Change of Supplier
Change of Supplier 
Purpose
One of the main characteristics of the deregulated energy market is that customers are free to choose their energy supplier.
The change of supplier process refers to the cross-company organizational activities of the participating companies (distributor, former supplier, new supplier).
The key characteristics of the change of supplier process are as follows:
· The change of supplier is executed with reference to the point of delivery.
· The change of supplier process involves the following companies:
¡ Distributor (DIST)
Service provider that provides the grid services required to supply energy to a point of delivery.
¡ Former supplier (FS)
Service provider that supplies energy to the point of delivery until the change of supplier takes place.
If no energy was supplied to the point of delivery before the change of supplier, the former supplier is not relevant.We refer to this as the Start of Supply.
¡ New supplier (NS)
Service provider that wants to supply energy to the point of delivery after the change of supplier.
If no energy is to be supplied to the point of delivery after the change of supplier, the new supplier is not relevant.We refer to this as the End of Supply.
· Data is exchanged between the participating companies.
The following list includes examples of when data is exchanged within the change of supplier process:
¡ The new supplier sends the distributor an enrollment notification regarding supplying energy to the point of delivery.
¡ The distributor responds to the enrollment notification by sending a positive or a negative answer.
¡ The new supplier sends the former supplier a cancellation notification regarding supplying energy to the point of delivery.
¡ The former supplier responds to the cancellation notification by sending a positive or a negative answer.
¡ The former supplier sends the distributor a switch notification regarding supplying energy to the point of delivery.
¡ The distributor responds to the switch notification by sending a positive or a negative answer.
· The change of supplier process requires adherence to time limits:
¡ The time limit within which the new supplier must register for supply with the distributor.
¡ The time limit within which the distributor must send the response to the supplier.
¡ And so on
Time limits can be based on generally market regulations or on individual agreements between the participating companies.
· The change of supplier process requires checks to be made:
¡ Check to determine whether supply was registered within the time limit
¡ Check to determine whether supply was terminated within the time limit
¡ Check to determine whether the business partner (customer) was found
¡ And so on
The checks can be defined generally, or individually based on the participating companies.
· The point of delivery master data must be maintained in the system to correspond with the new supply situation.
Implementation Considerations
The change of supplier process involves a high level of administrative effort. You can keep the resulting costs to a minimum by automating as much of the process as possible. The particularly applies to the automatic processing of data exchange.
Features
SAP IS-U/IDE provides an extensive infrastructure for automating the change of supplier process.
Automatic processing of the change of supplier takes place in SAP IS-U/DIE by means of the SAP Business Workflow. TheBusiness Object Repository (BOR) contains a number of methods that were specially developed for the change of supplier.You can use these methods to create the change of supplier process that you require.
Sample workflows that you can use as templates are predefined for the change of supplier process within the German liberalized energy market.
You create change of supplier processes with reference to a Switch View. A switch view describes the role that a participating company plays in the change of supplier process. Switch views can be Distributor, Former Supplier, and New Supplier, for example. For each switch view, you create a workflow containing the necessary process steps.
The following workflows are predefined for the change of supplier process in the German liberalized energy market.
· Workflow for Registration for Supply (Switch view: New supplier)
This workflow contains the process steps that the new supplier has to carry out when registering a point of delivery for supply.
· Workflow for Change of Supplier (switch view: Distributor)
This workflow contains the process steps that the distributor has to carry out when changing the supplier for a point of delivery.
· Workflow for Cancelation Processing (switch view: Former supplier)
This workflow contains the process steps that the former supplier has to carry out when canceling supply to a point of delivery.
The workflows are based on an infrastructure that is made up of various elements. You can adjust this infrastructure to meet the requirements of change of supplier process.
The infrastructure for the change of supplier process is made up of the following elements:
Data exchange processes are used to exchange data automatically between companies.
Special data exchange basic processes are predefined for the change of supplier.
The switch document controls and documents the change of supplier process. It is the central object of the infrastructure for processing the change of supplier in SAP IS-U/CCS.
Service Provider Agreement
In the service provider agreement, you define processing parameters that correspond with the agreement between two participating service providers. Parameters for a specific process are modeled using deregulation processes.
Deregulation process GRIDUSAGE contains process parameters that control the change of supplier. You can define values for these parameters that correspond to the agreement between the participating service providers.
You can use the check framework to easily integrate checks that you want to carry out for the change of supplier process into the workflow and influence the behavior of the workflow in the event that errors occur.
The check framework also provides a large number of fixed checks.
You can modify the checks that you want to carry out for the change of supplier process in the service provider agreement.
Period management allows you to define periods and time limits that are taken into account in the change of supplier process. You can also use the check framework to check whether the periods are adhered to.
You can modify the periods that you want to be accounted for in the change of supplier process in the service provider agreement.
The supply scenario allows you to automatically update the point of delivery master data according to the new supply situation for the point of delivery that changed as a result of the change of supplier.
The individual elements of the infrastructure provide a number of possibilities to influence the details of the change of supplier process by means of Customizing settings and enhancement options (Business Add-Ins).
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