manage supply network planning and ctm sap scm 5

Manage Supply Network Planning & CTM in

SAP APO (3.x) and mySAP SCM (4.x / 5.0) Best Practice for Solution Management

Version Date: November 2005 This version is valid for SAP APO 3.0A, 3.1 and mySAP SCM 4.0, 4.1 and 5.0

The newest version of this Best Practice can always be obtained through the SAP Solution Manager

Contents Applicability, Goals, and Requirements....................................................................................................2

Preliminary Information ......................................................................................................................3 Procedure...........................................................................................................................................9

Business Process Step 1: Initialize Planning Version ................................................................10 Business Process Step 2: Load Data.........................................................................................11 Business Process Step 3: Safety Stock Planning ......................................................................12 Business Process Step 4: SNP Heuristic Run ...........................................................................13 Business Process Step 4a: CTM Planning Run.........................................................................15 Business Process Step 5: SNP Optimizer Run..........................................................................20 Business Process Step 6: Capacity Leveling.............................................................................22 Business Process Step 7: SNP Interactive Planning .................................................................23 Business Process Step 8: Execute Batch Macros .....................................................................25 Business Process Step 9: Exchange Requirements with Supplier ............................................27 Business Process Step 10: Load Data into BW.........................................................................28 Business Process Step 11: Create/Update Planned Orders, Transfer Orders, and Purchase Requisitions................................................................................................................................29 Business Process Step 12: Release SNP to DP........................................................................30 Business Process Step 14: Deployment Heuristic .....................................................................32 Business Process Step 15: Deployment Optimizer....................................................................32 Business Process Step 16: Transport Load Builder (TLB).........................................................33 Business Process Step 17: Delete Transaction Data.................................................................33

Further Information .................................................................................................................................35

Best Practice: Manage Supply Network Planning & CTM in SAP APO (3.x) / mySAP SCM (4.x / 5.0)

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Applicability, Goals, and Requirements To ensure that this Best Practice is the one you need, consider the following goals and requirements.

Goal of Using this Service This Best Practice enables you to set up a business-process management and monitoring concept for the business process "Supply Network Planning" which is part of the mySAP Supply Chain Management (SCM) solution using the SAP Advanced Planning and Optimizing (APO). This business-process management and monitoring concept aims to:

Define procedures for business-process oriented monitoring, error handling, and escalation management for Supply Network Planning

Define the roles and responsibilities for all persons involved in the customers support and monitoring organization with respect to Supply Network Planning

These procedures ensure the smooth and reliable flow of the core business process in order to meet your business requirements.

Alternative Practices You can get SAP experts to deliver this Best Practice on-site if you order a Solution Management Optimization (SMO) service, known as the SAP Business Process Management service.

Staff and Skills Requirements To implement this Best Practice, you require the following teams:

Application Management Team The SCM / APO business process management concept (which this Best Practice aims to produce) should be created by the Application Management Team. This team combines experts from your company:

Business department Solution support organization (for example, the IT department and the Help Desk) Implementation project team

Execution Teams

The execution teams are the following groups, which taken together form the customers Solution Support Organization:

The Business Process Champion for each business process Application Support Development Support Program Scheduling Management Software Monitoring Team System Monitoring Team

More information about roles and responsibilities of these teams can be found in the superordinate Best Practice General Business Process Management, which you can obtain through the SAP Solution Manager.


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Duration and Timing Duration

Creating a business-process management concept may take around one week per business process. Implementing the business-process management concept may take around one additional week.

Timing

The best time to apply this Best Practice is during the planning phase or during the implementation phase of your mySAP solution.

How to Use this Best Practice Firstly read the whole document to get an overview of its structure, contents, and details. Determine the APO SNP core business process to be monitored. If you use the APO Core Interface (CIF) within this process, you should also see the respective Manage APO Core Interface in mySAP SCM Best Practice. Record all the relevant steps in your core business process; use the example business process as a template. Exclude template process steps that you do not perform. For every process step, take the monitoring elements from the tables and insert them into your own template. Complete the information according to your specific requirements, for example, frequency and time of monitoring activity. If the process step includes CIF data transfer, add the information from the CIF document, section Operation and Monitoring of the APO CIF. Do not forget to include the respective information for interfaces other than CIF and for business process steps performed with your own (Y-, Z-) programs. Determine the related monitoring activities, tools, and responsible teams and fill in the table accordingly. For activities that are not directly related to a business process step, like those mentioned in section System Administration Related to the APO CIF in the CIF best practice, create a separate table. Proceed in the same way with all your other core business processes and other activities you want to monitor.

Preliminary Information

The SCM System Landscape The substantial components of an SAP SCM system landscape are summarized in the following table and shown schematically in the subsequent illustration.

SAP APO System The SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization system facilitates the strategic, tactical, and operational planning processes.

APO consists of several software components: a relational database system (RDBMS) just as there is in any R/3 system, known as the APO DB; an SAP Web Application Server (or for releases up to APO 3.1 an R/3 Basis); the APO application programs; a separate, very fast object-oriented SAP DB database called liveCache; application programs running in liveCache the COM routines; and a number of programs that execute elaborated optimization algorithms, called the optimization engines. These components can run on the same or on different servers.

OLTP System The Online Transaction Processing system covers functionality for sales and distribution, material and inventory management, controlling, shop floor control, logistic execution, and so on.

OLAP System An Online Analysis Processing system, such as SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW), provides cumulated historical data as a basis for future extrapolation purposes in APO Demand Planning.


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SAP R/3 Plug-In

OLTP System

RDBMS

SAP R/3 Plug-In

OLTP System

RDBMS

RDBMS

SAP APO System

liveCache

liveCache

OLAP System

RDBMS

The various strategies for using SAP APO, SAP R/3, SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW), and possibly other data processing systems in combination are called integration scenarios.

Data for planned independent demand can enter the Supply Network Planning (SNP) module either through the Demand Planning (DP) module, or from external systems. Since SNP can have some or all of its Key Figures in the time series liveCache, data can enter it in the same manner as they enter Demand Planning. Usually, an APO system is connected to one or several systems that provide historical and actual data, for example, sales figures, for your Supply Network Planning business process. These systems can be SAP R/3, SAP BW, and / or third party and legacy systems or a combination of these. As APO comprises a complete SAP BW, the tools for extracting data from other systems and transferring them to APO for demand planning purposes are the same as those used by SAP BW. The APO BW reads the data using remote function call (RFC) techniques, IDocs, or OS file access. In addition, data such as sales orders, stock, production orders or purchase orders can be sent from R/3 to SNP as order objects through the Core Interface Function (CIF), which is described in the corresponding Best Practice Manage APO Core Interface in mySAP SCM.

On the other hand, the planning results of the supply network planning process are fed into other applications for further planning or execution purposes. The system types that can be used here are APO itself - in particular its modules DP and / or PP/DS -, SAP R/3, or again third party, or legacy, systems. The latter is not considered in this Best Practice document.

This Best Practice is therefore based on a general and common integration scenario for setting up a mySAP Supply Chain Management solution using SAP APO. As data sources, SAP BW, SAP R/3, and flat files can be connected to the SAP APO system.

SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization (APO) is the planning component of mySAP SCM, the Supply Chain Management solution provided by SAP. SAP APO is used to make strategic, tactical, and operational decisions and supports you in performing the following planning activities:


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Demand Planning (DP) Supply Network Planning (SNP) Production Planning (PP) Detailed Scheduling (DS) Deployment Transport Load Builder (TLB) Transport Planning and Vehicle Scheduling (TP/VS) Global Available-to-Promise (gATP)

SAP APO is most of all a planning tool, although some industry specific execution functions are available, for example, production backflush for repetitive manufacturing. In standard business scenarios, execution functions, such as confirmations, goods receipt, purchasing, and so on are performed in the SAP R/3 OLTP system, which contains all functionality for, among many others, Material Management MM, Sales and Distribution SD, Production Order Processing PP-SFC, Logistics Execution LES, and Controlling CO.


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Supply Network Planning The individual core business process and its modeling in SNP for planning your supply network may differ more or less from the canonical process described and illustrated as follows.

Description: The process flow above describes a typical SNP process flow. Before data can be loaded into Supply Network Planning, a planning area and planning version must be created and initialized. The planning version can consist of order key figures, time series key figures, or both.

After initialization, data can be loaded into SNP in several ways: by releasing a forecast from Demand Planning, by CIF transfer from R/3, or from a flat file using a BAPI (Data from BW can only come to SNP either via BAPI or by transferring it through the APO data mart into a DP planning area, from where later a release to SNP can be done).

Many customers then execute a batch job to calculate safety stock: in some cases this is done separately from the main planning run using report /SAPAPO/MSDP_SB. In other cases, it is calculated by a macro during the heuristic or optimizer run, depending on which safety stock planning method used.


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Most customers then run either the SNP Optimizer or the SNP Heuristic, depending on the size of the problem and whether they can meet their needs with the infinite planning considered by the Heuristic. After the run is complete, planners usually check the results in interactive planning, possibly using alerts. If the SNP Heuristic has been run, Capacity Leveling is often performed on bottleneck resources to ensure that a feasible plan is created.

Often customers perform a variety of tasks via batch macros: these can be used to generate alerts and perform further calculations on the data either before or after the planning run. Many SNP process flows then exchange requirements with suppliers often using collaborative planning.

At some point in the planning flow, some SNP customers use remote InfocCubes in a BW system for reporting on the SNP plan. The SNP planning results can also be sent to R/3 using the CIF interface, where the planned orders and purchase requisitions produced by SNP planning are then further processed using MRP. In other cases, the constrained forecast calculated by SNP can be released back to DP, and used in evaluating the feasibility of a forecast. Still another use for the SNP data is to transfer it to PP/DS, where a more detailed, single-location planning is performed. After the PP/DS run occurs, the deployment algorithms - either heuristic or optimizer based approaches are available - can be used to plan transfers of single location-products from one location to another, and to implement fair share rules. Although deployment is a short-term planning, it uses algorithms similar to the SNP heuristic or optimizer, so it is classed within SNP. In some cases, a detailed transport load is needed to consider transport load building constrains (min-max load) and to ensure that loading of the transportation resources for multiple products is feasible. Some comment is also needed about the use of /SAPAPO/RLCDELETE: since SNP alone is not an execution system, many customers also use this report to clean the order objects from the planning version used for SNP Planning after the results of the planning run have been sent to their respective destinations.

The system can automatically split the data set and automate the parallel scheduling of batch jobs. This is already possible in SAP SCM 4.0 for most Demand Planning and Supply Network Planning processes. With SAP SCM 5.0 and SAP SCM 4.1 (SP 4 note 779850) this is also available for:

Deployment Heuristic Transport Load Builder Master Data Initialization Consistency check Time Series consistency check Saving of optimizer results to liveCache Capable to Match (CTM) (only SAP SCM 5.0) For all functions it is possible to specify a parallel processing profile to control the parallelization. It contains:

Maximal number of parallel work processes Maximum block size Server group (optional)

Capable to Match If you are using CTM as a planning tool within your Supply Network Planning network please also consult the above picture and paragraph there are usually some differences to the SNP standard process. For this purpose we provide here also a typical business process involving CTM. The numbering of the process is oriented on the SNP process to make finding of relating chapters in this document easier. Of course your specific process might differ more or less from this canonical process:


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Description: The process flow is quite similar to the process flow of SNP above and therefore not described in detail again. Of course one has to keep in mind that CTM can also be used with PP/DS orders and PP/DS PPMs. This than implies differences in the processes e.g. that in interactive planning transaction /SAPAPO/RRP3 is used more often than /SAPAPO/SNP94. Please consider the following overview part for better understanding.

Overview: Multilevel Supply and Demand Matching (SDM) is the umbrella for the SAP APO solution for matching prioritized customer demands and forecasts to a set of supplies, while taking the current production capacities and transport capabilities into consideration. SDM's approach is production flow-centric, not production resource-centric, as is the case with traditional planning approaches. SDM does not consider the individual distribution and production levels of the supply chain one after the other, but considers all possible paths through the distribution and production levels together. For each demand element, the search is performed through the supply chain and the first possible way to fulfill the demand element is determined.

Multilevel Supply and Demand Matching (SDM) is the umbrella for the SAP APO solution for matching prioritized customer demands and forecasts to a set of supplies, while taking the current production capacities and transport capabilities into consideration.

SDM aims at a medium to long-term planning horizon and guarantees a timely multilevel synchronous production flow, triggering flow only when necessary. Because SDM is order-based, it requires a tool that also supports a multilevel dynamic order split.

Capable-to-Match (CTM) is the central planning tool of SDM. In addition, an order-based method of Supply Distribution, as well as a tool that provides a graphical, flow-oriented view of the supply chain, complement this application.

SDM complements the cross-plant supply chain planning strategies of the SAP APO applications Supply Network Planning (SNP) and Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling (PP/DS). Therefore it is also necessary to read especially the SNP Feasibility Check Assessment Guide for understanding the entire business process.

The business area Multilevel Supply and Demand Matching similarly to SNP covers the following activities;

Supply Chain Planning

Creating feasible plans for purchasing, manufacturing, distribution and transportation Integrating purchasing, manufacturing, distribution, and transportation planning for the

midterm

Making sourcing decisions through the Supply Network Categorizing supply to meet prioritized demands Synchronizing activities and plan material flow throughout the supply chain

Capable-to-Match (CTM) planning is the planning tool of SDM. It uses constraint-based heuristics to conduct cross-plant checks of production capacities and transportation capabilities based on predefined supply categories and demand priorities. At the same time, existing supplies are cleared when matching them with demands. The aim of the CTM planning run is to propose a feasible solution for fulfilling demands.


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CTM first prioritizes the demands then schedules them one after the other in the prioritization sequence. CTM then matches the supplies and demands on a first come, first served basis while taking the production capacities, transport options and existing supplies into consideration.

Customers often use CTM as an alternative to the SNP heuristic or SNP optimizer. However, there are also customers using CTM in the PP/DS environment. For such cases, please also refer to the Best Practice document Manage Production Planning in SCM / APO.

