Source: From SAP.com Marketplace
Purpose
The heuristic is used as part of a repair-based planning process consisting of the heuristic, capacity leveling, and deployment. The heuristic run processes each planning location sequentially and determines sourcing requirements. The heuristic processing groups all demands for a given product at a location into one demand for the bucket. The heuristic run determines valid sources of supply and corresponding quantity based on pre-defined percentages for each source of supply (quota arrangements), or procurement priorities for transportation lanes and production process models (PPMs) or production data structures (PDS). The demands are then passed through the supply chain to calculate a plan. However, this plan is not necessarily feasible. The planner can then use capacity leveling to adjust the plan and formulate a feasible plan.
Both the key figures upon which the heuristic is based and the planning horizon are determined by the planning book. Macros can also be used to define how you want to calculate general key figures such as Total Demand and Stock on Hand, or product-specific key figures such as Safety Stock,The role of ERP tools in supply chain information sharing,
cooperation, and cost optimization
Peter Kellea,Ã, Asli Akbulut
Reorder Point, and Target Stock Level (for more information, see Advanced Macros and SNP Functions).
Process
...
1. You run the heuristic.
2. You run capacity leveling.
3. You run deployment.
4. You run the Transport Load Builder (TLB).
The Heuristic Run Process Flow
The heuristic plans all distribution demands for all locations within the distribution network before exploding the BOM and processing dependent demand at the production locations. The system explodes the BOM only when you choose a multilevel heuristic run.
Factors Considered in Processing
Location products
Low-level codes of the location products
Valid production process models (PPMs)
Valid transportation lanes
Quota arrangements or procurement priorities
Lead times
Calendars
Lot size rules
Scrap
Component availability
SNP demand profile
SNP supply profile
Demand profile
Other Considerations
The heuristic run considers all demand for a given product/location combination within one period as one demand.
The heuristic planning sequence is governed by the low-level codes of the location products. For more information, see Low-Level Code Determination.
The initial solution produced by the heuristic run may not be feasible because the system assumes that capacity is infinite. The planner must then adjust the plan by leveling resource capacity. For more information, see Capacity Leveling.
The heuristic run results do not include pegging orders back to the original individual requirement because requirements are bucketed.
See also:
Running the Heuristic in the Background
Heuristic Profiles
Use
The following table describes the profiles used by the SNP heuristic. You can define these profiles partly in the location product master and partly in the Customizing or in the current settings for Supply Network Planning (SNP). For more information, see the Implementation Guide (IMG) or the field-level help (F1 help).
Profile
Use in Heuristic Planning Run
Planning calendar (time streams)
Specifies the planning calendars the system uses to determine when you can produce, transport, and so on.
SNP demand profile (product master)
Specifies how the system calculates demand.
SNP supply profile (product master)
Specifies how the system calculates supply, that is, key figures such as production, and distribution receipts.
SNP rounding profile
Specifies how the system is to round order proposal quantities to create deliverable units.
Lot size profile (product master)
Specifies which lot-sizing procedure is to be used during planning. In this profile, you can also define additional constraints, such as minimum or maximum lot sizes, or a rounding value.
SNP lot size profile (transportation lanes)
In this profile, you define minimum and maximum lot sizes for the shipment. You then specify this profile for one specific product in the Product-Specific Means of Transport section of the transportation lane. You can thus define minimum and maximum transportation lot sizes for specific products.
If you wish to make shipments in integer multiples of a transportation lot size only, you can also define the transportation lot size as a rounding value in this profile.
SNP requirements strategy
Specifies how quantities forecasted in Demand Planning are to be produced and how the demand forecast is consumed by sales orders.
SNP planning profile
In this profile, you can make basic settings for the various SNP planning procedures, such as heuristic, optimizer, deployment heuristic, deployment optimizer, and Transport Load Builder (TLB).
The SNP planning profile that you activate in the SNP Customizing under Maintain Global SNP Settings applies globally for all SNP planning procedures. For some planning procedures, you can overwrite the settings of the active profile by entering another SNP planning profile during execution of planning in the background.
Parallel processing profile
You use this profile to define how background jobs are divided in parallel processes. You can specify the number of concurrent parallel processes, the number of objects per processing block, and the server group. In each case, you define the profile for one specific application function, such as the SNP heuristic.
Low-Level Code Determination
Use
You use this function to determine the low-level codes of location products before running heuristic-based planning in Supply Network Planning (SNP). The low-level code specifies the bill of material (BOM) level and supply chain location at which a location product is situated. The SNP heuristic needs this information to be able to determine the correct planning sequence for the location products, thus ensuring that demands are fulfilled correctly. It is important to maintain the planning sequence if you are running the SNP heuristic for only a part of your supply chain model.
We recommend that you always execute this function before an SNP heuristic run if changes have been made to the production process model (PPM) or transportation lane master data that are relevant to low-level code determination and thus for the SNP heuristic planning sequence.
Features
The system determines the low-level codes for a given planning version; that is, for an entire model. You cannot restrict it to individual products and locations of the model since there would be no way of ensuring that the low-level codes for the supply chain were determined correctly.
The system takes into account all SNP-relevant sources of supply, such as PPMs and transportation lanes, for the individual products that are valid from any date within the planning horizon. There cannot be any cycles in the transportation lanes.
The system uses the product’s position in the bill of material and the location assigned to the product to determine the low-level code. The highest low-level code (a code of 0) is attributed to the finished product assigned to the final location in the supply chain (a customer location for instance). The second highest low-level code (1) is attributed to the finished product at the penultimate location (a distribution center for instance), and so on. The system assigns low-level codes to the individual components at the different BOM levels in the same way.
The SNP heuristic then plans the location products in the low-level code sequence, first planning the location product with low-level code 0 and so on.
After running this function, a list of location products with assigned low-level codes is generated for the specified planning version. You display this list by choosing Display Results.
Activities
.
1. To access the low-level code determination function, follow this SAP APO Easy Access menu path: Supply Network Planning Planning Supply Network Planning in the Background Determine Low-Level Code.
2. Enter the planning version and execute the function.
3. If required, display the results (see above).
4. Run the SNP heuristic in the background or from interactive Supply Network Planning. The heuristic uses the low-level codes to determine the correct planning sequence for location products. For more information, see Running the Heuristic in the Background.
You can also restrict planning to specific low-level codes on the initial screen for running the SNP heuristic.
Running the Heuristic in the Background
Use
The heuristic in Supply Network Planning (SNP) is used to create a mid-term procurement, production, and transportation plan.
Prerequisites
You have set up the planning area and planning book
You have maintained the heuristic profiles (optional)
You have set up the master data for the heuristic
You have created a model name and version
You have set up the supply chain model
You have released the demand plan to Supply Network Planning
You have determined the low-level codes
You have locked any inbound or outbound queues in the ERP system during the time of the heuristic run:
If you cannot rule out that data will be transferred from an ERP system to the SAP SCM system (or from SAP SCM to ERP) using the Core Interface (CIF) during the heuristic run, you can lock inbound or outbound queues in the ERP system from the SAP SCM system. This should prevent plan inconsistencies due to transaction data that is transferred from the ERP system to SAP SCM during the heuristic run, which the heuristic then ignores. During the CIF transfer, you can also prevent planning objects being locked for either CIF or the heuristic.
To lock outbound queues, you can use the /SAPAPO/CIFSTOPQUEUES and /SAPAPO/CIFSTARTQUEUES reports in SAP SCM. Reports RSTRFCI1 and RSTRFCI3 are available for locking inbound queues (see also, OSS note 487261).
Procedure
...
1. From the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Supply Network Planning Planning Supply Network Planning in the Background Supply Network Planning in the Background. The Supply Network Planning: Planning Run screen appears.
2. Enter the planning book and data view.
3. Enter an SNP planning profile that you may have defined in Customizing for SNP. This contains basis settings for the SNP planning procedures. If you do not specify a profile, the system uses the default profile activated in Customizing.
4. Enter a parallel processing profile that you may have defined in Customizing for SNP. This determines how the background jobs are divided into parallel processes.
5. Specify that you want to use the horizon you defined as the planning buckets profile in the planning book for planning (select Entire Planning Horizon) or specify a shorter planning horizon.
6. Enter the planning version and the product or range of products that you want to be planned during this planning run. If you choose the location heuristic (see step 7), you also have to enter the location or range of locations for which you want the heuristic to be run. If you leave this field blank, the system plans all eligible locations.
Alternatively, you can specify a selection profile that you saved in interactive Supply Network Planning.
If you choose the location heuristic, you also have the option of restricting planning to specific low-level codes (see step 7).
7. Define the scope of the planning run:
If you select Network (Heuristic), the system plans the specified products at all locations of the supply chain model where these products are assigned.
If you select Location (Heuristic), the system plans the specified products at the specified locations. You can thus choose to plan only a part of the model for instance.
With both heuristic options, you can specify whether you want the system to take into account all the bill of material (BOM) components of the chosen products during planning. To do this, set this indicator: Take into account found components in planning run. The system then also plans the dependent demand of the products. However, with the location heuristic, the system plans only those components that have been assigned to the specified locations.
The planning sequence is governed by the low-level codes of the location products. You use the Determine Low-Level Code function to determine these low-level codes before running the heuristic (see also: Low-Level Code Determination). The heuristic first plans the product with the highest low-level code 0 (such as a finished product at a customer location), then the one with the second highest low-level code 1 (such as a finished product at a distribution center), and so on. This guarantees correct demand coverage even when a part model is selected.
If you wish to run the heuristic in interactive Supply Network Planning, you have the option of running a network heuristic, a location heuristic, or a multilevel heuristic. The multilevel heuristic is a network heuristic that also takes into account BOM components. Interactive Supply Network Planning does not have a location heuristic that takes into account BOM components.
Furthermore, you can specify that you also want to plan all the products of a supersession chain as part of product interchangeability in SNP. For more information, see Product Interchangeability in Supply Network Planning.
8. If you wish to run net change planning, select Net Change Planning. This means that the heuristic run plans only those location products for which a planning file entry has been set. The system sets this planning file entry if a planning-relevant change has been made to the location product since the last heuristic run; for instance, if the demand situation of the location product has changed.
Net change planning can be performed only if you set the SNP: Change Planning Active indicator beforehand in the planning version. The active planning version is the only version to support net change planning.
9. In the Source Determination field, select the level of a source of supply hierarchy at which you want the system to consider sources of supply for in-house production. The default value is All Levels.
You can use this field in the planning with aggregated resources process, for example.
10. Choose whether you want the heuristic to also consider a maximum vendor capacity (that may have been specified for scheduling agreements) when taking into account scheduling agreements as supply sources. The options available to you are listed below:
If you select Unrestricted Capacity, the system does not take into account vendor capacities.
If you select Transportation Lne SA Capacity, the heuristic, during planning, takes into account the vendor capacity specified in the Key Figure: Maximum Capacity field for the transportation lanes of a scheduling agreement item. When working with scheduling agreements, you use this option, for example, if you want to restrict the capacity of means of transport that have been maintained for transportation lanes.
If you select Location Product SA Capacity, the heuristic, during planning, takes into account the vendor capacity for the entire scheduling agreement item that you specified in the key figure entered in the Key Figure: Maximum Capacity field.
11. If necessary, enter the appropriate key figures for determining maximum vendor capacity, plus the planning book and data view that you want the system to use to derive these key figures.
12. Make settings for the application log generated in the planning run. In the Log Availability field, enter the number of days you want the log to be saved for. The default value is 30 days.
You can also define whether the log contains detailed information, such as data for SNP planned orders and stock transfers created, and whether this is displayed directly at the end of the planning run. You can also display the log after the heuristic run by choosing Display Logs.
