SAP APO

SAP APO

About the Tutorial

SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO) is one of the key modules in SAP
SCM, and controls Supply Network Planning, Spare Parts Planning, TP/VS and Demand
Planning in Supply Chain process. It helps the organization to manage their supply chain
process in a dynamic environment.

SAP APO is a complete software to cover key processes such as supply chain networking,
supply chain planning and coordination, and supply chain execution.

Audience
This tutorial is meant for Project leaders, project team members, SAP consultants, sales
consultant, and those related to the departments of Supply Chain and Material
Management.

Prerequisites
Before you proceed with this tutorial, we assume you have familiarity, prior experience,
and knowledge of the domain of supply chain management. However, it is sufficient if you
are aware of the basics of computer applications and SAP tools.

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Table of Contents
About the Tutorial .................................................................................................................................... i

Audience .................................................................................................................................................. i

Prerequisites ............................................................................................................................................ i

Copyright & Disclaimer............................................................................................................................. i

Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... ii

1. SAP APO ─ INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1

2. SAP APO ─ DEPLOYMENT OPTIONS ..................................................................................... 3

Post Installation Steps ............................................................................................................................. 3

3. SAP APO ─ ARCHITECTURE .................................................................................................. 6

4. SAP APO ─ SUPPLY CHAIN MONITORING ............................................................................. 8

Transaction MD04/Stock Requirement List ............................................................................................. 8

Logistics Information System (LIS) ......................................................................................................... 10

5. SAP APO ─ DEMAND PLANNING ........................................................................................ 16

Demand Planning Implementation ........................................................................................................ 16

Key Figures in Demand Planning ........................................................................................................... 16

Forecast Model Under Demand Planning .............................................................................................. 20

6. SAP APO ─ DATA MART, INFOCUBES & DP......................................................................... 23

Creating InfoCubes for Demand Planning .............................................................................................. 23

7. SAP APO ─ SUPPLY NETWORK PLANNING .......................................................................... 26

Planning Area Administration ............................................................................................................... 26

Master Data for Supply Network Planning ............................................................................................ 29

Supply Network Planning Run ............................................................................................................... 30

8. SAP APO ─ SUPPLY AND DEMAND MATCHING .................................................................. 33

Capable-To-Match (CTM) Function ........................................................................................................ 33

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9. SAP APO ─ PP/DS ............................................................................................................... 38

Integration of PP/DS with SAP APO applications ................................................................................... 38

PP/DS Alert Monitoring ......................................................................................................................... 39

10. SAP APO ─ MASTER DATA SETUP ....................................................................................... 42

Location Master Data ............................................................................................................................ 43

Product Master Data ............................................................................................................................. 47

11. SAP APO ─ TRANSPORT MANAGEMENT ............................................................................ 50

Master Data for Transport Planning/Vehicle Scheduling ....................................................................... 50

Interactive Planning in Transport Management .................................................................................... 53

12. SAP APO ─ ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONS IN TP/VS ................................................................... 59

13. SAP APO ─ SERVICE PART PLANNING ................................................................................. 65

Procurement Lead Times ....................................................................................................................... 65

Delivery and Shipment .......................................................................................................................... 67

14. SAP APO ─ CORE INTERFACE.............................................................................................. 69

Technical Integration Between Systems ................................................................................................ 69

Integration of Master and Transaction Data.......................................................................................... 73

15. SAP APO ─ ADMINISTRATION ............................................................................................ 75

SAP APO Performance Monitor ............................................................................................................. 76

16. SAP APO ─ CROSS APPLICATION FUNCTIONS ..................................................................... 78

Procurement Types ............................................................................................................................... 78

Source Determination in External Procurement .................................................................................... 78

17. SAP APO ─ MANAGING ROLES ........................................................................................... 79

Demand Planning Roles......................................................................................................................... 79

Supply Network Planning Roles ............................................................................................................. 79

Global Available-To-Promise Roles ........................................................................................................ 80

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PP/DS Roles .......................................................................................................................................... 80

Transport Management Roles: .............................................................................................................. 80

18. SAP APO ─ ARCHIVING DATA IN APO ................................................................................. 82

Archiving Interchangeability Master Data ............................................................................................. 82

Archiving in PP/DS ................................................................................................................................ 83

19. SAP APO ─ PROCESSING CUSTOMER REQUIREMENT ......................................................... 84

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1. SAP APO ─ Introduction

Advanced Planning and Optimization (APO) module is one of the key component under
SAP Supply Chain Management (SCM). It provides different business processes related to
Demand Planning, Supply Network Planning (SNP), Production Planning/Detailed
Scheduling (PP/DS), Transport Management and Global Available-to-Promise.

APO is tightly integrated with ECC system using a core interface (CIF) and provides full
reporting functionalities on top of data marts and InfoCubes.