The CTM engine runs on an extra optimizer server, which must be based on Windows NT/2000/XP. This will connect to an APO application server using Remote Function Calls (RFC). During installation or after configuration changes, make sure that the connection to the optimizer server maintained in SM59 still works correctly.

Procedure In applying this Best Practice procedure, you create a company-specific process-oriented monitoring concept. This concept consists of monitoring activities to be performed for each business-process step and its respective monitoring objects. When adapting this concept for your company, you must specify the times, responsible teams, and escalation paths (teams) for the monitoring activities associated with each business-process step and its monitoring objects. In each of the business process steps described below, you will find the following information:

A detailed functional description of the process step Monitoring activities for the process step Error handling, restartability, and escalation A monitoring object table, listing each relevant monitoring object, showing the:

o Monitoring object o Monitoring transaction or tool o Monitoring frequency o Monitoring time (intentionally left blank, to be filled in according to your schedule) o Indicator or error o Monitoring activity or error handling procedure o Responsible team o Escalation procedure

As the frequency of SNP planning processes varies from daily activities at certain companies to only monthly or quarterly at others, the monitoring frequency in these monitoring object tables is partly only a rough estimate and has to be adapted to your particular business process. During the Going Live and stabilization phase of your APO implementation project, all items listed in this document should be monitored tightly. After becoming more experienced with system behavior, error occurrences, and application operations, the monitoring frequency can be decreased, but should never be reduced to zero unless you do not use the respective function. Important planning jobs usually have to be monitored after each run. Regular jobs of minor priority, for example, certain clean-up jobs, can be checked less frequently than the actual scheduled run times. For example, daily jobs can be checked weekly. The following seems obvious but should nevertheless be mentioned: Besides the monitoring of jobs described in the business process steps below, it is essential that you check all jobs that are running in your system at least several times per day for abnormal terminations. For status cancelled, see Error Handling, Restartability and Escalation. You should investigate and correct these terminations appropriately. This check can be done easily, for instance, with transaction SM37 by entering the time interval since the latest check and selecting all jobs with status cancelled. If you have no automatic notification in place that informs the people responsible for Program Scheduling Management in your Support Organization of abnormally terminated jobs, you need to take measures to ensure that this is done manually in a reliable and timely manner. A number of jobs must run periodically in a live R/3 installation, for example, the jobs for deleting outdated jobs or spool objects. For details and comments, see SAP Note 16083.


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Business Process Step 1: Initialize Planning Version Before a new planning version can be used in SNP, the planning version must be initialized for an SNP planning area. How the planning area is initialized depends on whether it contains only order objects, or whether some or all key figures are time series key figures. For order objects only, initializing the planning area is straightforward: execute transaction /SAPAPO/MSDP_ADMIN and find the planning area of interest; in most cases, the standard 9ASNP02 is used for order objects. Right click on the planning area, choose initialize planning version. Type in the name of the planning version, and execute. For planning versions with significant amounts of master data, select the execute in background option. General information on handling problems with version management is available in SAP Note 519014. When you need to change the validity period on a planning area with time series objects, simply enter transaction /SAPAPO/MSDP_ADMIN, right click on the planning area, and choose Create Time Series. Then enter the existing planning version and the new start and end dates for the time series that are desired. For large data volumes, it is preferable to use the option Execute in Background, both so that the program will not time out and so that the monitoring tools of SM37 are available. In SCM 5.0 it is possible to compare the results of the planning based on different master data sets. For that purpose the standard SNP planning book contains additional key figures that can be linked to a second planning version

Monitoring Activities

Jobs for Running and Monitoring "Initialize Planning Version" (APO) If the planning area used for SNP contains time series key figures, you should periodically check for inconsistent time series objects using report /SAPAPO/TS_LCM_CONS_CHECK_ALL or /SAPAPO/TS_LCM_CONS_CHECK. The difference between the two reports is simply that /SAPAPO/TS_LCM_CONS_CHECK_ALL runs the report in display mode for all TS planning objects, while /SAPAPO/TS_LCM_CONS_CHECK has a parameter screen that allows the user to choose a planning area and to decide whether to correct the inconsistencies. SAP Note 358283 gives a description of the report.

Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Monitor Time

Indicator or Error

Monitoring Activity or Error Handling Procedure

Respon-sibility

Escalation Procedure

Initialize planning version

Report /SAPAPO/TS_LCM_CONS_CHECK

As often as you change master data

Status Run the job periodically to ensure that processes such as delta initialization of the planning area have not created extraneous objects in the liveCache

Program scheduling management

Contact application support


SM37 Depend-ing on business process

Status Ensure that job completes successfully




SM37 Depend-ing on business process

Status/messages

Whether or not the job completes successfully, monitor the messages in the job log to ensure that no errors occurred

Application support

Contact process champion

See general issues of Error Handling, Restartability and Escalation below.


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Business Process Step 2: Load Data Depending upon your business process, it may be that you periodically load either only transactional data or both master data changes and transactional data into SNP. Transactional data is usually loaded into SNP by a release from Demand Planning to SNP, which is described in the Best Practice Manage Demand Planning in mySAP SCM / SAP APO.

Master data changes cover the master data objects like location, product, resource, PPM and transportation lane which are assigned to the model as the characteristic combinations. If new master data are loaded into a model, you should perform a model consistency check using transaction /SAPAPO/CONSCHK: in many cases it is preferable to use this transaction to launch a batch job and check the output in SM37 afterwards. The profile used should be restricted to the functionality and data which you are actually using. After loading new master data, the data must be initialized for SNP planning. When the planning area contains time series key figures, this has to be done by reinitializing the SNP planning area in /SAPAPO/MSDP_ADMIN or alternatively, by running report /SAPAPO/TS_PAREA_INITIALIZE. When the planning area does not contain any time series key figures, this can either be done by reinitializing the SNP planning area or automatically by starting SNP interactive planning or SNP mass processing.

Additionally, the consistency check report can be used in repair mode. The consistency check should also be executed if the master data are changed in APO but not visible or accessible via SNP. For additional information see SAP Note 577038. Usually, master data changes are sent by CIF from R/3 to SNP. If this is the case, you need to regularly check and update the selection data tables for the Planning Area(s) used for SNP. To do this, execute report /SAPAPO/MCPSH_GEN_SELTAB_MGM. There exists a consistency check for selections, in addition to functions for adding and deleting the functions. However, please read Note 332812 carefully before using this report to automatically correct inconsistencies. All CIF data interchanges should also be monitored as described in the Manage APO Core Interface in mySAP SCM. Some customers also load data using a BAPI. If large amounts of data are loaded by BAPI, it is possible that tables /SAPAPO/TSQ* can become very large and cause performance problems. Ensure that only delta records are loaded by the BAPI, and reinitialize the planning area using report /SAPAPO/TS_PAREA_INITIALIZE to prevent this problem.

Monitoring Activities Apart from safeguarding the general availability and consistency of the system components SAP APO, SAP BW, and SAP R/3 OLTP, to safeguard this business step SAP recommends that you monitor the objects listed in the following table.

Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Monitor Time

Indicator or Error


Respon-sibility


Master data /SAPAPO/CONSCHK

When data are modified

Messages Check log of consistency check for master data objects that display inconsistencies.

