Distribution Planning
Purpose
You can use this business process to plan distribution for your deployment run. When production is completed, deployment determines which demands can be fulfilled by the existing supply. Deployment decides by product where available quantities will be transported. If there are insufficient quantities available to fulfill the demand or the quantities available exceed the demand, deployment makes adjustments to the plan created by the SNP run.
The deployment run generates deployment stock transfers based on the SNP stock transfers that were created during the SNP run. The Transport Load Builder (TLB) then uses these deployment stock transfers to create transport loads, thus generating TLB shipments.
You cannot use deployment for stock transfers involving storage location MRP areas. For more information, see the SAP Library under mySAP Business Suite ® SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO) ® Cross-Application Topics ® Supply Chain Planning Within a Plant ® Stock Transfer with Storage Location MRP Areas.
Process Flow
This business process runs in SAP SCM:
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1. Consolidate real demand and receipt situation.
The spatial and temporal distribution of the demand and receipt elements need to be consolidated. Independent and dependent requirements as well as distribution requirements can exist practically at every node of the supply network (such as at customer locations, distribution centers, and production plants).
Besides the independent requirements, all other demand elements (such as dependent demands) and receipt elements (such as distribution receipts or planned production orders) as well as the results of the safety stock planning run (see the Safety Stock Planning process) need to be taken into consideration during the consolidation step.
2. Perform SNP planning run (optional).
This step is not required, but enhances the deployment accuracy. The supply network planning run integrates purchasing, production, distribution (of demands), and transportation to receive comprehensive mid-term to long-term tactical planning and sourcing decisions.
Supply Network Planning offers three basic planning algorithms:
○ Heuristics (together with capacity-leveling capability)
○ Optimization
○ Multilevel supply and demand matching (capable-to-match)
Starting from a demand plan, Supply Network Planning determines a permissible medium- to long-term plan for fulfilling the estimated and real sales volumes. The algorithms plan for all sources of supply from the customer, through distribution centers to the plants and their suppliers.
Each algorithm does the following:
○ Distributes production over the plants
○ Selects production options and alternatives
○ Explodes the bill of materials
○ Determines the procurement of semi-finished goods and raw materials
The algorithms differ in the way they make decisions, the constraints (for such factors as production, storage, or transportation) which they consider, and on which level of aggregation they perform the planning.
To perform the deployment run based on the most recent results from the SNP run, the system can consider the current demand situation at the destination locations by first executing an SNP run between the source location and its associated destination locations before the actual deployment run.
Especially when using Fair Share Rule B, it is particularly important that distribution be based on the most exact calculation of target and planned stock levels possible. For more information on distribution rules, see the SAP Library under mySAP Business Suite ® SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO) ® Supply Network Planning ® Deployment ® Deployment Heuristic.
3. Distribute receipts to balance the demand situation over the network.
There are several planning methods available for the deployment run:
○ Deployment heuristic
The deployment heuristic creates a distribution plan for one product at one location. If the available quantities are insufficient to fulfill the demand, the system uses fair share rules to determine the distribution plan. However, if the supply is greater than is necessary to meet demands, the system uses push rules to determine the distribution plan. You define fair share and push rules in the SNP deployment profile. For more information, see the SAP Library under mySAP Business Suite ® SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO) ® Supply Network Planning ® Deployment ® Deployment Heuristic.
○ Real-time deployment
This variant of the deployment heuristic is used to execute deployment based on the most recent results from the SNP run. Here, the system considers the current demand situation at the destination locations by first executing an SNP run between the source location and its associated destination locations before the actual deployment run.
When using fair share rule B (see the SAP Library under mySAP Business Suite ® SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO) ® Supply Network Planning ® Deployment ® Deployment Heuristic ® Deployment Heuristic Profiles), it is particularly important to base distribution on the most exact calculation of target and planned stock levels possible.
○ Deployment optimization
The deployment optimizer creates a distribution plan for all the products you chose in all the selected locations in the supply chain model. In the main, the deployment optimizer bases its decisions on all the costs defined in the supply chain model (such as transportation and storage costs), as does the SNP optimizer. It also takes into account the following factors:
§ Fair-share and push rules
§ Constraints such as transportation capacity, storage capacity, and transportation lot sizes
You can make most of the deployment optimization settings in the SNP Deployment Optimizer Profile. For more information, see the SAP Library under mySAP Business Suite ® SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO) ® Supply Network Planning ® Deployment ® Deployment Optimization ® Deployment Optimizer Profiles.
4. Create (multiple product) shipments.
You can use the Transport Load Builder (TLB) to group transport loads for certain means of transport while ensuring that the capacity of the transport means is fully utilized.
The main aims of TLB planning are:
○ Building of transport loads that are within the parameter limits defined by the user (such as weight and volume)
○ Straight loading or load balancing of transport means
You can use the TLB in the SAP Supply Network Collaboration (SAP SNC) or in Supply Network Planning (SNP). Additional functions are available in SAP SNC that are not available in the SNP TLB. For more information, see the SAP Library under mySAP Business Suite ® SAP Supply Chain Management (SAP SCM) ® SAP Inventory Collaboration Hub (SAP ICH) ® Customer Collaboration ® Transport Load Building ® Additional TLB Functions in SAP ICH.