Automatic Supply-to-Production Automatic Supply-to-Production (automatic S2P) has been specially developed for the Discrete Industries sector. It is used to organize the physical replenishment of components for production.
The focus of Automatic Supply-to-Production is on monitoring stocks in production, synchronous to production. And then based on this information to plan production replenishment to-the-minute for high-volume production scenarios.
Automatic supply-to-production was designed for scenarios in which planning is executed in an
Advanced Planner and Optimized System (APO)
.The planning functions of
SAP APO
operate at location level. In a linked ERP system this corresponds to plant level or MRP area level. The physical replenishment of components for production, however, is generally executed on a more detailed level, namely, on
supply area
level.
You can organize your supply-to-production on this level using summarized JIT calls (created either manually or automatically).
The following graphic provides you with an overview of the general supply-to-production process:

You can best use the functions in automatic supply-to-production if you work with the Advanced Planner and Optimizer (from SAP APO 3.1) and the DI Production Backflush in SAP APO.
With certain limitations, you can still use automatic supply-to-production if you do not work with SAP APO. For more information, see also Working with Requirements in the ERP Requirements .
For the line-oriented access to supply-to-production, you must use the integrated Product and Process Engineering (iPPE) and for the calculation of exact stocks per takt, you must use iPPE with takted lines. If you work with iPPE, the requirements must lie in the SAP APO System. The backflush is executed using the DI Production Backflush.
For more information, see
Production Backflush
.
Automatic supply-to-production is based on the control cycle and the supply area and provides a time-specific overview of the stock/requirements situation in production, in the short-term horizon. It also provides you with a planning function for automatically creating replenishment elements for production. The kanban-independent, summarized JIT call is used as the replenishment element. This call supports internal as well as external procurement.
The stock/requirements situation at the supply area consists of dependent requirements, postprocessing records, stocks, and replenishment elements and proposals.The dependent requirements come from the planning in either SAP APO or in the ERP System, and the stocks and replenishment elements always lie in the ERP System.
Using the evaluation of actual data at suitable reporting points, the system uses these planning elements to calculate exact production stocks. These planning elements are much more precise than Inventory Management in the ERP System or than warehouse stock managed in
Warehouse Management
. All completed backflushes are taken into account immediately even if they have not yet been posted in the ERP System.
For more information on warehouse management, see
Warehouse Management
.
Consumption-based or requirements-driven procedures are available for planning. Planning itself is carried out in the ERP System.
You can use the Supply-to-Production Table to assess the stock/requirements situation at the supply area and to create planning elements either automatically or interactively. This evaluation simultaneously serves as a stock display at supply area level.
You can also execute the planning run in the background where replenishment elements are created automatically for supply-to-production.
With certain limitations, you can use automatic supply-to-production with product interchangeability as long as certain prerequisites have been fulfilled. For more information, refer to the SAP Library under and under Automatic Supply-to-Production for Product Interchangeability .
Automatic supply-to-production is mainly carried out consumption-based. Only basic procedures are available for demand-driven supply-to-production.
Individual customer and project stocks are not processed. Blocked stocks are considered unavailable.
All calculations and evaluations are executed using the base unit of measure .
Replenishment is always triggered non-batch-specific.
No special authorization checks have been implemented.
No plans exist to completely integrate the automatic supply-to-production with product interchangeability.