Application support team


Master Data /SAPAPO/CONSSHOW

When data are modified

Messages Check log of consistency check



See general issues ofError Handling, Restartability and Escalation below.


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Business Process Step 3: Safety Stock Planning There are two types of safety stock methods in SNP: standard methods (SB, SZ, SM, MB, MZ, and MM) and advanced methods (AT, AS, BT, BS). Standard methods are performed in macro SAFETY_CALC, see note 504253 for an introduction. Advanced methods are performed in report /SAPAPO/RSDP_CALC_SAFETY_STOCK (transaction: /SAPAPO/MSDP_SB). In the remainder of this section, only advanced methods are considered. The advanced safety stock methods used in SNP are based on the following assumptions (see also note 617567):

Demand is regular, i.e., there is demand in almost every planning period, the demand quantities are significantly greater than zero and do not fluctuate too much between planning periods. Spare parts is a business area that usually does not meet this assumption.

In case of shortage, the missing parts can always be delivered belatedly, i.e., no demand gets lost (backorder case).

If neither regular stock nor safety stock suffice to cover the whole demand, the remainder is made available using alternative arrangements, for example, rush shipments (no delay approach).

All uncertainties in the supply chain are statistically independent of each other. Please be aware that the safety stock values calculated may differ significantly from the correct ones if one or more of these assumptions are violated. In extreme cases, the methods will not calculate any reasonable values.

Also make sure that the supply chain does not contain "cycles" for the location products to be planned. In this context, a cycle is a sequence of PPMs and/or transportation lanes that transform a location product on to its self. If such cycles exist Safety Stock Planning will be caught in an endless loop unless note 547049 has been applied. Safety stock calculations for different location products are independent of each other. Therefore, the order of calculations is arbitrary. If you need to improve performance, you can execute parallel processing by creating separate variants for transaction /SAPAPO/MSDP_SB and run them at the same time. In general, to avoid lock issues, it is advisable not to make changes to the SNP planning version in which safety stock is run. Please also consider notes 599871 and 600766. Be aware that with release SCM 4.0, the results of extended safety stock planning can no longer be saved in auxiliary key figures, but in time series key figures only. In addition, the previous SNP standard planning folders (9ASNP94, for example) only support the methods SB, SZ and SM for safety stock planning. As of Release SCM 4.0 Support Package 08, a new 9ASNP_SSP SNP standard planning book exists for the safety stock planning, which contains two specific time series key figures for safety stock planning (9ASAFETY, 9ASVTTY). The 9ASNP_SSP folder supports all methods of the safety stock planning in SNP (SB, SZ, SM, MB, MZ, MM, AS, AT, BS, BT). Please consult SAP Note 646738 for details. As of Release SCM 5.0, the Safety Stock for sporadic demand can be calculated with a standard planning profile. This makes Safety Stock Planning also suitable for industries such as spare parts. New fields in the product-location master data also enable a Replenishment lead time determination and the consideration of maximum and minimum Safety Stock Levels As of Release SCM 5.0 it is possible to aggregate the method parameter values, demand and replenishment lead time on a detailed level and use the results instead of the values from header level

Monitoring Activities The monitoring activities needed to ensure that safety stock planning runs are executed correctly are indicated in the table below.


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Jobs for Running and Monitoring "Safety Stock Planning" To ensure consistency and good performance of safety stock calculations, schedule the following jobs to run on a regular basis:

Calculate safety stocks with advanced methods with report /SAPAPO/RSDP_CALC_SAFETY_STOCK. This report calculates the safety stock associated with reorder point methods (either alpha or beta service level; reorder cycle or reorder point).

When checking the spool file, look especially for messages in the form of: "Product &1 in location &2 cannot be procured. This indicates an error in the procurement type for the location product, which should be corrected by the application support team. Most commonly, the error is caused by a location product with procurement type E (in-house production) for which there is no valid PPM. For such location products no safety stock can be planned since there is no way to procure it. When checking the job in SM37, in addition to looking for jobs which cancelled, also look for large values in the field Delay(sec), which might indicate that the job had to wait for another process to release locked data, and make a note of which other processes were running concurrently.

Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Monitor Time

Indicator or Error


Respon-sibility


APO Report /SAPAPO/RSDP_CALC_SAFETY_STOCK

SM37 Each time the report is run

Check spool file for errors. Look for large values of Delay (sec) in SM37.


Contact application support team.


Business Process Step 4: SNP Heuristic Run In Release 3.x the SNP heuristic performs infinite planning for the supply chain. It can be run in one of three modes: Multilevel (all products at all locations), Network (all locations, but BOM is only exploded to one level) or Location (all products at one location, but a full BOM explosion takes place). In Release SCM 4.x the handling of heuristic has been enhanced (not for interactive planning). For transaction /../snp01 the following changes have been made:

The heuristic can be executed in two modes. Network (selected products in all locations) or Location (selected products in selected locations).

In addition to both modes you can set a flag to perform a full BOM explosion. This enables to plan a part of the network but on all levels.

o For this the report /sapapo/rsnpllcset has to be performed to determine the low-level-code of all products of a version. This should be done on a regular base but has to be done after relevant master data changes (e.g. transportation lanes or PPMs)

Use of the Net Change planning flag is not recommended, unless the number of location products is high and the number of changing demands is comparatively small. Net change planning is only available in the active version (000). The entries of objects flagged for net change planning can be viewed from transaction /SAPAPO/RRP_NETCH. When there is enough demand it can be cheaper to distribute directly from the plant to the customer. The Planning algorithms are up to SCM 4.x not able (except partly the optimization) to take this into consideration, especially because this is typically a multi-product decision. In SCM 5.0 the SNP Heuristic is enabled to decide for a direct ship, instead of considering the quotations. For this a Transport Load Builder check is carried out to comply to load limits on multiple products. SCM 5.0 allows users to perform a SNP run on an aggregated level, by defining hierarchies for products and locations to be taken into account by the SNP heuristic, A disaggregating logic is available to ensure that plans are consistent at all levels of aggregation and the Interactive Planning offers extended drilldown options for displaying the planning results. Larger supply chain models can be planned, performance improvements by calculation on aggregation levels can be achieved and the planning process is simplified.


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To set up the aggregated planning in SNP: 1. Define the aggregated planning objects (MD aggregates: location aggregates, product aggregates, BOM/Routing aggregates, resource aggregates) 2. Define the relations between aggregated objects and detailed objects (define location-product-hierarchies, BOM/Routing hierarchies, resource hierarchies) 3. Generate aggregated transactional data based on the definition of aggregated master data 4. Perform Supply Network Planning based on aggregated master data and transactional data 5. Disaggregate planning result to detailed level (optional) If the heuristic run is executed in Version 000, the inbound or outbound queues in the R/3 system should be locked during the time of the heuristic run:

If you cannot rule out that, during the heuristic run, data will be transferred from an SAP R/3 system to the SAP APO system (or from APO to R/3) over the core interface (CIF), you can lock inbound or outbound queues in the SAP R/3 system from the SAP APO system. This should prevent inconsistencies occurring in the planning if, during the heuristic run, transaction data is transferred from SAP R/3 to SAP APO that is ignored by the heuristic.

