SAP ECC S&OP and SAP APO - How does they play together in feeding demand

[Former Member]

Hi there,

We are trying to put a process together. Currently our APO is only used for Demand Planning and sending in PIRs to SAP ECC DM at the finished product level.

I am trying to think if, I could still go ahead and use SAP ECC S&OP process at finished product level to come up with a sales/production plan and activate the version that suits best. But the outcome of S&OP process should also be fed into SAP ECC DM's as PIR's.

Can we do this way where SAP APO and SAP S&OP feeding in demand to DM for the same finished product? I was wondering how S&OPs PIR and APO's PIR can be reduced/offset/netted so we only get a clean and required demand to SAP ECC DM so that duplicate PIR's can be avoided.

I am not sure if this process would work or can be made to work or also is this kind of solution is possible.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. thank you.

[marianoc]

Hello,

SOP is a business process and you can use ECC or APO to support the process.

Sales and Operations Planning (SOP) covers various activities including the specification of medium term and long term sales volumes and the approximate planning of the production activities that are required to meet these volumes
Ref: Sales and Operations Planning (PP-SOP) - ALE/EDI Business Processes - SAP Library

This said, what in ECC is known as SOP in APO is known as APO DP. In ECC we have two different SOPs: Standard SOP and Flexible SOP. Flexible SOP is more similar to what you have in APO DP, however the architecture in APO-DP is totally different, the performance in APO is much better. In APO yuo can aggregate and dissagregate easily and faster, you can create macros with more functionalities than the macros in ECC. In ECC or in APO DP you can run statistical forecasting methods, but once again APO is much powerful.. and user friendly with the planning books and data views...

Now, the last step of the SOP process in ECC or in APO DP will be always to load forecast (PIRs).

Considering that you already have APO DP, I would never try to run SOP in ECC.. APO is much powerful.

Kind Regards,

Mariano

[Former Member]

Mariano Thank you. I tend to agree with you. So how can we do aggregate level planning and plan my capacity on long term? APO is currently sending demand to ECC only at finished product level but my plant is currently manually grouping these finished products and planning for capacity and the way APO is currently doing the aggregate level planning is not based on capacity. So what aggregate planning for APO is not how the new site is doing their long term planning grouping the finished product.  I want to give the site some capability on doing long term planning on their capacity based at aggregate level and be able to level their plan and feed to Demand Management in ECC.

At the momemt we do not have plan for SNP in APO. Any thoughts ? Thank you

[marianoc]

Hi,

Ok.. the demand is the demand. So how the materials are aggregated or disaggregated in Demand Planning are not related at all on how the capacity is assigned in your plants.

You could create groups of products by using Product Groups in ECC.

Check this links to understand what is this and how it is maintained:

What Is a Product Group? - Sales & Operations Planning (LO-LIS-PLN) - SAP Library

Product Group Maintenance - Sales & Operations Planning (LO-LIS-PLN) - SAP Library

Once you create the product group you can use RCCP. Read this article:

Rough-Cut Capacity Planning on SOP - ERP Manufacturing (PP) - SCN Wiki

Other option is to use Capacity Planning and Detail Sheduling in ECC by work center..

Kind Regards,

Mariano

[Former Member]

Thank you Mariano again. So can we do RCCP without SOP in ECC, if so what would be the feed for RCCP,  I was thinking SOP and RCCP goes together and need to have sales plan to do feed RCCP and the outcome of RCCP in ECC would be what ? Can it be used to level the Load and adjust the demand?

Also I was looking into LTP but not sure if that can still be used to level the load and adjust the plans?

I Like the idea of capacity planning and detailed scheduling by work center. Which we will implement.

[marianoc]

Hi,

Maybe you need to made a simple setup. Take a look of the last link that I sent.. there you have step by step what is required.

Now once you implement Capacity Planning and Detail scheduling you should be able to manage your request without needing the creation of product groups.

Hope this answer your question.

Kind Regards,

Mariano

[Former Member]

Mariano Thank you again.

I tried to use the Rough cut profile at product group level and was able to at at capacity situations on a long term. But in order to achieve this, i had to feed in the sales plan, sync with production plan and then check the capacity situations and understand the overload etc. I was able to get to multiple plans and analyze which ones suits best and eventually make the one active. But the outcome of this best plan should feed into DM, but this will create PIR's - going back to the same issue of having PIR's twice.

I enabled the capacity planning & lead time scheduling at finished product level and was able to see the capacity requirements and lead time scheduling done as a result of MRP runs. This works good for finished product level and using finite scheduling I was able to level the production orders based on current load.

So finished product level planning and execution looks ok to me, my only concern is how I can do the aggregate level planning considering the capacity situations on a high level well in advance for next 2 or 3 years. I am still trying to understand the disconnect.

Thanks

[marianoc]

Hi,

If capacity planning & detail scheduling work ok then you could use hierarchies in order to review the capacity at aggregated level.

Check this link:

Displaying the Capacity Load in a Work Center Hierarchy - Production Planning and Control (PP) - SAP...

Kind Regards,

Mariano

[Former Member]

Thank you. I am going to try this hierarchy and see how it is going to fit in. Will keep you posted. thanks