13. Choose Execute.
See Also
Application Logs
Capacity Leveling
Use
The capacity leveling function is an extension of heuristic-based planning in Supply Network Planning (SNP). The SNP heuristic run is an infinite form of planning that does not take into account capacities and can thus cause resource overloads. You can use SNP capacity leveling to clear resource overloads by moving orders or partial order quantities into previous or subsequent periods using forward or backward scheduling. In addition, you can transfer orders to alternative resources in the same period.
SNP capacity leveling is used to level specific bottleneck resources. It is run locally on a resource in a specified horizon, which means that dependencies with other resources are ignored. Leveling capacity for the entire supply chain would, in effect, be the same as performing a new planning run and is not within the scope of this function.
You can run capacity leveling in both interactive Supply Network Planning and in the background. Interactive planning has the advantage that you can display the resource load directly before and after leveling. If you run capacity leveling in the background, you can select several resources for leveling (which can then be processed in sequence). You can also use a selection profile. Running capacity leveling in the background is especially suited to large data volumes and complex models. A detailed log is displayed whether you run capacity leveling in interactive planning or in the background.
Prerequisites
You have run the SNP heuristic before capacity leveling. Although it is possible to run capacity leveling after an SNP optimization run or Capable-to-Match (CTM) run, in most cases it is not advisable to do so.
In addition, the same prerequisites apply for running capacity leveling as for heuristic-based planning in general. For more information, see Running the Heuristic in the Background.
Features
Supported Resource Categories and Order Types
Capacity leveling supports the following resource categories:
Production resources
Transportation resources
It does not support storage or handling resources.
Capacity leveling supports all the resource types supported by SNP in general. It supports the following resource types in particular:
Bucket resource
Single-mixed resource
Multimixed resource
Transportation resource
It does not support any other resource types.
Capacity leveling only takes into account SNP planned orders and SNP stock transfers. Deployment stock transfers, TLB shipments, and Production Planning and Detailed Planning orders (PP/DS orders) are not leveled; however, the system does take into account the resource load caused by these orders.
Capacity leveling does not take dependent demands into account. Since leveling is only performed locally on a resource, it can lead to other resources being overloaded, additional on-hand stocks being created, or shortfall quantities being generated.
For more information about which master data the system considers, such as lot sizes and rounding values, see Consideration of Lot Sizes and Other Master Data.
Capacity Leveling Profile
You can control capacity leveling using various parameters. You define these parameters in a profile that you specify when running capacity leveling in interactive planning or in the background. However, you can also specify the parameters manually or overwrite individual profile parameters before each capacity leveling run. You define the capacity leveling profile in Customizing for SNP under Profiles Define SNP Capacity Leveling Profiles or in the SAP Easy Access screen under Supply Network Planning Environment Current Settings Profiles Define SNP Capacity Leveling Profiles.
You use the profile to define the following specific parameters:
The capacity leveling method (heuristic, optimizer, or BAdI)
The scheduling direction (forward, backward, or combined)
Order prioritization (that is, which orders you want capacity leveling to process first)
Handling of fixed orders and order fixing during capacity leveling
The maximum resource utilization
The maximum runtime for capacity leveling
For more information, see Capacity Leveling Profile.
Consideration of Alternative Resources
You can specify that capacity leveling also considers alternative resources. This means that the system considers production process models (PPMs) or production data structures (PDS) that produce the same location product with alternative resources.
For more information, see Consideration of Alternative Resources.
Log and Alerts
The system generates a detailed log for capacity leveling that is displayed automatically after the planning run both in interactive planning and when executed in the background. It includes the following information:
Quantities in each period before and after capacity leveling
Resource utilization before and after capacity leveling
Surplus or shortage in the supply of output products
Error and warning messages (that excessively large lot sizes will cause leveling problems, for instance)
Parameters selected by the user
If you run capacity leveling in the background, you can hide the quantities in each period and the resource capacity load in the log. This helps you improve performance and reduce data volume. You can also specify for how long you want the log to be saved and display logs from previous capacity leveling runs.
Capacity leveling does not generate alerts directly. However, you can run a background job for a macro to generate alerts (for example, the SNP standard macro for database (DB) alerts). You can then view these alerts in the Alert Monitor. For more information, see the following Demand Planning documentation under Demand Planning Process Creation of the Demand Forecast Macro Execution with Mass Processing (see also the subordinate topics).
Activities
Capacity Leveling in Interactive Supply Network Planning
...
1. On the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Advanced Planning and Optimization Supply Network Planning Planning Interactive Supply Network Planning and go to the capacity view (Capacity Check data view).
2. Select a resource.
3. If the resource is overloaded, choose Capacity Leveling.
You can choose the planning horizon in the planning table by selecting one or more periods. To select several periods, select the first and last period of the horizon (by choosing the left-hand mouse button and the control key). You can also choose individual products for capacity leveling by drilling down for products and selecting the products you require. Capacities are then only leveled for the selected products within the chosen horizon.
4. A dialog box appears where you can choose a capacity leveling profile or manually specify the parameters.
5. You run capacity leveling and, if required, view the log.
6. You display the new load situation in the capacity view.
Capacity Leveling in the Background
...
On the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Advanced Planning and Optimization Supply Network Planning Planning Supply Network Planning in the Background Capacity Leveling.
1. You select one or more resources for capacity leveling. To do this, you can also specify a selection profile that you previously saved in interactive planning.
2. You select a capacity leveling profile or manually specify the parameters.
3. You run capacity leveling in the background and, if required, view the log.
4. You display the new load situation in the capacity view of interactive Supply Network Planning.
See also:
Heuristic-Based Planning
Running the Heuristic in the Background
Interactive Planning Desktop
Consideration of Lot Sizes and Other Master Data
Use
Capacity leveling that you execute after an SNP heuristic run considers – like the heuristic run - the master data created for it. However, there are some special features, which are explained below.
Features
Capacity leveling takes into account lot size data that is defined in the master data, that is, it takes into account fixed lot sizes, maximum lot sizes, and minimum lot sizes. The system does not take period lot sizes or lot sizes from production process models (PPMs) or production data structures (PDS) into account.
The capacity leveling method that you choose governs the way in which the system takes into account lot sizes. If you choose heuristic-based capacity leveling, the system uses the same rules as for the SNP heuristic when taking lot sizes into account; if you choose optimization-based capacity leveling, the system uses the same rules as for the SNP optimizer.
Capacity leveling takes into account the rounding value defined in the location product master. The system does not consider the SNP rounding profile.
Capacity leveling does not take into account the target days’ supply defined in the location product master.
Capacity leveling (like SNP in general) does not support local time zones for transportation resources (which means you can only use the UTC time zone).
Capacity leveling ignores the minimum available capacity of a resource.
The following details are specific to optimization-based capacity leveling:
The optimizer does not support transportation lanes that have different source locations but the same destination location.
The optimizer does not support cyclical transportation lanes.
PPM or PDS sequences, where the output products of one PPM or PDS are also used as the input products of another and only the last PPM or PDS of this sequence is run (with procurement indicator P), are not valid if the resource that is to be leveled is being used in at least two of the PPMs or PDS involved.
PPMs or PDS, in which the output product is completed in an activity other than the last activity, are not valid (this applies to SNP optimization in general).
Capacity Leveling Profile
Definition
Profile, with which you can specify parameters for controlling capacity leveling in Supply Network Planning (SNP).Parameters include scheduling direction, leveling method, and consideration of priorities. You can enter the profile when you run capacity leveling in the background and in interactive planning.
Structure
Capacity Leveling Method
You can choose one of the following three leveling methods:
Heuristic: The heuristic processes the individual orders on a period basis. That means, when a resource is overloaded, the system moves order quantities into subsequent or previous periods depending on the direction of scheduling (forward or backward) until the desired maximum load for the resource is reached. The total order quantities in the planning horizon are not changed. In contrast to the optimizer, the heuristic does not always find optimal resource utilization results.
Optimizer: The optimizer considers the quantities per period; that is, not the individual orders. At the start of processing, it deletes all existing orders that are not fixed (based on the setting) and then creates new orders. As with the heuristic, the total order quantities in the planning horizon are not changed. You can achieve a more even utilization of resources than you can using the heuristic.
Optimization-based capacity leveling uses the SNP optimizer to level resources. However, in contrast to the SNP optimizer, the constraints and costs taken into account are defined automatically and cannot be influenced by the user. The costs are only used to control capacity leveling. They have no business significance.
BAdI: The Business Add-In /SAPAPO/SNP_CAP provides an interface that you can use to connect your own method to capacity leveling. You can choose it here once you have activated the BAdI.
For more information, see Comparison of the Capacity Leveling Methods and Heuristic-Based Capacity Leveling: Examples.
Scheduling Direction
You can define the direction in which the system executes capacity leveling; that is, the direction in which the system moves order quantities from the order availability date when a resource is overloaded.
The quantities are moved within the planning horizon. For the planning horizon, the system uses either the planning buckets profile defined in the planning book or the planning buckets profile you specified in the capacity leveling profile. You can also define the planning horizon in interactive Supply Network Planning by selecting the start and end time period or by entering a ‘from’ and ‘to’ date in the function for running capacity leveling in the background.
The options available are:
Forward scheduling: The order quantities are moved from the availability date into the future.
Backward scheduling: The order quantities are moved from the availability date into the past (until today's date at the latest, minus the defined horizons).
Combined forward and backward scheduling: The order quantities are moved both into the future and the past.
Prioritizing Orders
You can specify which orders are to be considered first during heuristic-based capacity leveling for a resource, meaning which orders will be the first to be moved to a different period. For instance, during forward scheduling, the orders are moved to a later period first and during backward scheduling, they are moved to an earlier period.
The options available are:
No priority: With this option, capacity leveling does not take into account any product or order priorities. We recommend that you use this setting if you want to have optimal resource utilization. Specifying a priority can have a negative effect on the capacity leveling results for optimal resource utilization.
Order size: With this option, capacity leveling takes into account orders according to their size. For example, you can specify that during backward scheduling, large orders are moved to the earlier periods first.
Product priority: With this option, capacity leveling takes into account the orders according to the priority specified for products in the location product master. For example, you can specify that, during forward scheduling, unimportant products are first moved to later periods.
You can also choose whether you want the priorities defined to be sorted in ascending or descending order.
Ascending: When you choose the Product Priority option, the capacity leveling function moves orders for highest priority products first (priority 1), then orders for second highest priority products (priority 2), and so on. When you choose the Order Size option, capacity leveling moves the small orders first.
Descending: When you choose the Product Priority option, the capacity leveling function moves orders for lowest priority products first (priority 255 or 0), then orders for second highest priority products (priority 254), and so on. When you choose the Order Size option, capacity leveling moves the large orders first.
You define the product priority on the SNP 2 tab page of the location product master. Optimization-based capacity leveling does not consider priorities.
Handling of fixed orders and order fixing during capacity leveling
You can specify that the system also levels fixed orders. This means that the system also moves, changes, and deletes orders that were fixed in earlier planning runs. Note that this can cause orders that were fixed for subsequent planning runs to be lost since, for example, optimization-based capacity leveling first deletes all existing orders and then creates new ones.
You can also specify that all orders for subsequent planning runs are to be fixed during capacity leveling; that is, they can no longer be edited after leveling.
Maximum Load and Maximum Runtime
You can specify the maximum load for a resource (as a percentage) that you want the system to take into account during capacity leveling. This value does not represent an absolute upper bound. Since the total quantity of all the orders that exist in the planning horizon has to remain the same, resource overloads might occur if the required capacity is not available.
You can also define the maximum runtime (in minutes) for capacity leveling. Once this runtime has been exceeded, the system terminates planning. The following details apply to the heuristic and optimizer capacity leveling methods:
Heuristic: The heuristic processes the orders on a period basis. Once the runtime has been exceeded, the system completely terminates processing for the current period. Solutions exist for the periods that had already been processed.
