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 Definition of Windows

Use

You use windows to control when goods are to be picked up and delivered. The optimizer then schedules the pickup or delivery exactly in the window that you have defined. If there were no windows, the optimizer would schedule these dates in such a way that the total costs were as low as possible.

You can also control how the optimizer is to deal with cases where these windows are not taken into account, that is, whether the optimizer is to calculate penalty costs.

You can map the following cases:

  • The goods are picked up too early or too late, for example, for the outbound delivery of a sales order.

  • The goods are delivered too early or too late, for example, for the inbound delivery of a sales order or purchase order.

Prerequisites

  • If you want to create soft constraints for the delivery window from previous releases or hard constraints for premature pickup, you must execute the upgrade report /SAPAPO/VS_UPGRADE_SCM_41.

  • You have implemented SAP Notes 560, 661185, and 675126. These ensure that shipping data from SAP R/3 is updated in SAP APO .

Features

You create windows by defining tolerances within which a premature or delayed pickup or delivery is to be allowed. You specify for each tolerance whether the optimizer is to consider it as a hard, soft, or soft and hard constraint . In this way, you control whether the optimizer calculates penalty costs when the constraints are not adhered to. The optimizer takes into account the values that you have defined in the cost profile.

The requested delivery dateof the order is the basis for calculating the tolerances of the premature or delayed delivery of goods. In the case of a premature or delayed pickup, the material availability dateof the order is used as the basis. You can also define that the exact time of the requested delivery date or the material availability date is to be taken into account.

You can define the following tolerances:

  • Maximum earliness

  • Earliness without penalty costs

  • Maximum delay

  • Delay without penalty costs

For more information about the link between tolerances and constraints, see this example .

You can restrict windows to certain optimization profiles. You can also restrict windows to one or more orders by defining conditions .

Pickup and delivery windows are also taken into account in manual planning (including multilevel planning), but only for hard constraints. However, the system simply issues a warning message if they are not adhered to.

You can use Business Add-In (BAdI) /SAPAPO/VS_FUNIT to define customer-specific windows. It offers additional options for changing costs.

Using a delivery window from another system

If you have defined a delivery window at order level in another system, the delivery windows defined in the component Transportation Planning/Vehicle Scheduling (TP/VS) are ignored. The following table shows how SAP APO adopts the dates/times of the delivery window:

Type of date constraint

Maximum earliness

Maximum delay

Earliness without penalty costs

Delay without penalty costs

No constraint

-

-

-

-

Soft constraint (costs)

-

-

RDD from

RDD to

Hard constraints

RDD from

RDD to

-

-

Hard and soft constraint

RDD from

RDD to

-

-

RDD from -RDD to is the requested delivery time frame, where RDD from < RDD to.

Activities

To define windows, choose from the SAP Easy Access screen: Start of the navigation path Advanced Planning and Optimization Next navigation step Transportation Planning/Vehicle Scheduling Next navigation step Environment Next navigation step Current Settings Next navigation step Transportation Optimization Next navigation step Define Pickup/Delivery Windows. End of the navigation path You can also define windows in the planning view (menu Edit ).

You can display the following in the planning view either by choosing Pickup/Delivery Info or on the Details tab page:

  • The active windows for your orders

  • The dates that the optimizer has calculated for the pickup or delivery (that is, goods issue or goods receipt).

You can use the information displayed to determine why the optimizer has scheduled an order in a certain way.

See also:

Optimization