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Function documentationCollaborative Planning Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR)

 

CPFR refers to a business model for cooperative planning, forecasting and management of goods flows and stock between retailers and consumer products manufacturers. The purpose is to jointly forecast the sales of goods to consumers and to plan promotion measures (for example, promotions by vendors, retail promotions and product price reductions). Having more information available reduces the markup risk for everyone involved in the supply chain. The vendor benefits by making optimum use of production capacity, whereas the retailer benefits from increased availability of merchandise and reduced risk of overstocking or understocking.

Forecasting and Replenishment (F&R) offers the following kinds of forecasts:

  • Operational forecast: This provides a sales forecast for stores and/or goods issue forecast for distribution centers, and is intended for internal use only.

  • Tactical forecast: A tactical forecast is used for CPFR purposes and is calculated in exactly the same way as an operational forecast (same parameters, same forecast basis). The only differences between them are the forecast horizons and the fact that the tactical forecast is always based on a specified number of weeks (typically 13 weeks, but can be up to 52 weeks). Like the operational forecast, the tactical forecast is a unified forecast. This means that it already contains the effects of the DIF. For stores, a tactical forecast is a sales forecast and for distribution centers it is a goods issue forecast. This forecast is provided in SAP F&R and the related data transfer takes place by calling a standard function module to export the information, such as consumption, tactical forecast, DIF effects, to external applications and allows the vendor to have input into and react to the retailer’s stock requirements.

  • Tactical order forecast: This provides detailed data for future or projected orders where an outside vendor delivers products directly to the stores.

Integration

You can flag the specific products for which information (tactical forecast, DIF effects, consumption, operational forecast) can be exchanged with the vendor. These can be maintained on the vendor/product level and are included in the CPFR product list. The products and the vendors must exist in the SAP F&R master data as well as the transportation lanes.

You cannot import vendor forecasts from an external source to SAP F&R for collaborative forecasting.

Activities

To maintain the CPFR parameters:

  1. On the SAP Easy Access Screen, choose Start of the navigation path Forecasting and Replenishment Next navigation step Collaborative Planning Next navigation step Maintain CPFR Parameters End of the navigation path.

  2. Enter the vendor in the Source Location field, along with the desired selection criteria (for example, products having a particular vendor as a possible source of supply, merchandise categories or subranges for which you want to share a tactical forecast, cumulated DIF effects with this vendor).

  3. Choose Perform Selection.

    When the system updates the screen, it displays a grid with the vendor products corresponding to your selection.

  4. For each line in the list, enter the following:

    • Tactical Horizon: Enter the number weeks of tactical forecast to be shared. This setting triggers the creation of the tactical forecast and defines the number of weeks relevant for the length of the tactical forecast.

    • Detail Level: Choose either cumulative (totals for tactical forecast, cumulated tactical DIF effects for all directly supplied locations combined, broken out by product and week), detailed (tactical forecast, tactical DIF effects broken out by individual directly supplied location, product, and week), or both.

    • SN Det. Date: Enter the date for the first/next determination of the directly supplied locations.

    • SN Det. Frequency: Enter the frequency (in days) with which the system is to determine the directly supplied locations; that is, how often the report is run.

    • Operational Forecast: Select this checkbox if you want to share operational forecast data with this vendor.

    • POS Period: If you want to share POS information with this vendor, enter the number of weeks of consumption data you want to provide.

    • Listing Check: Choose whether or not you want the system to take into account the listing status of a location product when providing a tactical forecast, operational forecast, DIF effects and consumption data. The listing status check influences the values of the data provided, depending on the option chosen. See the field help (F1) for more details.

  5. Choose Save.

After maintaining the CPFR parameters, you must do the following:

  • If you have defined a tactical forecast to be provided, you must determine the directly supplied locations. To do this, you must run program /FRE/CPFR_DETERMINE_LOCPRD or else schedule it in SAP F&R (transaction SE38) before any tactical forecasts can be created. Afterwards, tactical forecasts will be created during the FRP run in SAP F&R.

  • To provide the tactical forecast, use the standard SAP F&R RFC function /FRE/CPFR_PROVIDE_DATA,which can be called from an external system.

Note Note

To simulate the provision of the CPFR data (tactical forecast, DIF effects, operational forecast, consumption), choose the following on the SAP Easy Access Screen: Start of the navigation path Forecasting and Replenishment Next navigation step Collaborative Planning Next navigation step CPFR Output Simulation End of the navigation path.

The resulting report shows the information that would have been generated if this had been a real provision of CPFR data. This report is only for testing purposes and has no effect on the actual data.

End of the note.