Optimizer: Since the optimizer attempts to determine an optimal solution, it might already have found a solution for the entire planning horizon; however, this solution might not represent the best possible solution.
For the planning results found before termination, refer to the log.
Consideration of Alternative Resources
Use
With capacity leveling in Supply Network Planning (SNP) you can not only level the resource load by moving orders to preceding or subsequent periods, but also transfer the orders to alternative resources. The system moves the orders to production process models (PPMs) or production data structures (PDS) that have been defined for the same location product but use different resources.
The system uses only the free capacity of the alternative resources and does not generate any new capacity overloads. It does not execute capacity leveling for the alternative resources and does not change any orders that already exist for these resources.
The sequence in which the system uses the PPMs or PDS with alternative resources is based on the procurement priority of the PPMs or PDS.
The system only considers alternative production resources, that is, it does not consider transportation resources.
Features
All three capacity leveling methods, that is, the heuristic, optimization, and the BAdI-based methods, consider alternative resources. The heuristic- and optimization-based methods have the following special features:
Heuristic-Based Capacity Leveling
If the system finds that a resource to be leveled is overloaded, it first partially or completely moves the orders causing the capacity overload to alternative PPMs or PDS in the same period. If the free capacity of the alternative resources is used up and yet there is still a capacity overload, the system moves the orders for the remaining quantities back to the original PPM/PDS. Then the system moves the orders to a previous or later period, depending on the selected scheduling. If there is another capacity overload, the system again determines alternative PPMs/PDS in this period.
The system moves remaining quantities that still exist after processing all periods of the planning horizon to the first or last period of the planning horizon. There they cause a capacity overload of the original resource. Whether the remaining quantities are moved to the first or to the last period depends on the scheduling direction selected.
Optimization-Based Capacity Leveling
The system considers the alternative resources according to the procurement priority of the PPMs or PDS. The system automatically converts this priority into costs, so that PPMs or PDS with higher priorities are considered first. The costs of the original resource are defined by the system as lower than the costs of the alternative resources, so that this resource always has the highest priority for the optimizer and so that the system uses it completely first.
Consideration of a Resource Hierarchy
If you use a resource hierarchy, you can set the level of this hierarchy at which the system considers alternative resources. For example, you can specify that the system considers only header resources or only subresources as follows:
Sublevel: You execute capacity leveling for subresources, for example, and specify a header resource during the selection of alternative resources. The system then only selects the subresources of this header resource as alternative resources. This allows you to restrict the consideration of alternative resources to a specific group of resources.
Header level: You execute capacity leveling for header resources, for example, and specify subresources during the selection of alternative resources. The system then only selects the header resources belonging to the subresources as alternative resources.
Note that the system does not consider any subresources of the resource to be leveled as alternative resources. If you define a header resource and its subresource as alternative resources at the same time, the system does not consider the header resource as an alternative resource.
You must have created the resource hierarchy based on a hierarchy structure that you have assigned to your planning area. There is already a standard resource hierarchy structure assigned to the standard planning area 9ASNP02. You must also have assigned the hierarchy to your supply chain model. For more information, see the SAP APO master data documentation under Hierarchy.
Activities
If you want capacity leveling to consider alternative resources, enter these resources on the screen for running capacity leveling in the background or in the dialog box for interactively running capacity leveling. First, set the Alternative Resources indicator. Then you will see the following options:
All Relevant Resources: The system automatically determines the resources that can be used.
Resource: Enter specific resources.
Selection Profile: Enter a selection profile you have created for resources.
Level of Source Determination: Select a source determination level if you want the system to consider a resource hierarchy.
If you select more than one resource for capacity leveling, the system considers the alternative resources for each resource to be leveled. The system automatically filters out the resources that are not related to the resource the system is leveling at the time. You can therefore select a resource as a resource to be leveled and as an alternative resource.
Note that the alternative PPMs or PDS cannot use the resources of the original PPMs or PDS. In this case, there is the danger that the system could generate cyclical capacity overloads of the original or alternative resources.
The alternative resources you have entered are displayed with the other parameters in the application log of capacity leveling. In addition, all the orders created by the system are listed for the alternative resources. The utilization of the alternative resources is displayed just like that of the original resources.
Comparison of the Capacity Leveling Methods
The following three maincapacity leveling methods are available in Supply Network Planning (SNP):
Heuristic-based capacity leveling
Optimization-based capacity leveling
Your own method connected using the Business Add-In /SAPAPO/SNP_CAP
Which method you should choose depends on the individual circumstances. However, the main features of the two methods provided by SAP are described below to assist you in deciding which to use.
Heuristic-Based Capacity Leveling
Features
Heuristic-based capacity leveling starts from the start or end of the planning horizon depending on the scheduling direction you chose (forward or backward), and compares the resource capacity load in each period with the required load that you defined. If the system detects a resource overload, it first selects all the activities or orders that are causing the overload in the period concerned. The system then sorts these orders according to the priority you specified and, in turn, moves orders or partial order quantities into later or earlier periods until the maximum resource capacity level has been achieved. During forward scheduling, the system moves the orders into the future so that the first activity that uses the resource to be leveled starts after the period with the overload. During backward scheduling, the system moves the orders into the past so that the final activity that uses the resource to be leveled is completed before the start of the period with the overload.
When moving orders, the system takes into account the lot size values and rounding values defined in master data (for information about constraints, see Consideration of Lot Sizes and Other Master Data).
Performance
The runtime of heuristic-based capacity leveling depends on the number of orders to be processed and the number of periods. Runtime is influenced by the following factors in particular:
Number of products at the resource
Ratio of the lot size to the total quantity
Extent of the resource overload
Choice of periods (day, week, month)
Length of the planning horizon
See also
Heuristic-Based Capacity Leveling: Examples
Optimization-Based Capacity Leveling
Features
Optimization-based capacity leveling uses the SNP optimizer to clear resource overloads. The system actions are as follows:
Der Optimierer ermittelt zunächst alle Produktionsprozessmodelle (...
...
1. The optimizer first determines all the production process models (PPMs) or production data structures (PDS) and transportation lanes that use the resource to be leveled. It then determines all the location products that belong to this master data plus the relevant master data and transaction data for these products.
2. The optimizer generates a special optimization problem for capacity leveling based on the data determined and the settings made by the user (scheduling direction, for instance). The optimizer automatically sets the costs that are taken into account for this problem (costs for storage, delay, or non-delivery for instance). It ignores any costs defined by the user. The costs are only used to control capacity leveling. They have no business significance.
3. The optimizer solves the optimization problem generated. To do this, it first deletes all orders and stock transfers for the resource to be leveled and then completely replans it. If alternative PPMs, PDS, or transportation lanes are available, it bases its selection on procurement priority, if possible.
The optimizer makes sure that the resource to be leveled is not overloaded and takes care not to move the planned orders and stock transfers too far beyond or prior to the original receipt due dates. It prefers to create receipts that are too early (resulting in the creation of stock on hand) rather than too late (resulting in the creation of shortfall quantities), if possible.
4. The optimizer creates new orders and stock transfers. It then also creates the orders and stock transfers that it was initially unable to schedule due to the limited resource capacity. In backward scheduling, it creates the orders and stock transfers for the original receipt due date; in forward scheduling, it creates them in the last possible period of the planning horizon.
Performance
The following factors have a significant influence on the runtime of optimization-based capacity leveling:
The length of the planning horizon and the number of periods within it
The number of alternative transportation lanes and PPMs or PDS
The number of products for which there are planned orders or stock transfers
The following factors do not have a significant influence on the runtime of optimization-based capacity leveling:
The number of planned orders or stock transfers for a product within a period
Lot sizes
Extent of the resource overload
Comparison of the Methods
The features of the two methods are compared in the following table:
Heuristic
Optimizer
Type of processing
Order-based processing:
Only orders that are moved are changed (liveCache, R/3)
This is beneficial if there are many orders but only a few that are overloading the resource
Period-based and quantity-based processing:
All existing orders are deleted and recreated after capacity leveling
Resource capacity level
Not always optimal in configurations such as that described in Heuristic-Based Capacity Leveling: Examples
Almost always optimal
Changes to plan
Few
Completely new plan
Priority rule observance
Order size
Product priority
(sorting in ascending or descending order)
No
Overloads moved during backward scheduling
Always
Only if there is sufficient capacity free in the target period
Location of receipt and issue
The receipt has to be within the planning horizon and outside of the SNP production horizon or stock transfer horizon.
The receipt and issue have to be within the planning horizon and outside of the SNP production or stock transfer horizon.
Bucket offset
Is ignored (see period factor)
The bucket offset for PPMs or PDS is always 1
The bucket offset for transportation lanes is always 1
Period factor
The period factor of the PPM/PDS or transportation lane is taken into account (if not defined, the period factor of the location product is taken into account)
Is ignored (see bucket offset)
Heuristic-Based Capacity Leveling: Examples
This topic includes a few examples of heuristic-based capacity leveling. The following parameters have been chosen for the examples:
Forward scheduling
Resource capacity level: 100%
Leveling method: Heuristic
No consideration of priorities
Example 1: Leveling the Capacity of a Production Resource
Step 1
An order for 24 pieces of product PROD1 is loading resource RES1. The product is available on day 3. The production process model (PPM) activities are loading the resource on day 1, 2, and 3. The PPM has the following activities:
Activity 1: Duration = 1 day, resource = RES1, variable bucket consumption = 1h
Activity 2: Duration = 1 day, resource = RES1, variable bucket consumption = 2h
Activity 3: Duration = 1 day, resource = RES1, variable bucket consumption = 2h, output product = PROD1, consumption = 1 PC
Step 2
Heuristic-based capacity leveling reduced the resource load on day 2 to 100% by reducing the quantity of the original order by 50% and creating a new order for the remaining 50% of the order quantity. Therefore, the system moved 50% of the original order into the future so its activities were outside of the period concerned (day 2).
Step 3
To level the resource load on day 3, the system moved the new order from day 5 to day 6.
Example 2: Leveling the Capacity of a Transportation Resource
Step 1
An order with a quantity of 30 pieces is to be transferred to a different location. The time of receipt at the destination location is day 3 at 12:00:00 h. The shipment duration is 24 h. Therefore, the activity loads the resource from day 2, 12:00:00 h until day 3, 12:00:00 h.
The following data was defined for the transportation lane:
Resource: TRES1
Shipment duration: 24 h
Resource consumption 1 PC = 10 TO
Step 2
Heuristic-based capacity leveling leveled the resource load on day 2 by moving 10 pieces to day 4.
Step 3
To level the resource load on day 3, the system moved another 10 pieces to day 5.
Procurement Scheduling Agreements in Heuristic-Based SNP
Purpose
Scheduling agreements are considered when procuring products as part of heuristic-based planning within Supply Network Planning. Scheduling agreements can help you to improve collaboration with your vendors or suppliers. Since they are better informed of demand times and demand quantities, you can reduce processing time. You can also include vendor-confirmed quantities within your planning as maximum vendor capacities.
The SNP heuristic takes into account procurement scheduling agreements that were created in an OLTP system and transferred to the SAP APO system through an appropriate interface (R/3 system: APO Core Interface, CIF), as possible sources of supply.
The SNP heuristic does not take into account scheduling agreements for the subcontracting form of procurement. Contracts are not included in SNP planning either (whereas purchasing info records are taken into account). In addition to this, scheduling agreements in SNP are only included in active model versions.
Prerequisites
You have configured the integration process for all the scheduling agreements and purchasing info records that are to be transferred to SAP APO. This means that you have entered all the data that is to be transferred in the CIF integration model for an SAP R/3 system. This master data is transferred to the SAP APO system in an initial data transfer. Any changes that are made to this master data in the OLTP system after this point are saved for the next change transfer. For more information, see Generating Integration Models.