To lock outbound queues, you can use the /SAPAPO/CIFSTOPQUEUES and /SAPAPO/CIFSTARTQUEUES reports in SAP APO. Reports RSTRFCI1 and RSTRFCI3 are available for locking inbound queues. See also SAP note 487261 / 528913.

Occasionally, with the import of a support package, the length of data fields in report variants can change, which can cause inconsistencies if not corrected. Fortunately, this problem can be alleviated by running report RSVCHECK after implementation of a new support package.

Monitoring Activities Regarding SM37: when several heuristics identify large values of Delay(sec), it is recommended that you investigate the possibility that another process (or several parallel jobs) is locking one another. While the processes are running, locks on the APO database can be seen with transaction SM12.

Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Monitor Time

Indicator or Error


Respon-sibility


APO report /SAPAPO/RSNPDRP1

This report performs the SNP heuristic run.

SM37 Depends on business process

Status Check if job is running as scheduled. Also check the column Delay(sec)- large values may indicate that another process was locking the job, and it waited for the other process to finish.

If the report is not scheduled as provided by Application Support, schedule it accordingly.



Spool file of report /SAPAPO/RSNPDRP1

SM37 As often as heuristic is executed

Log file Check whether the spool file has any error messages, or strange results (e.g. many orders, each with a quantity of 1 for the same location-product on the same date)

Application Support


Application log of report /SAPAPO/RSNPDRP1

Slg1 As often as heuristic is executed

Log file Check whether the spool file has any error messages.

Application Support



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Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Monitor Time

Indicator or Error


Respon-sibility


SCM report /sapapo/rsnpllcset

Sm37 On a regular base but after relevant master data changes

Status Look for error messages like cycles. Ther are not allowed for SNP.



Report variants

RSVCHECK

Once a month, or after importing new support packages

List of variants with problems

Check if any variants have problems




Business Process Step 4a: CTM Planning Run Critical steps in CTM The three critical areas for performance during CTM run are loading and preprocessing of data, runtime of CTM engine and the writing of the results to liveCache. In case of performance problems it is crucial to determine which of the areas is critical -> Please see section Monitoring Activities for details.

The most common reasons for poor performance are:

1) Slow reading and preprocessing of data: a) Order selection is slow,

- due to deletion of orders taking too long - due to many orders being selected; - due to pegging being analysed;

Possible solutions: - Filter demands and supplies considered by date; - Reduce the planning horizon considered;

e.g. try to consider planning runs with shorter horizon during the week and with long horizon on weekends;

- Optimize the parameter package size for orders selection in /n/SAPAPO/CTMCUST; - Verify whether you really need all the selected location-products to be planned for;

b) Reading further data (products, PPMs, resources, transports) is slow; Possible solutions:

- Filter master data using only actively planned (by CTM) objects; - Verify whether e.g. all the activities of a PPM need to be planned as well by CTM;

c) Slow prioritization of demands Possible solutions:

- of course the time for prioritization is depending on the amount of selected orders, so a primary goal should be to only select the ones necessary for the CTM run;

- in the time for prioritization of demands there is also the rule determination and evaluation included. Best for performance here is of course to use setting Do Not Apply Rules. However if rules are necessary try to use Apply Default Rule instead


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of Apply Rules! and evaluate whether planning parameter DEFAULT_RULE is applicable (see SAP Note 441723).

2) CTM engine is slow: Possible solutions:

- Use Aggregation; - Reduce horizons for late and early demand fulfillment as much as possible; - Filter demands by order category and date;

3) Writing to liveCache is slow: Possible solutions: - Use asynchronous liveCache update;

- Optimize package size for creating orders; - Optimize package size for creating pegging relationships; - Optimize package size for asynchronous liveCache update;

Important additional performance settings Some specific performance relevant settings and referral notes are briefly discussed in the following paragraphs:

Set the indicator Do not Evaluate Pegging Relationships in the technical settings of the CTM profile, in order to delete all non-firm orders without any further checks. (In APO 3.0A and 3.10 this setting must still be carried out via the planning parameter FAST_DEL.) The system then does not check, for example, whether a pegging relationship exists between an order and a demand that lies outside the planning horizon. This means that the system will certainly delete the order. If you do not require these checks, you can set the indicator to shorten the runtime of the order selection. If all orders lie within the planning horizon, checks are not required as the result of the order selection is the same with or without the checks. Note that this indicator must not be used in connection with subcontracting, as the system must evaluate pegging relationships for deleting subcontracting orders. Also only use this indicator with planning mode Replan all Orders and deletion mode Delete all Non-Firm Orders. If this functionality is used in combination with a master data selection, all orders which contain at least one location product of the master data selection will be deleted. For more information about this setting refer to note: 533457.

During the demand prioritisation and supply categorisation the demands and supplies are stored in database tables /SAPAPO/CTMDEM, /SAPAPO/CTMSUP, /SAPAPO/CTMMAP). These database tables can grow with every new CTM profile, new planning version in a CTM profile. During a CTM planning run for the current CTM profile and planning version entries for demands and supplies are deleted form the database tables, entries are created and entries are read to be handed on to the CTM engine. In case there are many entries in the database talbes the delete/read/write accesses can be time consuming. If these tables contain many entries they can be deleted by using program /SAPAPO/CTM_DEMSUP_DELETE Also see note 375174 for further details. The table entries are automatically deleted if the planning version is deleted or the CTM profile is deleted. With release SCM4.1 it is possible to decide (customizing setting) if these tables should be updated for a CTM planning run or if the data is directly transferred.

Asynchronous liveCache update: The default setting of the CTM engine is synchronous liveCache writing. This means that after the CTM engine has finished, the system starts writing the whole result to the liveCache. When changed to asynchronous update, writing is carried out in parallel to planning. After finishing a certain planning package (a planning package is finished after a specified number of demands were planned by CTM) the result is written to the liveCache while the CTM engine continues planning. In cases where liveCache time and engine runtime are approximately the same this setting can save up to 50% of the time, as those steps will then run in parallel.

The runtimes of order selection and writing to liveCache also strongly vary according to the chosen package sizes. The relevant parameters are maintained in /SAPAPO/CTMCUST. However the package size parameter for asynchronous liveCache updates can also be maintained via the variable planning parameter PackageSize for each CTM profile. Please consider the following points for optimal settings for these parameters:


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1. The setting for Order Selection is based on location-products rather than on number orders. If, for example, the parameter is set to 5000, CTM reads the orders for the first 5000 location-products in one package from liveCache. If the average amount of orders per location-product combination is

a. 0.2 (each fifth loc-prod. has an order), the result is 1000 orders per package

b. 10 (each loc-prod. has on average 10 orders), the result is 50000 orders per package

As you can see, this setting strongly depends on the orders (including fixed orders, PP/DS orders) existing per location-product. Therefore it is important to try different settings to clarify performance issues. As a guideline SAP expects values of 10000-50000 orders per package for optimal performance

2. The setting for the package size for asynchronous liveCache Update considers the existing requirements and creates orders for them. The PackageSize parameter determines here the number of requirements considered before sending the resulting orders to liveCache. The possibility exists that several orders have been created per requirement or just one. Therefore the parameter does not imply that the package includes 500 orders, if this is the current setting, it only means that 500 requirements are considered and the respective orders sent in one package.

