Discontinuation

How the product interchangeability function deals with discontinuation depends on where you are in the planning cycle for the product and of course on your planning scenario.

The following graphic presents the situation schematically:

Demand Planning (DP)

If the discontinuation date lies within the Demand Planning period, the DP logic comes into action. In this case you would either work with lifecycle profiles (like profiles and phase-in/out profiles) or a product split. For more details, see Which Interchangeability Method Should I Use?

If the discontinuation data does not coincide with the start of a time bucket, demand may be created for the predecessor product after the discontinuation date. However this is corrected in the following applications.

Apart from the above case the other applications do not notice that discontinuation has taken place in DP. Planned independent requirements are generated for the successor product as normal when the demand planned is released to SNP or PP/DS.

Supply Network Planning (SNP) and Capable-to-Match (CTM)

When the discontinuation date lies within the mid-term planning period, then the interchangeability functions in SNP or CTM can be called up, depending upon which application you use.

SNP

SNP generates SNP product substitution orders to pass the demand to the successor product. This demand is then treated as any other demand in SNP. During the next planning step the system checks whether sufficient stock exists and if necessary creates receipt elements to cover the deficit. These receipt elements (planned orders and stock transfers) can be transferred to SAP ERP. However the product substitution orders are not visible in SAP ERP.

How the system continues processing in PP/DS depends on which functions you use in PP/DS. For more details, see Product Interchangeability in SNP-PP/DS Integration.

CTM

You use CTM generally as an alternative or to supplement SNP. As in SNP, CTM generates product substitution orders to pass the demand to the successor product. You can specify in CTM Customizing whether the system should generate SNP orders or PP/DS orders. As a result further processing is as for SNP or PP/DS.

Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling (PP/DS)

This is the end of the planning chain. After processing in PP/DS the orders are passed to the OLTP system which controls the actual production or procurement. PP/DS uses special heuristics to generate PP/DS product substitution orders. It is also possible to account for product interchangeability of components.

Service Parts Planning (SPP)

SPP is a separate planning application that provides planning capabilities specific to service parts.

In SPP, the supersession service calculates the date values needed for the substitution of service parts. This is implemented as a planning service that you can either run manually or schedule as a regular planning run in the Planning Service Manager. The date values that the supersession service calculates influence the planning services in SPP, for example historical data maintenance, forecasting, and distribution requirements planning.

Global Available-to-Promise (Global ATP)

If you set up Global ATP to use product interchangeability master data, it is available at all stages of the planning process. In general it is called when creating a sales document and to check the availability of components in PP/DS. Global ATP can work with supersession chains and with FFF classes, except for the CTP scenario. If a confirmation request is made for a discontinued product, the system automatically checks the availability of the successor product and creates requirements if necessary. Similarly it checks all members of an FFF subset if a confirmation cannot be issued for one requested member. Requirements are then generated for the leading product.