You have made the relevant settings for APO scheduling agreements. For more information, see Prerequisites for the APO Scheduling Agreement.
You have released demands to Supply Network Planning in the form of a demand plan from Demand Planning (see Release of the Demand Plan to SNP).
You have made the general settings for running the SNP heuristic. For more information, see Running the Heuristic in the Background.
Process Flow
Process Options
There are four different scheduling agreement processing options to choose from. You configure these processes for APO scheduling agreements in the external procurement relationship (see below):
Process with Expected Confirmations,
Process Without Confirmations,
Process with Confirmations in Exceptional Cases
Process Without Releases
The example process described below is the Process with Expected Confirmations. The below list also applies, in the main, to the other options, Process Without Confirmations or Process with Confirmations in Exceptional Cases, except that scheduling agreement release creation in SAP APO automatically generates schedule lines in the OLTP system.
The Process Without Releases is a simplified version of the process described below. It is particularly suited to scenarios whereby the supplier uses collaborative supply planning to make confirmations over the Internet. It does not do step 4; that is, creation of scheduling agreement releases. With this process, the supplier sees only the schedule lines on the Internet and confirms these directly. Alternatively, the manufacturer can enter the confirmations in interactive Supply Network Planning.
The following prerequisites apply to this simplified process:
If you are using Global Available-To-Promise (Global ATP), you must set in Customizing for this application component that confirmations are ATP-relevant (choose Product Availability Check Maintain Check Control).
You should choose a confirmation profile with tolerance check, in order to be informed by alert about serious deviations between the required and confirmed quantities (in Customizing for supply chain planning, choose: Collaborative Procurement Procurement Scheduling Agreement Confirmation Receipt Maintain Confirmation Profiles for Confirmation Receipt).
For more information, see Prerequisites for the APO Scheduling Agreement.
Example Process (Process with Expected Confirmations)
An example of a scheduling agreement process from Supply Network Planning is given below. The process described is the Process with Expected Confirmations. This process refers to heuristic-based SNP planning, taking into account APO scheduling agreements.
The SNP heuristic also takes into account OLTP scheduling agreements. In contrast to the process described, when planning OLTP scheduling agreements, the SNP heuristic generates SNP stock transfers that reference OLTP scheduling agreements, which are then transferred automatically to the OLTP system through an interface. Scheduling agreement schedule lines and releases are generated in the OLTP system. However, it is possible to display these schedule lines and releases in interactive Supply Network Planning.
SNP Scheduling Agreement Processing Example
1. The SAP APO system generates external procurement relationships.
When you transfer scheduling agreements and purchasing info records from an OLTP system to SAP APO through an interface, this data is generated in the SAP APO system as external procurement relationships. Here, an external procurement relationship is created for each individual scheduling agreement item. An external procurement relationship is product-specific and assigned to a transportation lane. Transportation lanes are generated in SAP APO automatically when you transfer data from the OLTP system. This means that the external procurement relationship contains the contractual details of the relationship between a source location (supplier or supplying plant) and destination location (plant). You still have to assign a means of transport to the transportation lane.
For more information, see External Procurement Relationship.
2. In Supply Network Planning, you execute heuristic-based planning at location product level. The SNP heuristic takes into account the scheduling agreements transferred from the OLTP system as possible sources of supply. To do this, the system applies the normal source determination rules from the SNP heuristic, which means that it takes into account the scheduling agreements according to either procurement priority or quota arrangement, depending on specifications made.
You can first run the heuristic without capacities (infinitely), meaning that supplier capacity is not considered (to do this, choose No capacity on the initial screen for Supply Network Planning in the background). If you do this, you may want to include the supplier capacity in a later planning run after receiving confirmations for your scheduling agreement releases from the supplier (see step 5). However, even at this early stage, you also have the option of including the supplier capacity in your schedule, if the supplier has already informed you of these capacities (through collaborative supply planning, for example). Your supplier can enter the quantities he or she is capable of delivering in the Confirmation key figure in the 9ASAS planning book (choose SAP Easy Access Supply Network Planning Planning Collaborative Supply Planning). In the Capacity key figure, the supplier can also specify his or her entire capacity, which alternatively can be derived from the confirmation quantities (using macros, for instance). The supplier can also specify the capacity of transportation lanes for a scheduling agreement item, in order to restrict the capacity of means of transport.
If you have already received the appropriate capacity data from the supplier, specify the corresponding planning book and capacity key figures on the Supply Network Planning initial screen. For performance reasons, you should choose a planning book that only includes key figures that are actually required, if possible. You also choose whether you want to consider during planning the capacity specified for the transportation lanes of a scheduling agreement item, or the capacity specified for the entire scheduling agreement item.
For more information, see Running the Heuristic in the Background.
3. During the planning run, the SNP heuristic generates schedule lines for the scheduling agreements being considered as supply sources. A schedule line is a partial quantity of the total scheduling agreement item quantity with associated delivery dates. Schedule lines, like the entire planning results, can be displayed in interactive planning (planning book 9ASA, choose the APO Easy Access menu Supply Network Planning Planning Scheduling Agreements (Procurement) Interactive Scheduling Agreements).
4. You manually (in the product view) or automatically (using the release creation profile) create scheduling agreement releases that you use to notify the supplier that he or she should deliver the products on the dates listed in the schedule lines. For more information, see Scheduling Agreement Release Creation .
5. The supplier notifies you of his or her capacities, using collaborative supply planning for instance (see step 2). Your supplier can display the schedule lines and scheduling agreement releases in the 9ASAS planning book and can specify the quantities he or she is capable of delivering in the Confirmation key figure. In the Capacity key figure, the supplier can also specify his or her entire capacity, which alternatively can be derived from the confirmation quantities (using macros, for instance). In interactive planning you also have the option of entering capacities that your supplier notified you about in an email (planning book 9ASA or 9ASAS).
The system automatically transfers the confirmations to the OLTP system as scheduling agreement schedule lines.
6. If the confirmation quantity is less than the release quantity, you can run SNP planning once more in the background to plan the demand quantities still to be fulfilled. With this planning, you can consider the capacity confirmed by the supplier (see step 5) as the maximum supplier capacity. Also enter the corresponding planning book and key figures, as described in step 2.
External Procurement Relationship
Definition
External procurement relationships belong to the master data in the Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO). They represent purchasing info records, contracts and scheduling agreements from your OLTP system (for example, an SAP R/3 system) in your SAP APO system and make available all the data necessary for the planning of product procurement.
External procurement relationships enable you to do the following:
Generate delivery schedule lines for a scheduling agreement item (APO scheduling agreement) directly within the SAP APO system
Generate purchase requisitions with reference to a purchasing info record, a contract, or a scheduling agreement item (OLTP scheduling agreement) in your OLTP system from within the SAP APO system
The external procurement relationship links the transportation lane with information from your OLTP system:
The transportation lane represents the business relationship between a source location (for example, a vendor) and a destination location (for example, a plant). This is created automatically in SAP APO when you have transferred data from the SAP R/3 system.
For more information, see
Transportation Lane
Automatic Creation of Transportation Lanes.
The external procurement relationship supplements the information about the transportation lane by creating a link to a specific contract that exists in your OLTP system for the source and destination locations.
External procurement relationships can exist for the following forms of procurement:
Standard
Subcontracting
Consignment
Stock transfer for stock transport scheduling agreements.
The product Steel bolt 01 can be procured by your Houston plant from the vendor Armstrong Co. The product is to be procured via a scheduling agreement that already exists in your R/3 system.
In your APO system, the link between the vendor Armstrong Co. (source location) and your Houston plant (destination location) for the product Steel bolt 01 is represented by a transportation lane. Furthermore, an external procurement relationship exists, creating a link between this transportation lane and the scheduling agreement in your SAP R/3 system.
Use
Up to Release 2.0B, the source determination process in SAP APO system only proposed vendors for external procurement.
As of Release 3.0A, the system can also propose purchasing info records and contract or scheduling agreement items in the source determination process if you are working with external procurement relationships in SAP APO.
You create an external procurement order in the product view and the system shows you all the possible sources of supply. If you choose a contract item at this point, a purchase requisition referencing this item is created in your OLTP system.
Structure
An external procurement relationship contains the following data:
General data
The General data includes information on the purchasing info record, contract, or scheduling agreement (for example, the procurement category, the logical system, the document number, the vendor and so on).
Settings
Under Settings, you can see the planned delivery time of a material and whether the external procurement relationship is active or inactive.
Planned delivery time
The planned delivery time is copied from the R/3 outline agreement. However, you can change it.
In the source determination process, the system uses the planned delivery time to calculate the scheduling of external procurement orders. If there is no entry in the external procurement relationship, or the entry is zero, the system uses the planned delivery time from the product master.
If you want the planned delivery time of zero from the external procurement relationship to be taken into account in source determination, you must also set the Take Into Account indicator.
Planned delivery times greater than zero are generally taken into account, even if the Take Into Account indicator has not been set.
For more information, see:
Source Determination in PP/DS
Checking the Earliest Availability Date
Deactivation of external procurement relationship
An external procurement relationship is usually deactivated if the purchasing info record, contract, or scheduling agreement is deleted in the OLTP system. If the external procurement relationship is inactive, it is no longer taken into account in the source determination process and no new transportation lanes can be created for it.
Data on the transportation lane
On the Assigned Transportation Lanes tab page, you can display data on the transportation lanes and maintain the priority. You can also block and unblock the assigned transportation lanes on this tab page.
Scheduling agreement data (only in the case of APO scheduling agreements)
You can display, and in some cases maintain, the following data on the Scheduling Agreement tab page:
Settings
Movement data
Delivery data
Partners (only in the case of APO scheduling agreements)
On the Partners tab page, you can specify:
The address (for example, postal address, e-mail address) to which scheduling agreement releases are to be sent
The medium (for example, fax, e-mail) via which scheduling agreement releases are to be output
Which partner role your vendor taken on (here: source location)
If you have not maintained an address here, the SA release will be sent to the address maintained in the master data for the source location. The medium and the partner role are then determined from the default values maintained in Customizing for Supply Chain Planning under Collaborative Procurement Set Message Triggers.
You can also call up additional information by clicking one of the following buttons:
Costs
This gives you more precise information on the product costs (for example, scale prices and their validity periods).
Release Creation Profile (only in the case of APO scheduling agreements)
This takes you to Customizing, where you can display the release creation profile.
SA releases (only in the case of APO scheduling agreements)
Here you can display the scheduling agreement releases that have already been generated for a scheduling agreement item.
PO history (only in the case of APO scheduling agreements)
Here you can view all the transactions and events that have been recorded for an item of a scheduling agreement (for example, receipts of goods and invoices).
Display last deliveries (only in the case of APO scheduling agreements)
Here you can display an overview of the last inbound deliveries against a scheduling agreement item. The inbound delivery data is transferred from the OLTP system to the APO system.
Accessible Functions
You can also branch to the following functions (Environment <...>):
Location
Product
Transportation Lane
Quota arrangement
Tolerance profile, checking procedures und confirmation profile for the receipt of confirmations (only in the case of APO scheduling agreements)
In Customizing, you can display the profiles and procedures for the receipt of confirmations.
Enter confirmations (only in the case of APO scheduling agreements)
You go to the function for entering confirmations.
Integration
The external procurement relationship is directly linked to the relevant transportation lane and provides additional information about it. From the external procurement relationship, you can also branch directly to the transportation lane in order to maintain relevant data.
If your OLTP system is an SAP R/3 system, you can transfer purchasing info records, contracts, and scheduling agreements (and changes to them) to your SAP APO system via the CIF.