It is only necessary to change this parameter if the CTM engine is waiting for the liveCache (the queue for packages to be transferred to liveCache increases as liveCache is not dealing with the necessary updates fast enough). One can then look into the CTM Application log and find the number of orders transferred per package depending on the most relevant categories:

a. planned orders / production orders

b. purchase requisitions

c. transport orders

d. substitution orders

The amount of orders per package coming from these categories together should result in at least 5000 orders per package to have optimal performance.

Please note that using CTM in parallel is not usual and often not practicable. Before using CTM in parallel it is crucial to verify that the two (or more) subproblems to be run in parallel are truly and completely independent / non-overlapping! Refer to SAP Note 430688 for more information.

Monitoring Activities CTM run

Monitoring the CTM run includes understanding how long each of those three steps takes approximately to see where possible problems may be situated. For this information to be recorded you need to have the Save CTM messages-Box on the Settings-tab in the CTM profile activated, which results in a brief application log being written. To find the information written in th log go to

- /SAPAPO/OPT11, then select the appropriate CTM run and click and press on the Log-icon, or

- /SAPAPO/CTM -> result analysis -> display logs and choose the appropriate log from the list; from here the times and the warning messages should be regularly analyzed after CTM runs.

1) Estimate for loading data and preproccesing:

end time of reading transports - start time of selecting orders;

2) Rough estimate for CTM engine runtime (This might be wrong with asynchronous liveCache update, if the writing is so slow that the CTM engine stops. In case of doubts about the runtime estimate for the CTM engine, the CTM trace file has to be looked at and the time stamps for Engine Start and Engine Finished have to be considered; this time estimate is more exact, but also more time consuming;):

end time of entry for CTM Planning run in SM37->Job log - end time of reading transports;


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3) Rough estimate for writing data to liveCache:

Sum of the differences between End and Start times of each package to be written to liveCache.

4) In case there is safety stock being build up, there will be a second CTM run after the end of the first one. Determining times here works accordingly.

CIF Queues

In addition to those steps please notice that the CIF Queues should be locked during the execution of the planning run to prevent inconsistencies. Please see SAP Note 528913 for a full discussion. Note that this does not apply if the CTM run is executed on an inactive planning version. Also note that you should upgrade your CTM engine in parallel with support package upgrades to ensure optimal functionality and performance. In general it is always good to take the newest available CTM engine.

Deleting locks after short dump during CTM run

In the event of a short dump during the CTM run, there are two options to delete locks which prevent a new start of the CTM engine:

1) Delete CTM engine run manually in transaction /SAPAPO/OPT03 before another run can be started. See Note 393634 for details. They are also deleted by the job /SAPAPO/OM_REORG_DAILY, which should be run once a day, but NEVER concurrently with any optimizer or CTM runs.

2) Enter the planning profile via /SAPAPO/CTM.

Jobs and Tools for Running and Monitoring "CTM Planning Run" To safeguard the functionality of the CTM planning run, refer to the monitoring jobs in the table below. For an additional list of transactions used to set up the engine during installation or changes to the optimizer server, refer to the section Monitoring APO Optimizers in the Best Practice: Monitoring and Administration for SCM/APO.

1. To run CTM in the background, use the CTM report /SAPAPO/CTMPLRUN. There are two options for deleting locks which prevent a new start of the CTM run in the event of a short dump during the CTM run:

a. Delete the run manually in transaction /SAPAPO/OPT03 before another run can be started. See Note 393634 for details. Locks are also deleted by the job /SAPAPO/OM_REORG_DAILY, which should be run once a day, but NEVER concurrently with any optimizer or CTM runs.

b. Enter the planning profile via /SAPAPO/CTM. This will automatically delete the lock table entries

2. To verify that the optimizer server is running correctly during the run:

a. Lists of users and processes running on the optimizer server can be seen from transactions /SAPAPO/OPT03 and /SAPAPO/OPT12 respectively. With these transactions you can check whether processes are still active on the optimizer server. These transactions are usually only used for problem analysis beyond the CTM engine, e.g. in case of hardware or operating system problems on the optimizer server.


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Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Moni-tor Time

Indicator or Error


Respon-sibility


APO report CTM: /SAPAPO/CTMPLRUN

This report runs the CTM in the background

SM37 Depending on your process.

Status Check if job is running as scheduled.




CTM application log

/SAPAPO/CTM -> result analysis -> display logs or /SAPAPO/CTMAPLOG

After every run

Message Type

Review messages in log with stop, red or yellow indicator

Application support


Spool file SM37 After every run

Messages in spool file

Check for application errors after the CTM run, too.

Application support

Contact Process Champion

Optimizer Logs

/SAPAPO/OPT11

In case of cancellation of engine or for performance analysis

Check for errors and time stamps

Display and analyze logs in this section, if there is no result delivered from the optimizer.

Application support


/SAPAPO/OM_REORG_DAILY

Among its other activities, this job will delete database entries and files on the optimizer server which are no longer needed.

SM37 Daily Check if job is running as scheduled.

If the report is not scheduled as provided by software monitoring team, schedule it accordingly.


Contact software monitoring team support


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Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Moni-tor Time

Indicator or Error


Respon-sibility


Master Data consistency check

/SAPAPO/CTM -> Edit -> Check your data

After master data changes

Check for inconsistencies

This job will identify any inconsistent data prior to running the CTM run

Application support


User list for Optimizers

/SAPAPO/OPT03

See above

Displays a user list of optimization runs

Software monitoring team


Running optimizer processes

/SAPAPO/OPT12

See above

Displays a list of optimizer processes on the optimization server

Software monitoring team



Business Process Step 5: SNP Optimizer Run The CIF Queues should be locked during the execution of the planning run to prevent inconsistencies. Please see SAP Note 528913 for a full discussion. Note that this does not apply if the optimizer is executed on an inactive planning version. Also note that you should upgrade your optimizer in parallel with support package upgrades to ensure optimal functionality and performance. To get an overview of the optimization system steps, refer to note 587407. To improve the performance of an optimization run, refer to note 485018; in addition, simply set the field Number of Processes in the background transactions for the optimizers. It will spawn parallel processes during some portions of the data read and model creation of the optimization run. Note that a single optimization-based planning run can use only one CPU on the optimizer server. Care should be taken that the number of processes does not exceed the number of available batch processes for this user on the system. Due to the runtime and memory requirements of the optimization engine, we must also think about the model size and complexity. For an optimal performance of the optimization engine, see note 454433. In the event of a short dump during the optimizer run, the optimizer run must be manually deleted in transaction /SAPAPO/OPT03 before another run can be started. See Note 393634 for details. They are also deleted by the job /SAPAPO/OM_REORG_DAILY, which should be run once a day, but NEVER concurrently with optimizer runs. If several optimization runs are carried out in parallel, they should never have the same names. Also ensure that you have applied Note 572220 (APO 3.0A, SP23; APO 3.1A SP13) to prevent loss of optimizer result logs. In addition, if you ever run two optimizer runs simultaneously, be sure to set the parameter enque/delay_max in transaction RZ11 as described in consulting note 572996 to avoid lock problems. SCM 5.0 allows users to perform an SNP run on an aggregated level, by defining hierarchies for products and locations to be taken into account by the SNP heuristic, A disaggregating logic is available to ensure that plans are consistent at all levels of aggregation and the Interactive Planning offers extended drilldown options for displaying the planning results. Larger supply chain models can be planned, performance improvements by calculation on aggregation levels can be achieved and the planning process is simplified. To set up the aggregated planning in SNP: 1. Define the aggregated planning objects (MD aggregates: location aggregates, product aggregates, BOM/Routing aggregates, resource aggregates) 2. Define the relations between aggregated objects and detailed objects (define location-product-hierarchies, BOM/Routing hierarchies, resource hierarchies) 3. Generate aggregated transactional data based on the definition of aggregated master data


