Group of locations that have the same parent location or no parent location within a bill of distribution (BOD) and belong to the same region. The region defines a virtual location for consolidated ordering (VLCO). A region is all the locations that have the same parent location (or no parent location) and no child locations within the region pattern.
Note
The system does not use the repair or buy function for location products that are part of a VCLO.
Note
A location the location product of which you plan in reorder-point-based planning mode, cannot be used in a VCLO.
Planning considers the VLCO as a planning location. The system consolidates all demand and stock of the individual locations for a certain product at the preferred location.
At planning, the preferred location determines the following factors for all locations of the VLCO:
Calendar
Replenishment lead time
Rounding rules
Deployment indicators
Note
The preferred location is not indicated as such in the region pattern.
You can define how DRP determines the preferred location in the Business Add-In (BAdI) BAdI: Determination of Preferred Location of a VLCO
(/SAPAPO/SPP_VCOL_LEADING_LOC
). When doing so, you specify whether the VLCO contains child
locations or entry locations. If you use the standard implementation of the BAdI, the system determines the preferred location as follows:
If the VLCO contains child locations, DRP determines the location with the longest procurement time from the parent location as the preferred location.
If the VLCO contains entry locations, DRP determines the entry location with the shortest freeze horizon as the preferred location.
Note
The system does not use stability rules for entry locations that are part of a VLCO.
If you want to consider a location product in a VLCO, you can specify this in the location product master data on the SPP DRP
tab page in the Cons. Ordering
(Consolidated Ordering) or Cons. Ord. VCL
(Consolidated
Ordering VCL) fields. From a business point of view, it is not particularly useful to separately supply locations that are close to one another geographically, if demand is low. If demand occurs at one of these locations, it is more useful for Global
Available-to-Promise to check and confirm this demand, and then to cover it by another location in the VLCO.
If the VLCO does not have net demand on an aggregated level, it also does not order for the individual locations. If net demand does exist, the VLCO generates a purchase requisition for this aggregated net demand at the corresponding parent location.
Example
Example one
You have a VLCO with two locations, location A and location B.
Location A has a stock of 100 of product X and a gross demand of 30.
Location B has a stock of 0 of product X and a gross demand of 40.
The VLCO therefore has an aggregated stock of 100 and an aggregated gross demand of 70. On a consolidated level, this results in a surplus of 30. This means that the VLCO does not have net demand and therefore does not register demand at its parent location.
Example Two
You have a VLCO with two locations, location C and location D.
Location C has a stock of 100 of product Z and a gross demand of 30.
Location D has a stock of 0 of product Z and a gross demand of 80.
The VLCO therefore has an aggregated stock of 100 and an aggregated gross demand of 110. On a consolidated level, this results in a net demand of 10. This means that the VLCO registers a net demand of 10 at its parent location.
If a VLCO has registered a net demand, deployment delivers to the locations of the VCLO according to the demand of the individual locations.
For more information, see Execution of Deployment for Virtual Location for Cons. Orders.
So that the system can include a location in a VLCO, you must have created a region pattern that contains the location in question. You must also assign the region pattern to the product.
If you have selected Check at Runtime
in the Cons. Ordering
(Consolidated Ordering) or Cons. Ord. VCL
(Consolidated Ordering VCL) fields in the location product master data on the SPP
DRP
tab page, you define a planning profile that contains the SPP: Check Service for Consolidated Ordering (SPP_VP_SWITCH)
planning service.
Note
If you have selected Check at Runtime
, the system calls the GET
method of the Business Add-In (BAdI) BAdI: Determination of Preferred Location of a VLCO
(/SAPAPO/IF_VP_S_RT_C) during the DRP run. The
service SPP: Check Service for Consolidated Ordering (SPP_VP_SWITCH)
enables you to precalculate the results the GET
method of BAdI BAdI: Determination of Preferred Location of a VLCO
returns during the DRP run.
To do this, the service calls the CALC
method of the BAdI. It calls the DELETE
method for location products for which you have not selected the Check at Runtime
checkbox to delete the results.
If the decision whether to consider the location products in consolidated ordering is simple and does not need much runtime to make, you can implement it within the GET
method of the BAdI. If the decision logic is complex, then you should implement it in the CALC
method
of the BAdI. You must remember to store the results in the CALC
method and to retrieve them in the GET
method, as well as delete the stored results in the DELETE
method of the BAdI. If you do not want to save,
retrieve and delete the results, you can calculate the results during the DRP run, within the GET
method, and create an empty implementation of the other two methods.
For more information, see Use of the Planning Service Manager in SPP and PSM Services for Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP).