Running the Optimizer in the Background (SAP Library

Running the Optimizer in the Background

Use

The optimizer proposes a plan for multiple products simultaneously based on the minimum procurement costs, storage costs, transportation costs, and production costs without overloading resources.

Prerequisites

● You have set up the planning area and planning book

● You have set up the master data for the optimizer

● You have maintained optimization profiles

● You have created a model name and version

● You have set up the supply chain model

● You have released the demand plan to Supply Network Planning

● You have locked any inbound or outbound queues in the ERP system during the time of the optimization run:

○ If you cannot rule out that data will be transferred from an ERP system to the SAP SCM system (or from SAP SCM to ERP) using the Core Interface (CIF) during the optimization run, you can lock inbound or outbound queues in the ERP system from the SAP SCM system. This should prevent plan inconsistencies due to transaction data that is transferred from the ERP system to SAP SCM during the optimization run, which the optimizer then ignores. During the CIF transfer, you can also prevent planning objects from being locked for CIF or the optimizer.

○ To lock outbound queues, you can use the /SAPAPO/CIFSTOPQUEUES and /SAPAPO/CIFSTARTQUEUES reports in SAP SCM. Reports RSTRFCI1 and RSTRFCI3 are available for locking inbound queues (see also, OSS note 487261).

Procedure

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1. From the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Advanced Planning and Optimization → Supply Network Planning → Planning → Supply Network Planning in the Background → Supply Network Optimization.

2. Enter the planning book and data view.

3. Enter an SNP planning profile that you may have defined in Customizing for SNP. This contains basis settings for the SNP planning procedures. If you do not specify a profile, the system uses the default profile activated in Customizing.

4. Enter a parallel processing profile that you may have defined in Customizing for SNP. This determines how the background jobs are divided into parallel processes.

5. Enter a selection profile in which you stored your selections in interactive Supply Network Planning or manually select data for planning. To enter data manually, follow this procedure:

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a. Enter the planning version.

b. Enter the products and locations you wish to plan. If you intend to plan all the products and locations of the planning version, you can leave these fields blank.

6. If you also want to plan all the products of a supersession chain as part of product interchangeability in SNP, make the relevant setting. For more information, see Product Interchangeability in Supply Network Planning.

7. In the Source Determination field, select the level of a source of supply hierarchy at which you want the system to consider sources of supply for in-house production. The default value is All Levels.

You can use this field in the planning with aggregated resources process, for example.

8. Specify the start and end date that you want the system to consider for planning. This entry is optional. If you do not enter a start and end date, the system uses the planning buckets profile that was specified in the data view.

9. Enter the name of the optimizer profile that you want to use for this optimization run.

10. Enter the name of the cost profile that you want to use for this optimization run.

11. Enter the identifier for the optimization bound profile you want to use for this optimization run. This entry is optional.

12. If you want to prioritize customer demands during optimization, specify a penalty cost group profile. For more information, see Prioritization of Customer Demands and Demands with High Volume.

13. If required, set the Modify Quota Arrangements indicator.

The results of the optimization run can be used to calculate quota arrangements for use in the heuristic (inbound quota arrangements) and the deployment heuristic (outbound quota arrangements). If you set the Modify Quota Arrangements indicator, the system automatically creates optimal quota arrangements, which means that you do not need to maintain them manually in the Supply Chain Engineer.

You use the Inbound, Outbound, and Both indicators to set whether the optimizer is to modify and create inbound quota arrangements, outbound quota arrangements, or both. In the Start Date for Modification and End Date for Modification fields, you can specify the horizon within which the system is to modify and create quota arrangements. If you leave these fields blank, the system modifies quota arrangements over the entire planning horizon. You can also specify the smallest period size for which the system is to modify and create quota arrangements. These options can help you to improve performance.

Note

You should use this feature with caution since there is no back-up of the original quota arrangements.

If you define a subset of the model for the optimization run (for example, some of the locations), then the quota arrangements will only be changed for the locations that are part of the subset. The quota arrangements for the other locations remain unchanged.

We recommend that you either optimize for the whole model or check the quota arrangements for the remaining locations and manually change them if necessary. Only use this function if the planning situation for the optimization run can be viewed as a representative planning situation and the overall planning environment is fairly stable. Otherwise the results of optimization will not lead to adequate quota arrangements.

14. Choose Execute.

Results

At the end of the optimization run, you access the results by choosing Supply Network Planning →Reporting → Optimizer Log Data.Alternatively, you can display the results in interactive SNP planning (Supply Network Planning → Planning →Interactive Supply Network Planning).