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4. Perform Supply Network Planning based on aggregated master data and transactional data 5. Disaggregate planning result to detailed level (optional) It is sometimes difficult to understand the results of the optimization, and to easily answer questions such as what is the reason for shortfall quantities of a specific product?, "where are resource or material constraints?, "what are the reasons for specific sourcing decisions? In SCM 5.0 an explanation tool is introduced delivering additional information in the optimizer log for more detailed explanation of the planning result. The user can choose the explanation goal, the level of detail where more information is required, and the precision of the explanation. In SCM 5.0 costs can be generated automatically based on few initial settings for storage, PPMs, transport, procurement, safety stock penalty, non-delivery penalty and late-delivery penalty. Business Logic can be expressed in a simple way that enables an economical interpretation

Monitoring Activities The following table describes how to monitor and ensure the correct functionality of the optimizer run.

Jobs for Running and Monitoring "SNP Optimizer" and Deployment Optimizer (APO) To safeguard the continued functionality of the optimizer, refer to the monitoring jobs in the table below. For an additional list of transactions used to help set up the optimizer during installation or changes to the optimizer server, refer to the section Monitoring APO Optimizers in the Best Practice: Monitoring and Administration for SCM/APO.

To run the optimizer in the background: use for SNP report /SAPAPO/RMSNPOPT and Deployment report /SAPAPO/RMDPLOPT.

To verify that the optimizer is running correctly during the run: Lists of users and processes running on the optimizer server can be seen from transactions /SAPAPO/OPT03 and /SAPAPO/OPT12 respectively. It is recommended that these be checked periodically to ensure that everything is functioning as expected.

After the planning run is finished: use transactions sm37, and the optimizer logs in /SAPAPO/SNPOPLOG and /SAPAPO/OPT11, and the resulting costs from the optimization run /SAPAPO/SNP106 to verify that the run was executed without problems, and that the results are as expected.

Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Moni-tor Time

Indicator or Error


Respon-sibility


APO report SNP: /SAPAPO/RMSNPOPT

Deployment: /SAPAPO/RMDPLOPT

This report runs the opti-mizer in the background






Optimizer log /SAPAPO/SNPOPLOG

After every run

Status Review messages in log with red or yellow status

Application support


Verify and maintain RFC connections

SM59 During installation or after config changes

Status Check that the TCP/IP connection to the optimizer server is open and functioning correctly.

Program scheduling management.

Contact software monitoring team


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Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Moni-tor Time

Indicator or Error


Respon-sibility


Spool file of optimizer run

SM37 After every run

Messages in spool file

Also check for application errors after the optimizer run.

Application support


SNP Optimizer Resulting Costs, also for Deployment

Transaction /SAPAPO/SNP106

After every run

Results summary of the SNP Optimizer

Check for reasonability of the results: e.g., whether the optimizer run has decided not to produce anything.

Application support




During installation or after config changes

Among its other activities, this job will delete database entries and files on the optimizer server which are no longer needed.



Consistency check

/SAPAPO/CONSCHK

After each change to master data

This job will identify any inconsistent data prior to running the optimizer run

Application support


Optimizer Logs

/SAPAPO/OPT11

As required

Check for errors

Display and analyze logs in this section, if there is no result delivered from the optimizer.

System and application monitoring teams

Depending on error type: system or application monitoring team

User list for Optimizers

/SAPAPO/OPT03

As required

Displays a user list of optimization runs

Basis support Contact application team

Running optimizer processes

/SAPAPO/OPT12

As required

Displays a list of optimizer processes on the optimization server

Basis support Contact application team


Business Process Step 6: Capacity Leveling The SNP heuristic performs only infinite planning: that is, without considering the available capacities of resources. In order to create a feasible plan, it will sometimes be necessary to adjust the results of the SNP heuristic to change the production times of quantities to ensure that no resource is overloaded. SNP Capacity Leveling underwent a complete redesign in SCM 4.0. The new version is also available in APO 3.0 as of SP 22 and in APO 3.1 as of SP15 as an alternative to the original version. Among other features, the new version offers three different leveling methods - heuristic, optimizer, and BADI. It is activated by creating a user parameter /SAPAPO/SNPCAP with value 'X'. Both versions can be executed interactively from transaction /SAPAPO/SNP94. Click on the icon "Capacity Leveling" in Capacity View. The new version can also be executed as a background job using transaction /SAPAPO/SNP05. Further information on the new version, including full documentation, can be found in release note 564702.Due to the improvements made in Capacity Leveling regarding result quality, performance, and stability we would like to encourage customers to test the new version for their business scenario and to use it instead of the original if it works well. As of SCM 5.0 a resource can be also leveled with alternative resources in the same location, depending on the existing alternative PPM/PDS For performance, consider the recommendations in Note 493258. Use an auxiliary table rather than the macro function for getting the date, and use macro function ACT_VERSION instead of macro function KEYFS_VERSION.


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Monitoring Activities for Capacity Leveling

Jobs for Running and Monitoring "Capacity Leveling" (APO) The following table describes how to monitor the capacity run.

Capacity Leveling: execute transaction /SAPAPO/SNP94 and change to data view SNP94(2). If the Capacity View shows any resource overloads click on the Capacity Leveling icon in change mode. If necessary, you can select those planning periods and/or products that should be processed. In addition, the three alert macros may be run either within interactive planning or in the background to identify exceptional situations such as resource overload or under load.

Capacity Leveling in Background (new version only): in addition to launching the job, you should monitor the job using SM37.

Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Monitor Time

Indicator or Error


Respon-sibility


Capacity leveling in interactive planning

Alerts Depends on business process

Alerts Look for fields which are colored red due to exceptional resource situations. Run directly executable macros to measure capacity under load and overload situations.



Capacity run in background (new version)

SM37 Depends on business process

Status Ensure that job is scheduled and runs without error.


