download all SAP Smart Forms or a selection that you have defined, eliminating a normally laborious process. Key Concept SAP Smart Forms are used for printing documents that companies normally send...…

  9. Smart Campus Initiatives & Technology

    Published: 28/February/2018

    Reading time: 13 mins

    Campuses are embracing smart digital technologies to better compete with other institutions and deliver improved student experience.  By leveraging sensors, Internet of Things (IoT) devices and education applications, colleges and create a smart campus and deliver benefits including better campus safety, higher student engagement, and increased collaboration.  However, A smart campus initiative presents challenges on…

  10. Generate a Smart Forms Navigator in a Tree Structure with ABAP

    Published: 30/May/2013

    Reading time: 6 mins

    – Use ABAP code to create a utility that allows you to generate a Smart Forms Navigator similar to the Object Navigator, transaction SE80. This code lists all those Smart Forms that have been defined in a package. The list is comprised of a tree structure. Key Concept To navigate through all Smart Forms of...…