What is VMS

What is VMS

Let us see What is VMS

1. The Vehicle Management System (VMS) is a solution available in SAP ERP.

2. VMS was originally developed to meet the requirements of vehicle importers and national sales  
    companies. For these organizations, highly configurable products are ordered from an OEM
    (or OEMs for multi-brand importers), brought in country, and then sold to the dealer network.

3. VMS was presented as a solution that could

   a) Configure new vehicles (I want a Red Sedan with V6 engine,  automatic transmission, leather,
       and a sports package.  And floor mats)

   b) Search for vehicles (I want to see all Sports Cars in dealer  inventory in the local area)

   c) Manage vehicle centric business processes (I need to place orders  to the OEM, receive
       production updates, track inbound vehicle  shipments, process vehicles through customs,
       inspect and prepare vehicles on the ground, and then sell them to my dealers).

4. The solution was developed with the requirements of importers in mind, it’s no surprise that
    the first customers were … importers of passenger vehicles

5. VMS is extremely flexible and can support the inbound and outbound flows for just about
    any highly configurable, serialized product.

6. VMS is not limited to just for vehicle imports. Other customers use VMS to manage the
    manufacturing, export, and conversion/accessorization of configurable products.

7.  A product could be a candidate for VMS if it has the following attributes:

     It is highly configurable.  Automobiles come in many colors, trim levels, interiors, power trains,
        electronics, etc.  Books or CDs have unique SKUs, where the content is always the same.

    It is configurable, but comparable to similar products.  Because there are so many options to
    choose from, an OEM might only build exactly identical vehicles a couple times a year. 
    Even if there is engineering content, every car still looks like the others.

    It is a discrete product.  Each unit rolls off the production line one at a time and can be
    uniquely identified, usually through a serial number.  Pharmaceuticals, gasoline, and soft drinks
    might be produced in different configurations, but it’s impossible to distinguish one drop
    of inventory from another.

   It needs to be tracked through a defined business process.  As the vehicle goes from the factory
    to the end customer, there are many steps that need to be performed along the way. 
   Users need to be able to see where the vehicles are, where they have been, and where they are
   going.