A plant is transferred to the SAP APO system with the location type 1001 (production plant). For this, all basic settings associated with the plant are transferred: name, address, time zone and regional assignment.

As of SAP R/3 Release 4.0 you can define plants as distribution centers in SAP R/3 within the context of Distribution Resource Planning (DRP) functions. For this, you need to maintain the associated entry in the customizing table in the basic settings of DRP customizing (customizing step Node Type Assignment – Maintain Plant).

As of SAP R/3 Release 4.5, there are MRP areas available in SAP R/3 that differentiate requirements planning below the plant level. MRP areas in storage locations (type 2 MRP areas) can be transferred to SAP APO as locations with location type 1007.

In SAP R/3, MRP areas are organizational levels below the plant level. As a result, they are assigned to one plant only. This plant assignment is retained in SAP APO.

You can only transfer MRP areas in storage locations to SAP APO if they are assigned to precisely one storage location corresponding to the receiving storage location (note: there are no storage locations in SAP APO). You cannot transfer subcontracting MRP areas. MRP areas in plants are not explicitly transferred; rather the plants themselves are transferred.

A SAP R/3 material master record can also contain MRP area segments under the plant MRP data. These enable the planning of this material in different MRP areas. If you transfer such materials to SAP APO, you can also transfer the MRP area data. In this case the product master will exist in SAP APO for the location plant and the location MRP area.

Customer data is transferred from SAP R/3 as locations with the type 1010 (customer).

Sales orders are generated in SAP R/3 and transferred to SAP APO as movement data. If the customer to whom a SAP R/3 sales order is assigned also needs to be displayed in SAP APO, the corresponding location must exist in SAP APO. A transfer is, however, not obligatory for a simple production planning process.

SAP R/3 function module:
CIF_PLANT_LOCATION_MAP
SAP R/3 customer exit:
XIT_SAPLCLOC_001 (CIFLOC01)

SAP R/3 function module:
CIF_VENDOR_LOCATION_MAP
SAP R/3 customer exit:
EXIT_SAPLCLOC_002 (CIFLOC01)

SAP R/3 function module:
CIF_CUSTOMER_LOCATION_MAP
SAP R/3 customer exit:
EXIT_SAPLCLOC_003 (CIFLOC01)

SAP R/3 function module:
CIF_MRPAREA_LOCATION_MAP
SAP R/3 customer exit:
EXIT_SAPLCDC5_001 (CIFLOC02)

SAP APO function module:
/SAPAPO/CIF_LOC_INBOUND
SAP APO customer exit:
EXIT_/SAPAPO/SAPLCIF_LOC_001
(APOCF001)

SAP APO function module:
/SAPAPO/DM_LOCATION_MAINTAIN
SAP APO customer exit:
EXIT_SAPMMDUSER_004 (APOMD004)

There are three possibilities:

For the integration between SAP R/3 and SAP APO you must include the relevant locations in an integration model. When you activate the integration model the locations are sent to SAP APO and created there.
A necessary prerequisite for a sequence of processes and for the transfer of changes is that the objects are contained in an active integration model.
You can also repeat the initial data transfer if the integration model is deactivated in the meantime.

Using ALE change pointers you can transfer changes to the customer and location master data without a repeat activation of an integration model.

From Release PI 2000.2 you can also transfer customer and location master data using a Business Transaction Event (BTE). You can set the system so that the transfer of changed and newly created customers and vendors is directly initiated when the master data is updated in SAP R/3.

When transferring changes the system always transfers the complete master data record and not just the changed fields. This means that those fields in SAP APO that originate in SAP R/3 and have been locally changed in APO are overwritten by the system. You can prevent this information being overwritten in SAP APO by using a customer enhancement.