Procurement Using Scheduling Agreements

Purpose

Working with scheduling agreements can shorten processing times and reduce the amount of paperwork you are faced with. One delivery schedule can replace a large number of discrete purchase orders or contract release orders.

Inventories can be reduced to a minimum. You can carry out your manufacturing operations on the Just-in-Time (JIT) principle.

Your vendors require shorter lead times. Smaller deliveries are required, which can be spaced out over a longer period. Delivery scheduling enables vendors to plan and allocate their resources more efficiently.

In repetitive manufacturing involving large quantities, it is desirable for releases to be generated against a scheduling agreement automatically. In the ERP System, you can use the application component PP Material Requirements Planning for this purpose.

Recommendation

SAP recommends working with scheduling agreements with release documentation. In this case you can make use of the scheduling agreement release types forecast (FRC) delivery schedule and Just-in-Time (JIT) delivery schedule .

Integration

Customers using the Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO) can generate schedule lines and releases against scheduling agreements in the APO system.

You can either generate schedule lines and SA releases in the APO system, or use the APO system exclusively for planning and generate the releases in the ERP system. You specify this by means of the Ext. Planning indicator in the additional data for the scheduling agreement item. In both cases, the goods receipt is posted in the ERP system.

Note Note

If you generate scheduling agreement delivery schedule lines in the APO system, you cannot create or change schedule lines in the ERP System.

End of the note.

For more information on the Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO), refer to the SAP library.

Prerequisites

Use a document type for scheduling agreements with release documentation. In the standard system, document type LPA is supplied for this purpose. (In the standard system, the Release docu. indicator is selected for document type LPA in Customizing for Purchasing under Scheduling Agreement → Define Document Types .)
To work with JIT delivery schedules, you must set the JIT delivery schedule indicator in the material master record ( Purchasing or MRP 2 view). The indicator must also be selected in the additional data for the scheduling agreement item.
If scheduling agreement releases are to be generated automatically via planning runs, Purchasing must designate a certain scheduling agreement as the unique source using the source list facility.

Procurement Process Using Scheduling Agreements with Release Documentation

A planning run takes place for the required materials at regular intervals. This automatically generates delivery schedule lines for scheduling agreements.

Scheduling agreement releases are created on the basis of these schedule lines. These are then issued to the vendor.

The materials planner/inventory controller can first check the schedule lines and then manually create a release (FRC or JIT delivery schedule) from within the scheduling agreement.
Alternatively, the releases (FRC or JIT schedules) can be generated automatically by the system. This is normally done directly after the planning run.

You have the option of working with both forecast and JIT schedules or only with forecast schedules.

If you work with both types of schedule, the advantage is that the vendor receives more detailed delivery data from you at shorter time intervals in the form of JIT schedules. In addition, he receives a rougher indication of your delivery requirements at longer intervals in the form of forecast delivery schedules.

After the scheduling agreement releases have been created, they are transmitted to the vendor via the message control program RSNAST00.

The releases can be transmitted either directly they are saved or at a later point in time.

Note Note

It is sensible to carry out the planning run daily and generate releases (delivery schedules) automatically once a week, for example. You can set up the system in such a way that releases are generated for changed scheduling agreement items (materials) only.

End of the note.