For more information on external procurement relationships see Processing External Procurement Relationships.
Processing External Procurement Relationships
Use
The External Procurement Relationship function enables you to check (and, if necessary, adjust) data relating to your external procurement relationships.
External procurement relationships constitute master data in the Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO). They provide the SAP APO system with data from purchasing info records, contracts, and scheduling agreements for the purpose of planning materials procurement activities. In this way, you can not only reference a vendor from an external procurement order, you can also directly reference a specific item in an existing contract.
When you transfer purchasing info records, contracts, or scheduling agreements from your OLTP System to your SAP APO system via the Core Interface (CIF), external procurement relationships and the associated transportation lanes are automatically created in the SAP APO system for this data. In the process, a separate external procurement relationship is created for each contract item or scheduling agreement item.
See also:
External Procurement Relationship
Transportation Lane
Automatic Creation of Transportation Lanes
Integration
The external procurement relationship is directly linked to the relevant transportation lane and provides it with data from the purchasing info record, contract, and scheduling agreement. From the external procurement relationship, you can also branch directly to the transportation lane in order to maintain transportation lane data.
If your OLTP system is an SAP R/3 system, you can transfer purchasing info records, contracts, and scheduling agreements (and changes to them) to your SAP APO system via the CIF.
Prerequisites
Before you can work with external procurement relationships in SAP APO, you must transfer the following data to it from your OLTP system via the CIF:
Plants
Material master records
Vendor master records
Purchasing info records
Scheduling agreements
Contracts
In SAP APO, you can work with the forms of procurement Standard, Subcontracting, and Consignment. For scheduling agreements, you can also use the form of procurement Stock Transfer .
Transferring master data for the first time
...
1. Create an integration model in your OLTP system, in which you specify which data is to be transferred to the SAP APO system (transaction CIF; Integration Model Generate Create).
2. Then activate the integration model (Integration Model Activate).
Transferring changed master data
If purchasing document or master data has changed, you can carry out a transfer of the changed data.
To do this, choose Change Transfer Master Data in the transaction CIF Integration Model and select the Sources indicator to transfer changes involving purchasing info records, contracts, and scheduling agreements.
The transfer of changes may result in data that you have changed in your SAP APO system being overwritten.
In your APO system, you have an external procurement relationship for item 10 of scheduling agreement no. 5500000001 from your OLTP system. In the APO system, you change the planned delivery time for this external procurement relationship from ‘5 days’ to ‘3 days’.
In the OLTP system, the original planned delivery time is then changed from ‘5 days’ to ‘6 days’. The changed planned delivery time is now transferred from the OLTP system to the APO system. The planned delivery time, which was 3 days in the SAP APO system, is overwritten by the planned delivery time, which was changed to ‘6 days’ in the OLTP system.
In an R/3 system, you can use contracts (Centrally Agreed Contracts) and purchasing info records on a cross-plant basis simply by not assigning any plants to them.
If you transfer such a centrally agreed contract or cross-plant purchasing info record to your APO system, an external procurement relationship will be created for each plant of the relevant purchasing organization that exists in your APO system.
For more information about CIF integration, see Integration of Master and Transaction Data.
Features
The External Procurement Relationship function enables you to display and change external procurement relationships that exist in the APO system and to restrict how they are used, by blocking the transportation lane, for example.
On the initial screen for this function you define which external procurement relationships are displayed. For example: all external procurement relationships for a destination location (for example, plant 0001), all those for a source location (vendor Meyer Corp.), or all those with a certain external procurement category (”contract”).
The external procurement relationships are displayed in an overview tree in the left-hand part of the screen, listed by external procurement category (purchasing info record, contract, OLTP scheduling agreement, APO scheduling agreement) and the logical system from which the data originates.
If you choose an external procurement relationship from the overview tree, the following data will be displayed in the right-hand part of the screen:
General information on the external procurement relationship (such as the source and target location, the product, and the validity of the external procurement relationship)
Status of the external procurement relationship (active or inactive)
Associated transportation lanes
Scheduling agreement data, for example, the release creation profile (only in the case of APO scheduling agreements)
Changing an External Procurement Relationship
Only the certain data in an external procurement relationship can be changed:
Change planned delivery time
Activate, deactivate, and delete external procurement relationship
Change transportation lane (Environment Transportation Lane Maintain)
Create new transportation lane (Environment Transportation Lane Create)
You can process a transportation lane in an external procurement relationship as follows:
Change priority
Block transportation lane
If you block an external procurement relationship then it can no longer be selected in the source determination process.
If the external procurement relationship contains a reference to an APO scheduling agreement, you can also maintain the following data:
Release creation profile
The release creation profile for the scheduling agreement is not transferred from the OLTP system. You must create a separate release creation profile in the APO system and assign it to the external procurement relationship. You define the release creation profile in Customizing for Supply Chain Planning under Collaborative Procurement Maintain Release Creation Profile.
Confirmation profile
You define the confirmation profile in Customizing for Supply Chain Planning under Collaborative Procurement Maintain Release Confirmation Profiles.
Process
Here you can specify how confirmations are to be integrated in the scheduling agreement process.
Update liveCache
When an external procurement relationship is created, the field Update liveCache is automatically filled with the value 10 – At time of release creation.
Scheduling agreement with forecast
You use this indicator to specify whether forecast/planning delivery schedules are to be generated in addition to operative schedules. In the standard system, this indicator is not preset when an external procurement relationship is created.
If you want to work principally with forecast/planning delivery schedules, you can specify that the indicator is automatically preset when an external procurement relationship is created by using the Business Add-In (BAdI) /SAPAPO/PWB_TPSRC_IN. Using this BAdI, you can also influence other data of the external procurement relationship or transportation lane.
You can also specify in the release creation profile whether forecast/planning delivery schedules are to be generated in addition to operative schedules. For this reason, the settings in the release creation profile and the Scheduling Agreement with Forecast field must be harmonized.
Internet release
You can use this indicator to specify whether or not the scheduling agreement release is an Internet Release and whether it has to be acknowledged by the vendor.
Address data
Address data is not transferred from the OLTP system. If you do not maintain any address data on the Partners tab page, the address data of the source location is used.
Use the button to maintain your own address data for an external procurement relationship.
You can only influence other data by changing it in the OLTP system (for example, a change to the scheduling agreement).
Deactivating an External Procurement Relationship
If a purchasing info record, a contract, or a scheduling agreement is deleted in your OLTP system, the relevant external procurement relationship is deactivated in the SAP APO system.
This procurement alternative can no longer be used in the source determination process. The log for the source determination process draws your attention to the fact that the relevant procurement alternative has been deactivated.
Furthermore, no new transportation lanes can be created for deactivated external procurement relationships.
Deleting an External Procurement Relationship
If you no longer need an external procurement relationship in the APO system, you can delete it.
In order for you to be able to do this, the external procurement relationship must have been deactivated. Furthermore, no external procurement orders or quota arrangements may exist in the SAP APO system for this external procurement relationship.
You can delete external procurement relationships as follows:
In the external procurement relationship
Display the relevant external procurement relationship (Master Data Procurement Master Data Procurement Relationships) and choose .
Using the report Delete Procurement Relationships
Choose Master Data Procurement Master Data Delete Procurement Relationships and select the external procurement relationships that you want to delete. Choose Delete. All external procurement relationships marked with are deleted.
Mass Maintenance
You can use mass maintenance to change data that can also be changed in master data maintenance.
See Mass Maintenance of Procurement Relationships
Procurement Scheduling Agreement (SCM-APO-CPR-SCH)
Definition
Outline Agreement against which materials are procured at predefined points in time over a certain period.
Structure
A scheduling agreement consists of a number of items, for each of which a certain form of procurement is defined. The following forms of procurement exist:
Standard
Consignment
Stock transfer
Subcontracting
Procurement scheduling agreements with account assignment can also be planned in SAP APO. (See APO Scheduling Agreements with Account Assignment)
In the schedule lines, the total quantity of the material specified in the scheduling agreement item can be split up into different quantities with delivery dates/times.
You send scheduling agreement (SA) releases (specific types of delivery schedule) to the vendor, which inform the vendor of the quantities you want and when they should be delivered. (See Creating Scheduling Agreement Releases and Outputting Scheduling Agreement Releases)
In the Release Creation Profile you can define the conditions under which releases are generated against a scheduling agreement. You assign a release creation profile to a scheduling agreement item in the external procurement relationship. See also Release Creation Profile (APO Scheduling Agreement)
You can display the releases transmitted to a vendor at any time. (See also Processing Scheduling Agreement Releases)
Scheduling agreements from the OLTP system (which is usually an SAP R/3 system) are represented in the SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer (SAP APO) by “external procurement relationships”.
The OLTP system can be an SAP R/3 system or another system. The following processes and functions relate to the use of an SAP R/3 system with an SAP APO system. For this reason the following section refers to an SAP R/3 system, rather than an OLTP system.
External procurement relationships belong to the Master Data in SAP APO. They represent Purchasing Info Records, Contracts and Scheduling Agreements from your SAP R/3 system in your SAP APO system and make available all the data necessary for material procurement planning. (See also External Procurement Relationship)
In SAP APO, a distinction is made between two forms of scheduling agreement:
OLTP Scheduling Agreement
The delivery schedule lines for and releases against OLTP scheduling agreements are generated in the OLTP system. You specify this in the additional data for the scheduling agreement item by choosing the setting Generate and output SA release in R/3 for the External Planning indicator.
The OLTP scheduling agreement in the SAP R/3 system is usually a scheduling agreement with the document type LPA, for which the Release Docu. indicator has been set under Scheduling Agreement Define Document Types in Customizing for Purchasing.
For more information see Procurement Using an OLTP Scheduling Agreement and Prerequisites for the OLTP Scheduling Agreement.
APO Scheduling Agreement
The schedule lines and releases for APO scheduling agreements are generated in the SAP APO system. You specify this in the additional data for the scheduling agreement item by choosing the setting Generate and output SA release in APO for the External Planning indicator.
As a rule, the APO scheduling agreement in the SAP R/3 system is a scheduling agreement with the document type LP.
For more information see Procurement Using an APO Scheduling Agreement and Prerequisites for the APO Scheduling Agreement.
You should note that you must not have any items with different External Planning settings in a scheduling agreement because this leads to problems in the message determination process. In other words, all items of a scheduling agreement must be planned either in the SAP APO system or in the OLTP system.
Prerequisites for the APO Scheduling Agreement
If you use APO scheduling agreements (with planning and release creation in the SAP APO system) then you should ensure that the following prerequisites are met in the SAP R/3 system and SAP APO system:
SAP APO System
APO Scheduling Agreement
You must transfer your procurement scheduling agreements to the SAP APO system. You can transfer the procurement scheduling agreements from the SAP R/3 system to the SAP APO system over the Core Interface (CIF). (See SAP R/3 System)
Procurement scheduling agreements are created as external procurement relationships in the SAP APO system.
In the external procurement relationship you must:
Reassign the release creation profile (release creation profile)
Select which schedule types (operative delivery schedules and forecast/planning delivery schedules) you want to use (Scheduling Agreement with Forecast)
If you want to work mainly with forecast/planning delivery schedules then you can use the Business Add-In (BAdI) /SAPAPO/PWB_TPSRC_IN to define that the indicator is automatically selected when the external procurement relationship is created. Using this BAdI you can also influence other data relating to the external procurement relationship or the transportation lane.
Define at what time the schedule lines should be transferred to the SAP R/3 system (update liveCache)
Define whether you want to send Internet releases (Internet release)
Define whether you want to receive confirmations from your vendors (Process)
Assign the confirmation profile (Confirmation profile).
Customizing – General Settings
In Customizing for Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO), set external procurement for the destination location (for example, the plant) in the Publ.Type field under Basis Settings Integration Publication Maintain Distribution Definition.
