Bluefield Methodology for S/4Hana conversion

Bluefield – Fundamentals

The term "Bluefield", which is a registered trademark of the SNP company, follows the practice of naming S/4HANA adoption solutions with a colour. We already know that SAP ECC customers must adopt S/4HANA via the greenfield (re-implementation) and brownfield (conversion) methods.

Greenfield allows us to make any changes to the current functionality, but is disruptive to the company as it does not allow the loading of historical data.

Brownfield on the other hand represents a technical adoption where the objective is to achieve a performance as close as possible to the current one while preserving all our data.

The term "Bluefield" is used to denote a different option that allows for a wide range of intermediate options over the previous colours.

The rationale behind bluefield is to decouple system conversion (repository and customising) from data loading. The steps are:

1. We create a Shell ECC system that corresponds to the source system without data. It is the equivalent of an "empty shell" of our source system, containing only the software and the customising.
2. We performed a brownfield conversion of the ECC Shell resulting in an S/4HANA Shell (no data) that acts as a development system for the conversion.
3. If transformations are required, we can make the necessary parameterisation changes in the new S/4HANA system.
4. We load (all) the data from the ECC source system into the S/4HANA system, ensuring the transformation required due to the changes from ECC to S/4HANA and adapting it to the customisation made in point 3.

Factory Model

The agreement between SEIDOR and SNP includes a Factory model for conversion processes with a low level of transformation that allows the Bluefield model to be applied with limited costs.

The SEIDOR Conversion Factory business unit, which has already been applying a factory model to Brownfield conversions, incorporates the Bluefield methodology into the same model. Industrialisation and specialisation is the only way to meet the challenge of converting ECC systems within the deadlines set by the manufacturer.

Bluefield: What options does it offer clients who do not require transformation?

This methodology provides us with a series of options that may be of great interest to many clients.

1. Minimisation of time. Bluefield leaves only data loading to the last moment, which allows us to deploy parallelisation or preemption techniques in data loading.
2. Selective data transition. By loading data into our S/4HANA system, we can leave behind those obsolete companies. The selective transition will also help to reduce downtime.
3. Elimination of pre-requisites projects. With bluefield we do not have to apply the prerequisites to our production system but only to the Shell, reducing effort, time and risk.