With the recent release of Supply Chain Management (SCM) 5.0, a new set of functionality
has been added - Service Parts Planning - to perform spare part management under
Supply Chain.

SAP APO provides complete integrated functions to manage supply chain processes and
supports various features.

The use of Supplier Network Collaboration (SNC) (also known as Inventory Collation Hub
(ICH)) to provide collaboration between the suppliers and the customers. Using APO, you
can achieve coordination between different partners at all stages of the supply chain
process. It starts from receiving an order, monitoring the stock, and shipping of the
product.

You can constantly perform optimization and evaluation of Supply Chain process and
monitor process efficiency. APO also provides BI component to support Reporting functions
and data marts.

Advanced Planning and Optimization consists of following application functions -

 Demand Planning
 Supply Network Planning
 Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling (PP/DS)
 Supply Chain Collaboration
 Global Availability
 Transport Management
 Supply Chain Collaboration/Inventory Collation Hub

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SAP APO is installed as part of SAP Supply Chain Management server installation or it is
also available as an add-on tool to SAP ERP package.

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 2. SAP APO ─ Deployment Options SAP APO

SAP SCM Server installation provides all the features of SAP APO function module.

In an add-on deployment model of SAP APO, following components are available as part
of SAP APO tool -

 SAP APO - Demand planning, i.e. SCM-APO-FCS

 SAP APO Supply Network planning, i.e. SCM-APO-SNP
 SAP APO Production Planning and Detailed scheduling, i.e. SCM-APO-PPS
 SAP APO Global Available-to-Promise, i.e. SCM-APO-ATP

Note: In an Add-on deployment model, following application components are not available
w.r.t SAP SCM server installation -

 Service Parts Planning, i.e. SCM-APO-SPP

 Maintenance and Service Planning, SCM-APO-MSP
 Integration of SAP APO and Supply Network Collaboration (SNC)
 Global Available-to-Promise (ATP) integration with SAP CRM
 SAP APO Services related to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

Post Installation Steps

Once you perform add-on installation, you need to activate /SAPAPO/APO_ON_ERP. This
is used for SAP APO system setup. You need to activate this in the same client where SAP
APO is installed on SAP ERP system.

In SAP ERP system, you can check the deployment option of SAP APO as shown in the
following screenshot.

Navigate to System -> Status tab in SAP ERP

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Under component information in SAP System Data group. You can recognize the
deployment option as follows:

 When you see SCMPLUS component, it means you are in SCM server system i.e.
SCM server deployment of SAP APO.

 When the component - SCMPLUS is not listed, it means that you are in an ERP
system, i.e. add-on deployment model of SAP APO. You can scroll down in the
component list using left slide bar.

 When you select the component, you can also navigate to the Details tab at the
top to check the details of the component.

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3. SAP APO ─ Architecture

SAP APO architecture consists of multiple components - Database, BI environment

contains InfoCubes and Live Cache. InfoCubes are part of BI data mart and live cache is
the main area where you keep all the data related to planning and scheduling. You can
perform complex calculations in live cache and this improves the performance during
calculations and reporting.

In a normal deployment scenario of APO, there is only one cache per installation.

Although there is a single cache, the data can be loaded in three different ways as per the
application type.

 Time Series - Suitable for Demand Planning and Supply Network Planning

 As an Order with a category - Suitable for SNP, Production Planning/Detailed

Scheduling, and Transport Planning and Vehicle Scheduling

 ATP time series – Available-to-Promise

SAP BI functionality is primarily used by Demand Planning (DP), and depends on InfoCube
which contains historical data. Processing of data is done in Time Series live cache and
Supply Network Planning. PP/DS uses order live cache and SNP uses data for Time Series
live cache.

Available-to-Promise relies on data in ATP Time Series Live Cache.

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In SAP APO and ERP integration, most of the transactional data - Planned orders, purchase
requirements - are created in APO, while data related to execution - Sales Order and
Purchase Orders - are maintained in SAP ERP. For the integration of transactional data and
history, a plug is provided by SAP. Plug-in contains a Core Interface (CIF) and also the
interface to SAP BI structure.

SAP BI system gets data from Logistics Information System (LIS) in SAP ERP, which stores
all the transactional data. Data is stored in InfoCubes with the use of periodic jobs
scheduled as per the requirement of data load.

CIF provides an event-based trigger approach where data is loaded as and when required.
For each event triggered, entries are created in Live Cache of SAP APO system.

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4. SAP APO ─ Supply Chain Monitoring

Supply Chain Monitoring (SCM) is an effective tool to make informed decisions for the
suppliers and the buyers. The key holders in supply chain process takes decisions based
on Supply Chain Monitoring. Supply Chain consists of two tools -

 Stock Requirement List MD04

 Logistics Information System (LIS)

Transaction MD04/Stock Requirement List

In supply chain monitoring, all alerts raised in the system should be executed in a
symmetrical way. When there are no alerts pending in the supply chain, it results in a
healthy system.

