Contract Packager
Contract packagers (CPs) are locations at which your goods are repacked. Each CP is assigned to one location only. This location is part of your bill of distribution (BOD) and is the master location of this CP. CPs themselves do not form part of your BOD.
Example
You receive goods from a supplier in the USA. You want your supplier to deliver these goods to Brussels, the entry location of your BOD. However, the goods do not arrive directly in Brussels, but arrive in the port at Antwerp. There your CP repacks the goods from containers onto pallets. Antwerp is therefore your CP and Brussels is the master location of your CP Antwerp.
The system executes planning a CP with the same economic order quantity (EOQ) (see Combined Planning of EOQ and SFT) and the same rounding rules (see Rounding) as for the master location of the CP.
Features
Creation of CPs
You create CPs in SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) as an MRP area. CPs created like this are locations of location type 1007 in SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO) and you can define their characteristics in the location master data for SAP APO.
For more information about MRP areas, see the SAP Library under 
SAP ERP
SAP ERP Central Component
Logistics
Logistics — General (LO)
Service
Parts Management (LO-SPM)
Contract Packager Inbound
Master Data
.
Active CPs
Active CPs are CPs that supply your master locations with goods.
To define active CPs at entry locations, specify the CP as a storage location in SAP ECC at the scheduling agreement or contract items.
To define CPs at a non-entry location, create a purchasing info record from the BOD parent location of the non-entry location to the non-entry location in SAP ECC. For these purchasing info records SAP ECC then generates product-specific transportation lanes from the start location to the destination
location and to all CPs of the destination location. On the SAP Easy Access
screen, choose Advanced Planning and Optimization
Service Parts Planning (SPP)
Planning
Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP)
Scheduling Agreement Releases
Maintenance of External Procurement Relationships
. To select a CP as active CP you have to lock all assigned transportation
lanes besides the one which has the active CP as target location. Additionally, a valid means of transport has to exist on the lane to the active CP.
For more information about purchasing info records, see the SAP Library under SAP ERP
SAP ERP Central Component
Logistics
Materials Management (MM)
Purchasing (MM-PUR)
Purchasing Info Records (MM-PUR-VM)
.
Alternative CPs
Alternative CPs are all CPs that belong to one location but that were not determined as the active CP.
Example
If the location Brussels has the CP Rotterdam as well as the active CP Antwerp, Rotterdam is an alternative CP. The analyst can, for example, define that your supplier in the USA is to deliver goods to Rotterdam instead of Antwerp. A reason for this may be a capacity bottleneck at the active CP.
Quota Arrangement
You can define quota arrangements (see Quota Arrangement) for CPs, just as you can for other locations. However, you do not define quota arrangements from CPs to entry locations, but from suppliers to CPs.
Example
You have an entry location to which two CPs are assigned. You want this entry location to receive 70% of a product from CP1 and 30% of the product from CP2.
In this case you create a quota arrangement of 70% from the supplier that delivery to CP1 to CP1, and a quota arrangement of 30% from the supplier that delivers to CP2 to CP2.
Note
You can create a quota arrangement either from the supplier to the entry location or from the supplier to the CP, but not from the supplier to the entry location and the CP.
Integration of CPs in the SPP Planning Processes
For more information about the integration of CPs in the Service Parts Planning (SPP) planning processes, see Integration of Contract Packagers in the SPP Planning Processes.