Authorizations
You can use the authorization object C_APO_EXPR to define which activities a user is allowed to carry out. For example, you can control whether a user can create releases, enter confirmations, or change master data.
Maintaining the Release Creation Profile
Define the release creation profile in Customizing for Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO), under Supply Chain Planning Collaborative Procurement Procurement Scheduling Agreement Maintain Release Creation Profile.
For example, you can define that schedule lines that lie in the past and have already been sent to the vendor are totaled and displayed as backlog in the operative delivery schedule. (Backlog is only transmitted in the operative delivery schedule).
You can also define whether the requirements date sent is the pickup date or the delivery date.
You then assign this release creation profile in the external procurement relationship to the scheduling agreement item on the Scheduling Agreement tab page.
If you have maintained tolerances for the release creation in the release creation profile, then these are only taken into account if you use a constant planning calendar (for example, without weekends).
See also Release Creation Profile (APO Scheduling Agreement)
Stopping and Releasing Scheduling Agreement Releases
If you want to stop scheduling agreement releases, you must define the relevant criteria in Customizing for Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO) under Supply Chain Planning Collaborative Procurement Procurement Scheduling Agreement Maintain SA Release Creation Profile on the Dynamic Stopping tab page.
The SAP APO system can only stop releases against APO scheduling agreements, because in the SAP APO system, releases are generated against this type of scheduling agreement only.
The SAP APO system can only stop SA releases generated by the release creation program (transaction /SAPAPO/PWBSCH1).
SA releases generated manually in the product view are not stopped.
You can release stopped SA releases in the function for processing SA releases.
If you are using an SAP R/3 system (Automotive), you can also stop releases against OLTP scheduling agreements.
You can specify whether an SA release is to be stopped either in the additional data for the SA item (static stopping, that is, always), or in the SA release creation profile (dynamic stopping, that is, on the basis of certain criteria). You can specify this for each release type.
For more information see the SAP Library for SAP for Discrete Industries under SAP for Automotive Scheduling Agreement Automotive: Enhancements for Scheduling Agreement Releases (FRC or JIT Delivery Schedules) Stopping and Releasing SA Releases.
See also Stopping and Releasing SA Releases
Settings for Scheduling Agreement Releases Output (SAP APO System)
You must define the output of scheduling agreement releases in the SAP APO system.
For more information on the settings for outputting scheduling agreement releases, see Setting Message Actions (Scheduling Agreement Release).
Inbound Delivery
If an inbound delivery is registered during parking with multi-level automotive goods receipt, it is given the status In Plant. This status is transferred from the SAP R/3 system to the SAP APO system over the APO Core Interface (APO-CIF) at the same time as the inbound delivery.
The system can take inbound deliveries with this status into account as category IW when calculating the days’ supply or the receipt days’ supply.
Make the necessary settings in Customizing for Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO), under Supply Chain Planning Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling (PP/DS) Product Planning Table Define Days’ Supply Types.
Display Last Deliveries
If you want to use this function, you must:
In the R/3 system
Assign a confirmation control key with the internal confirmation category 2 (inbound delivery) to the APO scheduling agreement.
Transfer the data on the deliveries from the OLTP system to the APO system over the CIF.
To do so, set the POs/Requisitions indicator in the integration model of your OLTP system.
This means that the last deliveries are displayed in the external procurement relationship.
In the SAP APO system
Make the relevant settings on the Last Deliveries tab page in the release creation profile of the APO scheduling agreement.
This means that the last deliveries are determined when release creation takes place and sent to the vendor in the release.
The last deliveries are transferred from the SAP R/3 system to the SAP APO system over the CIF when inbound deliveries are created or changed and when goods movements take place and they are displayed in the external procurement relationship.
See also Inbound Delivery, Goods Receipt and Invoice/Credit Memo
Settings for Confirmation Receipt (CMDS)
If you receive confirmations from vendors within Collaborative Management of Delivery Schedules, then you must make settings for the process with confirmations for the relevant scheduling agreement item in the external procurement relationship.
For confirmations that you receive for SA releases, you can define in Customizing for Supply Chain Planning how incoming confirmations are checked, or under which conditions an alert is generated upon receipt of a confirmation.
The confirmation profiles (or procedures) delivered in the standard system control whether, upon receipt of a confirmation:
An alert is always generated (no tolerance check).
If you only receive confirmations in exceptional cases then you should use the confirmation profile (Alert Always with Conf. Receipt), so that an alert informs you of every incoming confirmation.
The current confirmation is compared with the last confirmation (tolerance check).
The current confirmation is compared with the operative delivery schedule (tolerance check).
For the process with confirmation you must make the following settings in Customizing for Supply Chain Planning under Collaborative Procurement Confirmation Receipt:
...
...
1. Define checking procedures
2. Define tolerance profiles
In the tolerance profile you can set an individual or a totals check.
Individual Check
If you want an individual check of quantity and date pairs then you can either choose either an exact-to-the-day or to-the-second check. Select Check Time Stamp.
In this way you can define a more exact check for the near future and a more approximate check for the distant future.
Totals Check
If you want to carry out the totals check for periods in your planning calendar then you must create a planning calendar in Customizing for Advanced Planning and Optimization under Master Data Calendar Maintain Planning Calendar (Time Stream), and assign this planning calendar to the tolerance profile.
3. Define confirmation profiles
4. Assign the confirmation profile to the required item in a procurement scheduling agreement in the external procurement relationship. (Master Data Procurement Master Data External Procurement Relationship).
See also: Collaborative Management of Procurement and Sales Scheduling Agreements
Receiving Confirmations
Alert Monitor for the Procurement Scheduling Agreement
Migration of Procurement Scheduling Agreements
For more information, see the SAP Note 658691.
SAP R/3 System
Document Type of Scheduling Agreement
As a rule, the APO scheduling agreement in the SAP R/3 system is a scheduling agreement with the document type LP or a scheduling agreement without release documentation.
If you use scheduling agreements of the document type LPA without confirmation control key then no default quantities can be determined from the release upon goods receipt.
If you use scheduling agreements of the document type LPA with confirmation control key then the default quantities from the confirmation (shipping notification) are used.
As a rule, the OLTP scheduling agreement in the SAP R/3 System is a scheduling agreement with the document type LPA.
Material Master
You should assign the MPR type X0 (W/o MRP with BOM Explosion) to the materials used. You do this in the material master, on the MRP 1 tab page.
Release Creation
The schedule lines and releases for APO scheduling agreements are generated in the SAP APO system. You specify this in the additional data for the scheduling agreement item by choosing the setting Generate and output SA release in APO for the External Planning indicator.
Note that you must not have any items with different External Planning settings in a scheduling agreement because this leads to problems in the message determination process. In other words, all items of a scheduling agreement must be planned either in the SAP APO system or in the OLTP system.
If delivery schedule lines already exist for an SA item, the setting for the External Planning indicator can no longer be changed.
Create and Activate Integration Model
Create an integration model that contains material masters, plants, delivery schedule items, vendors, stocks and purchase orders/requisitions (for transferring the release schedule lines or shipping notifications/inbound deliveries).
Activate the model.
In the SAP R/3 system, choose Logistics Central Functions Supply Chain Planning Interface Core Interface Advanced Planner and Optimizer Integration Model Generate.
Change Transfer
A change transfer only takes place for certain data, for example for External Planning (APOMS) or Deletion Indicator (LOEKZ) that are defined as change-relevant fields for the message type CIFSRC (APO CIF: Change Documents for Sources of Supply).
For a change transfer in SAP R/3, choose Logistics Central Functions Supply Chain Planning Interface Core Interface Advanced Planner and Optimizer Integration Model Change Transfer Master Data.
If you want to transfer additional fields to SAP APO then you must add these fields to the change-relevant fields. For example, you can add the vendor material, that is used when confirmation are received to determine the relevant scheduling agreement.
Choose Tools ALE ALE Development IDoc Engineering Change Management Define Change-Relevant Fields, to add fields.
For more information about change transfers see Distribute Master Data Using the Shared Master Data Tool.
Customer-Specific Enhancements and BAdIs
As of SAP R/3 Release 4.6C with Plug-In PI 2001.2, the following enhancements are available:
SAP APO SAP R/3
CIFPUR02 (Enhancement Purchase Order Interface (Inbound),
To change purchase order data from the SAP APO System before a purchase requisition, scheduling agreement schedule line or a purchase order is created in the OLTP system.
EXIT_SAPLCPUR_001 Customer Exit Receiver Module for APO Purchase Order Documents (Inbound),
To change scheduling agreement schedule lines for example.
SAP R/3 SAP APO
CIFPUR01 Enhancement for the Transmission of Customer-specific Purchase Order Fields (SAP R/3 SAP APO)
EXIT_SAPLMEAP_001 – Customer Exit for Selecting Customer-Specific Purchasing Data, to control which scheduling agreement, contract and purchasing info record data you send from your SAP R/3 system to your SAP APO system.
CIFSRC01 (Enhancement for the Transmission of Customer-specific Fields, Sources of Supply)
To control which data for scheduling agreements, contracts and purchasing info records are sent from the OLTP system to the SAP APO system.
EXIT_SAPLCSRS_002 Customer-Exit for Selection of customer-specific scheduling agreement data
EXIT_SAPLCSRS_004 Customer-Exit for customer-specific selection of vendor/plant location
SAP APO
MMPUR Enhancements
EXIT_/SAPAPO/SAPLMMPURREL_004, to change release header and schedule lines when the release is created in the SAP APO system.
EXIT_/SAPAPO/SAPLMMPURREL_005, to change the IDoc data that is generated when release output takes place.
For more information about Business Add-Ins see Business Add-Ins for External Procurement.
For more information on the CIF, see the SAP Library for Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO) under Integration of SAP APO and SAP R/3.
Scheduling Agreement Release Creation
Use
In the SAP APO system, scheduling agreement (SA) releases take the form of operative and forecast/planning delivery schedules.
You can use this function to create operative delivery schedules or forecast/planning delivery schedules against APO scheduling agreements.
SA releases against OLTP scheduling agreements (that is, forecast and JIT delivery schedules) are created in the OLTP system.
You use the release creation profile (APO scheduling agreement) to define the conditions under which releases issued against a scheduling agreement item are generated. You assign a release creation profile to an item of a scheduling agreement in the external procurement relationship.
You can also set in the external procurement relationship whether the operative delivery schedule, that is its schedule lines, is transferred to the SAP R/3 system when the release is created or when it is output in the SAP APO system. You define this in the update liveCache field (10 – At Time of Generation of Operative Delivery Schedule, 40 – At Time of Output of Operative Delivery Schedule).
Integration
If you use Internet releases, then your vendors can display and acknowledge these releases in the Supplier Workplace, which your vendors can access over the Internet.
To make this possible, you must select Internet Rel. in the external procurement relationship and set the update of the liveCache there accordingly (70 – At Time of Confirmation of Operative Delivery Schedule in SWP). You make these settings to define at what time the schedule lines are transferred to the connected OLTP system (generally an SAP R/3 system).
In this case, the schedule lines are only transferred to the SAP R/3 system when the vendor acknowledges the release in the Supplier Workplace.
For further information on the Supplier Workplace see the SAP Library for Materials Management (MM) under Supplier Workplace.
For Internet releases, no actions are generated at the time that the release is created.
For more information see Procurement Using an APO Scheduling Agreement.
Prerequisites
In the release creation profile, which you maintain in Customizing for Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO) under Supply Chain Planning Collaborative Procurement, you can specify when and how often SA releases are to be generated.
If you create a release using the release creation report (/SAPAPO/PWB_RELEASE_CREATE), the system determines the date of the next release creation (provided that you have defined a planning calendar in the release creation profile).
