Procurement Scheduling Agreements in Heuristic-Based SNP 

Purpose

Scheduling agreements are considered when procuring products as part of heuristic-based planning within Supply Network Planning. Scheduling agreements can help you to improve collaboration with your vendors or suppliers. Since they are better informed of demand times and demand quantities, you can reduce processing time. You can also include vendor-confirmed quantities within your planning as maximum vendor capacities.

The SNP heuristic takes into account procurement scheduling agreements that were created in an OLTP system and transferred to the SAP APO system through an appropriate interface (R/3 system: APO Core Interface, CIF), as possible sources of supply.

The SNP heuristic does not take into account scheduling agreements for the subcontracting form of procurement. Contracts are not included in SNP planning either (whereas purchasing info records are taken into account). In addition to this, scheduling agreements in SNP are only included in active model versions.

Prerequisites

·         You have configured the integration process for all the scheduling agreements and purchasing info records that are to be transferred to SAP APO. This means that you have entered all the data that is to be transferred in the CIF integration model for an SAP R/3 system. This master data is transferred to the SAP APO system in an initial data transfer. Any changes that are made to this master data in the OLTP system after this point are saved for the next change transfer. For more information, see Generating Integration Models.

·         You have made the relevant settings for APO scheduling agreements. For more information, see Prerequisites for the APO Scheduling Agreement.

·         You have released demands to Supply Network Planning in the form of a demand plan from Demand Planning (see Release of the Demand Plan to SNP).

·         You have made the general settings for running the SNP heuristic. For more information, see Running the Heuristic in the Background.

Process Flow

Process Options

There are four different scheduling agreement processing options to choose from. You configure these processes for APO scheduling agreements in the external procurement relationship (see below):

·         Process with Expected Confirmations,

·         Process Without Confirmations,

·         Process with Confirmations in Exceptional Cases

·         Process Without Releases

The example process described below is the Process with Expected Confirmations. The below list also applies, in the main, to the other options, Process Without Confirmations or Process with Confirmations in Exceptional Cases, except that scheduling agreement release creation in SAP APO automatically generates schedule lines in the OLTP system.

The Process Without Releases is a simplified version of the process described below. It is particularly suited to scenarios whereby the supplier uses collaborative supply planning to make confirmations over the Internet. It does not do step 4; that is, creation of scheduling agreement releases. With this process, the supplier sees only the schedule lines on the Internet and confirms these directly. Alternatively, the manufacturer can enter the confirmations in interactive Supply Network Planning.

The following prerequisites apply to this simplified process:

·         If you are using Global Available-To-Promise (Global ATP), you must set in Customizing for this application component that confirmations are ATP-relevant (choose Product Availability Check → Maintain Check Control).

·         You should choose a confirmation profile with tolerance check, in order to be informed by alert about serious deviations between the required and confirmed quantities (in Customizing for supply chain planning, choose: Collaborative Procurement → Procurement Scheduling Agreement → Confirmation Receipt → Maintain Confirmation Profiles for Confirmation Receipt).

For more information, see Prerequisites for the APO Scheduling Agreement.

Example Process (Process with Expected Confirmations)

An example of a scheduling agreement process from Supply Network Planning is given below. The process described is the Process with Expected Confirmations. This process refers to heuristic-based SNP planning, taking into account APO scheduling agreements.

The SNP heuristic also takes into account OLTP scheduling agreements. In contrast to the process described, when planning OLTP scheduling agreements, the SNP heuristic generates SNP stock transfers that reference OLTP scheduling agreements, which are then transferred automatically to the OLTP system through an interface. Scheduling agreement schedule lines and releases are generated in the OLTP system. However, it is possible to display these schedule lines and releases in interactive Supply Network Planning.

SNP Scheduling Agreement Processing Example

 

1.       The SAP APO system generates external procurement relationships.

When you transfer scheduling agreements and purchasing info records from an OLTP system to SAP APO through an interface, this data is generated in the SAP APO system as external procurement relationships. Here, an external procurement relationship is created for each individual scheduling agreement item. An external procurement relationship is product-specific and assigned to a transportation lane. Transportation lanes are generated in SAP APO automatically when you transfer data from the OLTP system. This means that the external procurement relationship contains the contractual details of the relationship between a source location (supplier or supplying plant) and destination location (plant). You still have to assign a means of transport to the transportation lane.

For more information, see External Procurement Relationship.

2.       In Supply Network Planning, you execute heuristic-based planning at location product level. The SNP heuristic takes into account the scheduling agreements transferred from the OLTP system as possible sources of supply. To do this, the system applies the normal source determination rules from the SNP heuristic, which means that it takes into account the scheduling agreements according to either procurement priority or quota arrangement, depending on specifications made.

You can first run the heuristic without capacities (infinitely), meaning that supplier capacity is not considered (to do this, choose No capacity on the initial screen for Supply Network Planning in the background). If you do this, you may want to include the supplier capacity in a later planning run after receiving confirmations for your scheduling agreement releases from the supplier (see step 5). However, even at this early stage, you also have the option of including the supplier capacity in your schedule, if the supplier has already informed you of these capacities (through collaborative supply planning, for example). Your supplier can enter the quantities he or she is capable of delivering in the Confirmation key figure in the 9ASAS planning book (choose SAP Easy Access → Supply Network Planning → Planning → Collaborative Supply Planning). In the Capacity key figure, the supplier can also specify his or her entire capacity, which alternatively can be derived from the confirmation quantities (using macros, for instance). The supplier can also specify the capacity of transportation lanes for a scheduling agreement item, in order to restrict the capacity of means of transport.

If you have already received the appropriate capacity data from the supplier, specify the corresponding planning book and capacity key figures on the Supply Network Planning initial screen. For performance reasons, you should choose a planning book that only includes key figures that are actually required, if possible. You also choose whether you want to consider during planning the capacity specified for the transportation lanes of a scheduling agreement item, or the capacity specified for the entire scheduling agreement item.

For more information, see Running the Heuristic in the Background.

3.       During the planning run, the SNP heuristic generates schedule lines for the scheduling agreements being considered as supply sources. A schedule line is a partial quantity of the total scheduling agreement item quantity with associated delivery dates. Schedule lines, like the entire planning results, can be displayed in interactive planning (planning book 9ASA, choose the APO Easy Access menu  → Supply Network Planning  → Planning  → Scheduling Agreements (Procurement)  → Interactive Scheduling Agreements).

4.       You manually (in the product view) or automatically (using the release creation profile) create scheduling agreement releases that you use to notify the supplier that he or she should deliver the products on the dates listed in the schedule lines. For more information, see Scheduling Agreement Release Creation .

5.       The supplier notifies you of his or her capacities, using collaborative supply planning for instance (see step 2). Your supplier can display the schedule lines and scheduling agreement releases in the 9ASAS planning book and can specify the quantities he or she is capable of delivering in the Confirmation key figure. In the Capacity key figure, the supplier can also specify his or her entire capacity, which alternatively can be derived from the confirmation quantities (using macros, for instance). In interactive planning you also have the option of entering capacities that your supplier notified you about in an email (planning book 9ASA or 9ASAS).

The system automatically transfers the confirmations to the OLTP system as scheduling agreement schedule lines.

6.       If the confirmation quantity is less than the release quantity, you can run SNP planning once more in the background to plan the demand quantities still to be fulfilled. With this planning, you can consider the capacity confirmed by the supplier (see step 5) as the maximum supplier capacity. Also enter the corresponding planning book and key figures, as described in step 2.