Forecast Consumption and Requirment Strategy

source: http://help.sap.com/saphelp_scm2007/helpdata/en/e6/28dadc939241469dd64f0eb925f328/frameset.htm

Forecast Consumption:
The purpose of consumption is to ensure that requirements are not duplicated in the system and that the most detailed requirements are used. Forecasts and sales orders are for instance both requirements. Since a forecast is less specific than a sales order, it is reduced when other more specific requirements, such as sales orders, exist for the same product. In this way if both forecasts and sales orders are used to generate receipt elements, for example planned orders, the correct quantity is always generated.

The customer requirement consumes the planned independent requirement quantity that lies either directly before it or directly after it. You specify whether the system checks against planned independent requirements in the future or in the past by setting the Consumption Mode field on the Demand tab page of the location-specific product master. The assignment of customer requirements to planned independent requirements is carried out dynamically. This means that if requirements are rescheduled, the assignment is deleted and redefined.

There are four quantities that are important in connection with planned independent requirements in SAP APO and that enable the system to administer consumption dynamically:

· Planned quantity

This is the original forecast amount for which the forecast was created.

· Assigned quantity

This is the quantity in the forecast that has been consumed by other order categories, for instance sales orders. Note that this quantity is not stored, it is calculated at runtime.

· Open planned quantity

This is the planned quantity that has not been assigned or withdrawn from stock.

· Withdrawal quantity

This is the quantity that has produced/procured and for which a goods issue has been posted in SAP R/3.

Requirements Strategy:

Basically, the requirements strategy assigns an (ATP) category for the forecast (such as FA or FC) to an (ATP) category group that can consume the forecast. The category group can consist of one or more categories. Therefore, in the above example, forecast order category FA can be consumed by the following:

· Reservations (AM)

· Dependent demand (AY)

· Sales orders (BM)

· Customer requirements (BS)

The requirements strategy is equivalent to the planning strategy in SAP R/3. However, the functionality is simpler than that in SAP R/3.

Assignment Mode

The assignment mode determines how sales orders consume the forecast, and whether final assembly is taken into account. It corresponds to the allocation indicator in SAP R/3. This indicator is assigned to the sales order via the requirements class (requirement class corresponds to Check Mode in APO).

There are four allocation indicators:
No consumption with customer requirements
1 Consume planning with assembly
2 Consume planning w/o assembly
3 Consume planning material (w/o assembly)

SAP provides four strategies in the standard system:

10 Anonymous make-to-stock production

20 Planning with final assembly

30 Planning without final assembly

40 Planning product

If these are not sufficient for your needs, you can create your own requirements strategies in Customizing for SAP APO under Master Data ® Specify Requirements Strategies