Monthly Archive for November, 2008

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Planned independent requirement reorganization

Published on November 5, 2008 in PP. 4 Comments Tags: .

You can use the reorganization function to get rid of outdated and/or obsolete planned independent requirements. Furthermore you can delete histories of the requirements from the database.

In these transactions you work with a key date. Requirements before this date are impacted by the transactions. It is possible that a Reorganization Period is set for your plant:
IMG > >Production>Production planning>Planned independent requirements > Define the reorganization interval
You enter here the number of days that the system subtracts from the system date to fix the key date. This setting overrides any manual key date that you enter in the transactions!

ATP on semi-finished materials

Published on November 4, 2008 in PP. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Today we learned from SAP Support that it is not possible to distribute dependent requirements through time for Available to Promise.

What does that mean? Well in our case (process industry) it means the following:

We have a material B1 that is made from A1. We sell both items A1 and B1. Since this is process industry we want weekly process orders to become available on a daily basis. Enter distribution function. When we release a process order for B1, SAP neatly distributes the total process order quantity over 7 days of the week. At the same time dependent requirements are created for material A1. When we check the stock/requirement list (MD04) for materials B1 and A1, in both cases SAP distributes the required quantities during the week.

When we do an ATP check (CO09) for material B1 we can see that every day some quantity becomes available. However, for material A1 the dependent requirements from MD04 are not visible anymore The dependent requirement is taken on the first day of production for the full quantity. This seriously disturbs ATP. This leads to a shortage at the beginning of the week that isn’t there in real time.

How on earth is this not supported by standard SAP R/3, since this seems a standard requirement for any material that is both a sales item AND a component?

SAP Notes: 574800, 572347, 77895

The Beer Game – Supply Chain Simulation

Published on November 3, 2008 in Process. 0 Comments Tags: , .

In Supply Chain project environments it is not uncommon that the project goals can be considered rather conceptual for the business key-users. Even when the key-users (or end-users alike) have a good sense they’re contributing to something valuable, the true benefits are hard for them to explain. How do you explain someone how integrated planning and planning across Supply Chain parties contributes to lower stocks and a nicer looking bottom line? Answer: let them experience it!

A classic way of teaching Supply Chain inefficiencies and how to avoid them is the Beer Game. In the Beer Game participants play an actor in a four stage supply chain (from raw material provider to retailer). Each participant’s aim is to fulfill incoming orders by making sure sufficient stock is available for supply. This usually leads to creating the bullwhip effect (small demand variations downstream lead to amplified variations upstream). This is a great way of letting users (but also consultants with more technical background) experience motions in the supply chain.

For detailed instructions on how to play, a primary source is The Beer Game Portal.