We recommend that you choose a suitable date for the periods when maintaining the planning calendar, because the system only creates releases during release creation if the next creation date lies before 12:00 on the same day.
For example, in the external procurement relationships, 26.04. 14:00 has been defined as the next release date.
You execute the release creation report at 18:00.
The system does not create a release for this external procurement relationship because the time for the creation of releases is after 12:00.
The release creation report does not create the release for this external procurement relationships until the next day.
For more information see Prerequisites for the APO Scheduling Agreement and Release Creation Profile (APO Scheduling Agreement).
Features
Scheduling Agreement Release Creation
You can create operative and forecast/planning delivery schedules. In addition, you can first carry out a test run to see which SA releases would be created.
You can display a detailed log listing all the relevant scheduling agreement items.
An SA release can be stopped if it differs from the last-transmitted release to such a large extent that the tolerance check reveals a major change in the overall delivery schedule situation that is outside the specified tolerances.
See also Stopping and Releasing SA Releases
In addition to the delivery schedule lines, the SA release you transmit to your vendor can also include up to nine of the most recent deliveries received for a scheduling agreement item.
You can specify whether and how many of the last deliveries are to be shown in an SA release in the release creation profile under Collaborative Procurement in Customizing for Supply Chain Planning.
Scheduling Agreement Releases in the Product View and the Product Planning Table
In the product view, on the Periods tab page, or in the product planning table, you can also create SA releases for selected delivery schedule lines.
If you enter or change a requirement in the product planning table, choose ENTER. The system issues a message advising you that the order or schedule line was created successfully or (if applicable) with a delay.
To generate scheduling agreement releases you must carry out the following steps:
1. Select the chosen item (SchLne) and choose .
2. In the context menu, choose Create Operative Delivery Schedule or Create Forecast/Plng Schedule.
You can also display existing SA releases from the menu.
1. To save, choose .
Operative delivery schedules are displayed as new orders with the category SAg Rel. Forecast/planning delivery schedules, that is long-term requirements (fixed) that are transmitted to the vendor and are not delivery-relevant, are not displayed.
The new data completely replaces the last transmitted data in the liveCache. In the SAP APO system, only the operative delivery schedules are needed in the liveCache: forecast/planning schedules are not needed.
The liveCache contains the following categories: SchLne, SAg Rel., and PO memo (shipping notification).
The database contains additional data on operative delivery schedules, forecast/planning schedules, and acknowledgments.
See Processing APO Scheduling Agreements in the Product Planning Table and Product View
The purchase order (PO) history contains information on goods and invoices received. Since there should be no superfluous PO history in the SAP APO system (that is data that is already present in the SAP R/3 system), the data is newly imported from the SAP R/3 system by Remote Function Call (RFC) each time it is needed.
You can notify your vendor of up to nine last deliveries in an SA release. The SAP APO system determines the last deliveries relating to the relevant SA item at the time of release creation and includes them in the SA release output.
This provides the vendor with more exact information about which deliveries you have already received at the time of release creation (that is, which data the SA release is based on).
See also Inbound Delivery, Goods Receipt and Invoice/Credit Memo
Activities
From the menu, choose Supply Chain Collaboration Collaborative Procurement Scheduling Agreement Releases Create Releases.
Enter the necessary data (for example, location and product) and choose .
A window appears, showing you:
How many scheduling agreement items have been selected.
How many operative and/or forecast/planning delivery schedules have been created.
If you are using a detailed log, the system will show which scheduling agreement, which location, which product, and which item were taken into account in the SA release creation process.
For more information on outputting scheduling agreement releases and how you can process previously created/outputted releases, see Outputting Scheduling Agreement Releases and Processing Scheduling Agreement Releases.
Display, Output and Acknowledge SA Releases
Use
You can use this function to display or output scheduling agreement (SA) releases that have already been created, or to acknowledge them yourself over the Internet.
You can simultaneously display the SA releases (operative and forecast/planning delivery schedules) that have been created against several scheduling agreements.
You can use the following functions:
Compare releases
Display last deliveries
Display action log for an SA release
Display product planning table
Display source of supply
Release stopped SA releases
Output SA releases
Acknowledge Internet releases yourself
With this function, you can only process SA releases against APO scheduling agreements. SA releases against OLTP scheduling agreements are processed in the OLTP system.
You can also view confirmations; however, you cannot process them.
Prerequisites
For more information on the prerequisites, see Prerequisites for the APO Scheduling Agreement.
Features
The following functions are available for processing SA releases:
Compare releases
To compare two SA releases, select them and then choose (Compare Releases).
In the window that appears, you see a comparison of the release quantities, the open quantities, and the cumulative quantities.
You can use the graphical display function ( Graphic) to compare more than two SA releases with each other.
Display last deliveries
Choose (Last Deliveries) to display the last deliveries for an SA release. The last deliveries are included in the SA release transmitted to the vendor.
Display action log for an SA release
Choose (Action Log of a Release) to view the processing steps carried out for an SA release to date (for example, stopped, released).
Display product planning table
Choose (Display Product Planning Table) to branch directly to the product planning table.
Display source of supply
Choose (Display Source of Supply) to display the external procurement relationship for an SA release.
Release stopped SA releases
Choose (Release Stopped Releases) to release stopped SA releases or stopped Internet releases.
For more information on stopped SA releases, see Stopping and Releasing SA Releases.
Output SA releases
Choose (Issue Releases) to output (print, transmit) an SA release directly.
Acknowledge Internet releases yourself
Choose (Acknowledge Internet Release) to acknowledge Internet releases yourself.
See Acknowledging Internet Release
Activities
1. Choose Supply Chain Collaboration Collaborative Procurement Scheduling Agreement Releases Process Scheduling Agreement Releases.
In the product view and product planning table, you can display and process the transmitted SA releases for the external procurement relationship per scheduling agreement item. Choose to process scheduling agreement releases.
You can display and process releases against a scheduling agreement from within the external procurement relationship. Choose SA releases.
2. Enter the necessary data (for example, product and location) and choose .
3. The system displays a list showing all the scheduling agreements that meet your selection criteria, and the SA releases that relate to them.
This list includes the following data:
The quantity (the release quantity) that was notified to the vendor as open
The open quantity – that is, the open schedule line quantity less the quantity already confirmed (notified) that is still in transit
The CRQ (Cumulative Received Quantity)
The cumulative released quantity (total of the quantities of an item procured - that is, released - against a scheduling agreement)
The cumulative (total) requested quantity of an SA release
The time stamp of the scheduling agreement release
The status of the scheduling agreement release:
SA release was created but has not yet been transmitted
SA or Internet release was stopped
Stopped SA or Internet release has been released
SA release has already been transmitted
Vendor has acknowledged the Internet release
For more information, see Creating Scheduling Agreement Releases and Outputting Scheduling Agreement Releases.
Outputting Scheduling Agreement Releases
Use
The schedule lines in a scheduling agreement (SA) release inform the vendor of exact required delivery quantities and dates. The delivery schedule lines transmitted to the vendor in an SA release can be viewed at any time and you can trace their history (see Processing Scheduling Agreement Releases).
You can use this report program to send releases against APO scheduling agreements to the relevant source locations, (e.g. vendors) on a regular basis. You can transmit SA releases by e-mail, XML, or the Internet, or in hardcopy form and by fax.
In the SAP APO system, actions are generated for SA releases which you can then process (output). You use actions to control the creation and output of SA releases. (See also Setting Message Actions)
The Post Processing Framework (PPF) replaces message control (which has been used in SAP R/3 until now) and provides a standardized interface to any type of output medium. SAP Smart Forms are used for creating and maintaining forms for mass printing.
For more information, see the SAP Library for mySAP Technology Components under Post Processing Framework (PPF) and SAP Smart Forms (BC-SRV-SCR).
This function can only be used to output SA releases against APO scheduling agreements. SA releases against OLTP scheduling agreements are output in the OLTP system.
For more information, see the SAP Library for Purchasing (MM-PUR), under Vendor Outline Agreements (MM-PUR-OA) Scheduling Agreement.
Integration
Automotive / SAP for Discrete Industries
If you implement an SAP R/3 system (Automotive) then the unloading point stored in the additional data for the scheduling agreement is displayed as the Staging Area on the Scheduling Agreement tab page in the external procurement relationship.
If you want to copy the unloading point from the SAP R/3 system to the SAP APO system you must use the Customer-Exit CIFSRC01 (EXIT_SAPLCSRS_002 Customer Exit for Selecting Customer-Specific Scheduling Agreement Data).
SAP Enterprise Portals - Business Package for Automotive Suppliers
If you use Internet releases, then your vendors can view and acknowledge these releases in the Supplier Workplace (SWP), which your vendors can access over the Internet.
To make this possible, you must select Internet Rel. in the external procurement relationship and set the update of the liveCache there accordingly (70 – At Time of Confirmation of Operative Delivery Schedule in SWP). You make these settings to define at what time the schedule lines are transferred to the connected OLTP system (generally an SAP R/3 system).
In this case, the schedule lines are only transferred to the SAP R/3 system when the vendor acknowledges the release in the Supplier Workplace.
For more information about the Supplier Workplace, see the SAP Library for Discrete Industries under Supplier Workplace.
For Internet releases, no actions are generated at the time that the release is created.
For more information see Procurement Using an APO Scheduling Agreement.
Prerequisites
Maintaining the Release Creation Profile
You can maintain a release creation profile in Customizing for Advanced Planning and Optimization, under Supply Chain Planning Collaborative Procurement Procurement Scheduling Agreement Maintain Release Creation Profile. You can then assign it to an APO scheduling agreement in the relevant external procurement relationship.
For more information, see Release Creation Profile (APO-Scheduling Agreement).
Setting Messaging Actions
If you wish to output SA releases using this program, then Processing via selection report must be set as the dispatch time. (Supply Chain Planning Collaborative Procurement Procurement Scheduling Agreement Define Actions for the Output of Scheduling Agreement Releases.)
You can set in the external procurement relationship whether the operative delivery schedule, that is its schedule lines, are transferred to the SAP R/3 system when the release is created or output in the SAP APO system. You define this in the update liveCache field (10 – At Time of Generation of Operative Delivery Schedule, 40 – At Time of Output of Operative Delivery Schedule).
For more information on the prerequisites, see Prerequisites for the APO Scheduling Agreement and Setting Messaging Actions.
Features
This report processes actions for scheduling agreement releases selected according to the criteria entered.
Activities
1. Choose Supply Chain Collaboration Collaborative Procurement Scheduling Agreement Releases Issue Releases.
On the next screen, enter your selection criteria.
1. Select the desired scheduling agreements and choose .
A list of actions for SA releases appears.
There you see the status, indicating whether the action has been processed or not and if so, whether or not processing was successful.
The following statuses are possible:
Processed
This means that the SA release has already been output, but it can be output again.
Not yet processed
Incorrectly processed.
The application key you see in the list of actions is made up of the following:
Scheduling agreement number
Item number
Release type (operative delivery schedule or forecast/planning schedule; technical values 1, 2)
Release number
2. To output operative and forecast/planning delivery schedules, select the required actions for SA releases and choose .
You can also send actions for SA releases several times or choose another printer.
The SA release is sent to the address in the external procurement relationship. If no address is recorded there, it is sent to the address in the source location (address number in source location).
Further functions are available to you in the list:
Preview
If “printout” has been defined for the selected action for the SA release, you can view the print preview.
Processing log
The processing log is only available in the case of incorrectly processed actions for SA releases (status Incorrect).
During the output of actions for SA releases, the print-dependent data is updated. Print-dependent data is, for example, the data in the SA release such as the processing data (time stamp) or liveCache (if defined in the external procurement relationship).
When displaying scheduling agreements, you see from the status which SA releases have already been sent.