Enter Material and Plant in the above screenshot and click the tick mark on top of the
page.

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BOM for material was exploded. Enter Purchase requisition.

Following activities can be monitored using Transaction MD04:

 Review master data alerts

 Orders can be placed in lead time
 Shortages
 Overages

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Logistics Information System (LIS)

SAP Supply Chain provides various standard reports that can be used to monitor the
efficiency of the entire supply chain process. Logistics Information System (LIS) is used to
mine the data for the following standard reports -

 Vendor Performance
 Sales Performance
 Maintenance Cost
 Rejection Rates
 Manufacturing Lead Time

Using LIS, you can not only evaluate actual data but you can also use it to prepare planning
data.

Supply Chain Monitoring involves the following functions -

Alert Monitor
Alert monitor is used to check if your application is running fine. In an Alert monitor, you
can view all the alerts and navigate directly to the application. Alert monitor can also be
used with SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM), and Forecasting and
Replenishment.

Alert monitor is used to monitor objects in the Supply Chain - material, transportation and
storage constraints, capacity as well as metrics such as delivery performance, cost flow,
and throughput.

Transaction Code for Alert Monitor is SAPAPO/AMON_SETTINGS or you can also open
using the following path - Easy Access -> Advanced Planning and Optimization -> Supply
Chain Monitoring -> Current Settings -> Set Alert Monitor.

The alert types can be managed in Transaction Code - SAPAPO/AMOCFG

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To create alert application profile, click the Create button.

Select Category as Application profile, enter Profile Id, description, and application. Click
the Create button in the next window.

You can display/edit alert profile, or application alert profile by navigating hierarchy under
alert profile.

Sending Notifications Using Alert Monitor

Using the alert monitor, you can send alert notifications that occurred for an overall alert
profile via an email or to an alert inbox. Overall alert profile in the Alert Monitor contains
selection criteria for the following alerts:

 The alerts that the system displays while calling the Alert Monitor.

 All the alerts for which the system sends an automatic notification.

To enable automatic sending of alert monitor, navigate to SAP Easy Access -> Advanced
Planning and Optimization -> Supply Chain Monitoring -> Current Settings -> Set Sending
of Alerts.

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You need to enter the following information -

 The user that you want to notify.

 An overall alert profile. Note that you can only assign one overall alert profile to
each system user, which is then used to notify the user.

 Email address (email address or inbox in the "SAP Business Workplace").

 Activate automatic notification for this system user by selecting the checkbox at
the bottom of the screenshot.

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You can also trigger the notifications manually. Navigate to SAP Easy Access -> Advanced
Planning and Optimization -> Alert Monitor -> Send Alerts.

Select the system user you want to notify. If you want the system to automatically send
notifications at regular intervals, define a variant of report
/SAPAPO/AMON_MAIL_BROADCAST

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Plan Monitor
Plan monitor is used to evaluate the key figures for a plan w.r.t different objects, periods,
and versions. Plan monitor can be used to compare various planning versions with each
other. You can compare the planning over different periods.

The results can be displayed in the form of a table or a graphic.

Plan monitor can be called from the following applications:

 Capable-to-Match (CTM)
 Product Planning table
 Detailed Scheduling Planning Board -> Extras -> Plan Monitor
 Model and Version Management -> Further Functions -> Plan Monitor

Key Figure Schema

Key figure schema is used to define which "Plan Monitor" criteria are used to evaluate the
planning. They are not specific to users and you can copy or delete them. The layout of
the table columns and the graphical display can be changed to user-specific settings.

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Under General Settings, you define the type of schema - simple display or comparison

Or Type of Display - Table, Graphic or combination of table and graphic

Under Key figures, define key figure variants:

 Times - This is used to define periods for which planning is to be evaluated

 Version - This is where you enter the planning and simulation version to be
evaluated

Supply Chain Cockpit

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Supply chain cockpit is a graphical tool to manage and control supply chain. It covers all
the planning areas like manufacturing, demand, transportation, etc.

With the use of individual work areas, you can have several planners work simultaneously
on different parts of a supply chain.

Supply Chain Cockpit allows you to -

 Check the entire supply chain from all perspectives and you can drill down to the
lowest level of detail.

o You can remove the complexity of the relationships among supply chain
components.

o Flexible decision-making steps after checking the detailed level information.

o You can also use it to retrieve information from SAP APO using queries.

o With SCC, you can measure Key Performance Indicators of supply chain
process.

 Create a new work area in SCC, click the Selection icon and this will open select
Work area screen.

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