Stopping and Releasing Scheduling Agreement Releases
Use
In the case of materials subject to substantial fluctuation in requirements, or materials in the process of introduction or discontinuation, it may be necessary for the responsible production planner to take another look at the relevant SA releases before they are sent to the vendor.
This function enables you to create an SA release but, after doing so, initially withhold it from the message output process (XML, printout, EDI and so on) – that is, to stop it.
These stopped SA releases must then be released by the responsible production planner, in a separate step. Only once they have been releases is the SA release action generated.
Once you have released the stopped SA releases, you can output the actions generated as a result in the usual way (see Outputting Scheduling Agreement Releases).
Prerequisites
If you wish to use this function, you must make the relevant settings in Customizing for Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO) under Supply Chain Planning Collaborative Procurement Procurement Scheduling Agreement Maintain SA Release Creation Profile on the Dynamic Stopping tab page.
The SAP APO system can only stop SA or Internet releases against APO scheduling agreements, because in the SAP APO system, releases are generated against this type of scheduling agreement only.
The SAP APO system can only stop SA releases generated by the release creation program (transaction /SAPAPO/PWBSCH1).
SA releases generated manually in the product view are not stopped.
If you are using an SAP R/3 system (Automotive), you can also stop releases against OLTP scheduling agreements.
For more information, see the documentation for SAP for Automotive under Scheduling Agreement Automotive: Enhancements for Scheduling Agreement Releases (FRC or JIT Delivery Schedules) Stopping and Releasing SA Releases.
For more information on the prerequisites, see Prerequisites for the APO Scheduling Agreement.
Features
The SAP APO system can dynamically stop operative and forecast/planning delivery schedules generated by the SA release creation program.
Dynamic stopping means that an SA release is withheld from the message output process because it differs to such a large extent from the last-transmitted SA release that the tolerance check reveals a major change in the overall delivery schedule situation that is outside the accepted tolerances.
Activities
Stop SA Releases
To dynamically stop SA releases, you must maintain tolerance limits for dynamic stopping in the release creation profile.
You can also tell whether or not an SA release has been stopped from the Status column in the Process SA Releases function:
Shows that this SA release was stopped during the release creation process and still has the status Stopped.
Shows that this SA release was stopped during the release creation process but in the meantime has been released.
Release Stopped SA Releases
In the Process SA Releases function, you can display and release stopped SA releases. An SA release action is not generated until you release stopped SA releases. This must then be output in the usual way.
To release a stopped SA release, proceed as follows:
...
1. Choose Supply Chain Collaboration Collaborative Procurement Scheduling Agreement Releases Process Releases.
If you want to display only stopped SA releases then you can select releases according to their status.
To do so, enter 20 (SA release stopped), for example, in the Release Status field in the Object Characteristics (SA Releases Only) area.
2. Select the SA release you want to release and choose .
Release Creation Profile (APO Scheduling Agreement)
Use
The release creation profile is used to specify the following for operative and forecast/planning delivery schedules issued against APO scheduling agreements:
How the horizon of the scheduling agreement (SA) release (delivery schedule) is determined
How schedule lines from the past are handled in the SA releases
Which event triggers the release creation process (changes to schedule lines and/or the next transmission date being arrived at)
Whether a tolerance check is carried out for releases that are created due to changes
Whether and how many “last deliveries” the vendor is informed of in the SA release
That tolerances are to be checked and, if necessary, SA releases stopped in the event of changes in the overall delivery schedule situation.
The settings in the release creation profile can have the following effects for an external procurement relationship for a scheduling agreement item:
Your vendor receives operative delivery schedules on a weekly basis. Each schedule contains lines covering the next three weeks. In addition, the vendor receives a forecast/planning delivery schedule at the beginning of each month, which covers the following three months.
If the scheduling agreement schedule lines have changed significantly, updated SA releases can be sent to the vendor.
The release creation profile that you maintain in the APO system is only valid for APO scheduling agreements.
For releases against an OLTP scheduling agreement, which are created in the OLTP system, it is the release creation profile in the OLTP system that is applicable.
Prerequisites
For more information on the prerequisites, see Prerequisites for the APO Scheduling Agreement.
Features
You can define the following in the release creation profile:
Area
For each SA release type (operative or F/P schedule) you define:
Layout
Whether backlogs and immediate requirements should be determined
Whether schedule lines should be added together so that all schedule lines with a date in the past or present are added to the current day’s schedule line
Whether all schedule lines are issued just as they are maintained in the system
For which release horizon release quantities are displayed
Modes of creation
Whether (and if so, under which conditions) an SA release is created (creation strategy)
Tolerances
Whether a tolerance check is carried out for releases that are created due to changes In this way you can define that releases are only created when significant changes occur
Last Deliveries
Whether and how many “last deliveries” the vendor is informed of in the SA release
Dynamic stopping
Whether a tolerance check is to be carried out for an SA release and whether a release is to be stopped if it differs too greatly from the last release transmitted.
You assign the release creation profile to an external procurement relationship for an APO scheduling agreement and in this way you define how SA releases are generated for this SA item.
When scheduling agreement data is transferred from your OLTP system to the SAP APO system via the SAP APO Core Interface (CIF), the release creation profile is not included in the data transmitted. You must create a new release creation profile for APO scheduling agreements in your SAP APO system and assign it to the relevant SA item (of procurement category APO scheduling agreement) in the external procurement relationship.
If you wish to use forecast/planning (F/P) delivery schedules in addition to operative delivery schedules, you must specify this in the external procurement relationship (in the Scheduling Agreement with Forecast field on the Scheduling Agreement tab page).
The settings for F/P delivery schedules from the release creation profile are only taken into account in the SA release creation process if you have specified in the external procurement relationship that F/P delivery schedules are to be created.
You wish to provide your vendor not only with data on your concrete short-term product requirements (using operative delivery schedules) but also with data on your more tentative longer-term requirements (using forecast/planning delivery schedules). Therefore, you select the Scheduling Agreement with Forecast indicator for this item in the external procurement relationship.
Activities
You define the release creation profile in Customizing for Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO), under Supply Chain Planning Collaborative Procurement Procurement Scheduling Agreement Maintain Release Creation Profile.
You then assign this release creation profile to the external procurement relationship for the scheduling agreement item on the Scheduling Agreement tab page.
Direct Delivery from Production Plant
Purpose
If you deliver large quantities of a finished product to a specific customer (such as for promotions), it makes sense to deliver these quantities directly to the customer from the production plant, for example. Since the products do not have to go to a distribution center first, you can thus save transportation and storage costs.
For the heuristic-based planning in Supply Network Planning (SNP), you can specify that certain products are to be preferred for direct delivery. The system then uses the Transport Load Builder (TLB) to check which product quantities can be delivered directly by which means of transport. The system covers any remaining quantities using standard source determination.
In most cases, only a small percentage of the products to be planned can be considered for direct delivery (approximately 2-3%: for example, promotion products). For performance reasons, we recommend that you do not select a large number of products for direct delivery.
The process described is an example. Direct delivery is not limited to one location type, such as a production location or a customer location.
Prerequisites
● You have set the Direct Delivery indicator for the transportation lanes between the production locations and customer locations for which you want to specify a direct delivery. You set the indicator for a specific product in the product-specific section of the transportation lane. You can also set the indicator for a specific means of transport or for all means of transport.
● You have created at least one TLB profile for the TLB used in the process and have assigned the profile to the transportation lanes that you have flagged for direct delivery. You do this on the SAP Easy Access screen under Advanced Planning and Optimization Supply Network Planning Environment Current Settings Profiles Define Transport Load Builder (TLB) Profiles. You make the assignment in the TLB Profile field of the transportation lane for a specific means of transport. Note that the TLB will use this profile again if there is TLB planning at a later time. For more information, see TLB Profile.
If you want the TLB to combine the transport loads evenly or according to product, you can specify this in the Loading Method field of the transportation lane. The default value is Straight Loading.
The system does not consider any other TLB settings such as the pull-in horizon or the available-to-deploy (ATD) quantity.
● In Customizing for Supply Network Planning under Basic Settings Maintain Global SNP Settings, you have specified that the SNP heuristic is to consider the direct delivery via transportation lanes in the Heu: Direct Delivery field. The default value is No Direct Delivery.
● You have made the master data settings and any other settings necessary for executing an SNP heuristic. For more information, see Running the Heuristic in the Background.
In particular, you have determined the low-level codes before the first SNP heuristic run or when changing the master data. For more information, see Low-Level Code Determination.
Process
...
1. You execute an SNP heuristic. For more information, see Running the Heuristic in the Background. You can also execute the SNP heuristic interactively. In contrast to running the SNP heuristic in the background, in which the system considers all the products of the transportation lane, you can interactively select a partial quantity of the products.
We recommend that you select the location heuristic. The network heuristic takes considerably longer because it does not consider any cross-location low-level codes.
We recommend that you use the planning book 9ADRP or a planning book based on it so that you can display the interactive SNP planning results (see Result section).
2. The SNP heuristic first tries to cover the demand quantities of the customer location via the transportation lanes you have flagged for direct delivery. If there are more than one direct delivery transportation lanes for a product, the system considers the procurement priorities of the transportation lanes. In this step, the system does not consider quota arrangements.
3. The TLB uses the settings made in the TLB profile to check which product quantities can be delivered by which means of transport via the flagged transportation lanes.
In contrast to the normal TLB run, the TLB does not create any TLB shipments in this process. The SNP heuristic creates SNP stock transfers as usual.
4. The SNP heuristic checks if there are any remaining quantities. It then executes a standard source determination for these remaining quantities. For more information, see Source Determination (Heuristic).
Results
In interactive SNP planning, you can see which product quantities have been delivered via which transportation lanes. Choose Display dependent objects Dependent transportation lanes in the planning book 9ADRP or a book based on it.
The log contains the SNP stock transfers created as well as any error messages, just as in a normal SNP heuristic run. If you want to see information about the integrated TLB run in the log, you can activate it by defining the user parameter /SAPAPO/TLB_SHOW_MSG in your user settings.
Phase-Out Control for End Products
Note: As of SAP APO 4.0, this function has been replaced by the product interchangeability function. This function is still available but we recommend that you use the new function. For more information, see Product Interchangeability in Supply Network Planning.
Purpose
You use this process to model the discontinuation of end products to set how one product replaces another. You can define introductory periods for specific products and allow an overlap between the two products to allow stocks of the product to be discontinued to be reduced. Both products are compounded within one product group.
Prerequisites
You have created a location product hierarchy in the master data.
You have created the demand plan on the basis of this product group or location product group (that is, the forecast has been created at product group level).
Process Flow
...
1. In the Product Split function (APO Easy Access menu Demand Planning Environment Product Split), you set the SNP DISAGG indicator and specify the product to be discontinued, the product you want to be its replacement, and when you want this to happen. In this transaction, you also define a period for reducing stock of the old product, with the result that the system only takes the new product into account when there is no more stock of the old product. Once this period has come to an end, the system only takes into account stock of the new product.
For more information about maintaining product discontinuation data with the Product Split function, see the F1 help for the SNP DISAGG field.
2. In interactive Demand Planning (APO Easy Access menu Demand Planning Planning Interactive Demand Planning), you run a product group heuristic based on planning book 9ASNPHIER (and data view SNPHIER).
3. The system aggregates the stock of individual products to product group level and creates a replenishment plan using forecasts, stocks, and possible safety stocks, and taking into account the latest introduction date (Supply Date) that was specified in the Product Split.
4. You then run the time-based disaggregation.
5. The system disaggregates the product group receipt elements (shown in the upper table of the planning table) over the individual products as demands (shown in the lower table), taking into account the earliest introduction date for the replacement product that is specified in the Product Split (from date).