Contact application support team


Business Process Step 7: SNP Interactive Planning In the following we discuss transaction /SAPAPO/SNP94, as most customers using CTM use this transaction for interactive planning. However it is also possible to use PP/DS transactions like /SAPAPO/RRP3, depending on the customer scenario, e.g. in some cases when using CTM. In such a case, please refer to the Best Practice document Manage Production Planning in SCM / APO. Within transaction /SAPAPO/SNP94, you can do almost everything that SAP APO Supply Network Planning offers. In particular, you can evaluate planning results, compare different scenarios, enter management overwrites, correct key figures manually, run macros, aggregate data, and create or view alerts. Supply Network Planning supports online simulation in multiple planning scenarios, consistent planning throughout your enterprise, drilling up and down, and aggregation. As of SCM 5.0, planning can be performed within aggregated data; this is displayed accordingly in Interactive Planning For performance reasons, any interactive processing of data should be restricted to very small data volumes by specifying the selection criteria as far as possible. This is independent of when this planning step takes place, for instance before or after a planning run. Tasks that can be performed without direct user interaction, for example, because they take place at a certain point in the business cycle where real-time feedback to online users is not required, should be performed as batch jobs rather than interactively. While tables of selection variants are usually not a problem in release 3.0A and higher, a description of monitoring and managing them is given in Note 376383. For systems with large numbers of interactive users, periodically deleting unused selections may become necessary. If you are using notes management within interactive planning, we also recommend periodically executing report /SAPAPO/TS_GEN_DOCTAB_CHECK to eliminate possible inconsistencies in the notes. However, please read Note 332812 carefully before using this report to automatically correct inconsistencies.


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Please note that, for performance reasons, SNP interactive planning defaults to display mode when a user enters. This can be changed by altering user parameter /SAPAPO/SDP94_D_MODE, as described in Note 401830. Also in this note it is stated that it is possible to write a BADI to override the default display. You might want to do one of the two for a number of reasons; for instance, when a user switches from display to change mode, the data must be reread to set the appropriate locks. In some cases, you may wish to define one or more separate planning books for use with SNP interactive planning. Some hints on the design and usage of planning books and macros for interactive planning can be found in are listed below: (see also SAP Notes 398726 and 542341):

Create a separate planning book for each user that contains only the views, macros, key figures, and any other views that are used by that individual user. In addition, users who perform more than one task type should consider creating more than one planning book to accommodate each task type.

Minimize the number of default macros used for SDP interactive planning; see if any of these can be executed less frequently as start, end, or drill-down macros. In addition, each online user should verify that the macros in her/his planning book are all used regularly as part of the standard business practice and remove any which are not.

Implement composite time bucket profiles with coarser time buckets in the long-term past and future, and fine time buckets only near the present time. For example, showing a year as 9 weeks and 10 months will dramatically improve the performance without decreasing the time period shown. Also, any users who do not actively view and use historical data should consider the history not shown flag as this allows macros to use the data without loading the data onto the screen.

Each online user should create several selection variants to restrict the number of characteristic combinations considered to those which s/he needs for a specific task.

Monitoring Activities Apart from safeguarding the general availability and consistency of the system components SAP APO, SAP BW, and SAP R/3 OLTP, SAP recommends that you monitor the objects listed in the following table in order to safeguard this business step.

Jobs for Running and Monitoring "SNP Interactive Planning (APO)" To ensure a timely and efficient notification of exceptions in Supply Network Planning, schedule the following jobs to run on a regular basis:

Send Alert Monitor mails with report /SAPAPO/AMON_MAIL_BROADCAST. Depending on user profiles, mails are sent with an overview of existing alerts. The responsible persons then should call up the APO Alert Monitor, investigate the reasons for the alerts and take corrective actions in order to keep the production plan close to the needs of your company.

Delete Alert Monitor alerts with report /SAPAPO/AMON_REORG. It deletes old alerts and is of particular importance if you use alerts stored in the database. Information on database alerts and dynamic alerts in Demand Planning can be seen in the APO Alert Monitor and below.

Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Monitor Time

Indicator or Error


Respon-sibility


APO Alert Monitor

/SAPAPO/AMON1

At least daily

Check for forecast alerts and SDP alerts and correct the planning for the reported object appropriately.

Application support


APO report /SAPAPO/AMON_MAIL_BROADCAST

This report ensures sending of mails about existing alerts.

SM37 Daily Status Check if job is running as scheduled.

If the report is not scheduled on a regular basis, schedule it to run from between every hour to at least daily, depending on your requirements.




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Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Monitor Time

Indicator or Error


Respon-sibility


Alert Monitor mails

SO01 (or respective e-mail system)

Depending on your requirements, at least daily.

Check if the mail lists alerts that are important for you. Go to APO Alert Monitor and process the alerts appropriately.

Application support


APO report /SAPAPO/AMON_REORG.

This report deletes Alert Monitor alerts.

SM37 Weekly Status Check if job is running as scheduled.

If the job is not scheduled on a regular basis, schedule it to run once a day.




Business Process Step 8: Execute Batch Macros In SNP, the usual reasons for creating batch macros are either to perform calculations and evaluations of alert situations, or to calculate additional quantities and save them to time series key figures. After the planning run and manual adjustment, it is often desirable to monitor alert situations or calculate quantities in time series key figures using batch macros run in SNP Planning Areas. For manual corrections see Business Process Step 7: SNP Interactive Planning. Some hints on the design and usage of macros for batch processing:

Create a separate planning book for each macro background job. The planning book should contain only key figures used by the macro itself, and only macros executed as activities by the mass processing job. The planning book should only contain one planning view. A different planning book should be used whenever different key figures are needed by two macros, and a different data view whenever the time periods are different.

Remove all unused macros from planning books associated with mass processing jobs, as they can be very performance-intensive and are not helpful to your business process.

The planning book used for batch macros should have only the functionality it uses: in the case of SNP macros, the planning book should have no macros selected.

All macros in mass processing should be defined as manually executable, and only in the planning book for the mass processing job in which they are used. In general, you do not need automatic macro execution for mass processing jobs. Furthermore, defining macros as default macros and to be executed at another time is redundant and extremely performance-intensive, since default macros are executed upon entry, loading a selection, changing data, and exit.

Create several background jobs with roughly equal numbers of location products and run them in parallel. Make sure that no individual location product belongs to more than one selection variant, as this can cause lock issues.

If you need to run two macros on the same key figures with the same level of aggregation, put both into one planning book and execute them as two actions within the same background activity (defined with transaction /SAPAPO/MC8T, see below). You thus save the time needed for loading the data again.

For the high data volumes usually considered in background processing, use database alerts rather than dynamic alerts.

When reading and writing alerts from the alert table in the APO database (table /SAPAPO/AM_ALERT), minimize the number of steps which manipulate alerts. Also, try to use Delete rather than Delete in Context, and Add rather than Update in Context whenever possible. For general advice on creating alerts in background jobs, please refer to consulting Note 521639.


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Monitoring Activities Apart from safeguarding the general availability and consistency of the system components SAP APO, SAP BW, and SAP R/3 OLTP, to safeguard this business step SAP recommends that you monitor the objects listed in the following table. The frequency of executing these Supply Network Planning batch jobs can vary significantly depending upon the business process for which the scenario is built. Macros that check for alert situations - particularly those related to Deployment and TLB - may be executed as often as daily, while other jobs, such as adjusting data released from DP to SNP, may only be executed once a month. Accordingly, the frequency of monitoring the jobs and deleting the SDP Job Logs depends on how often you run these functions. For dependencies and concurrent execution of jobs, see Operational Management Parallel and Concurrent Execution of Jobs. Please also refer to Exception based Monitoring of APO Supply Network Planning for the handling of alerts generated by a batch macro.

Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Monitor Time

Indicator or Error


Respon-sibility


APO report /SAPAPO/TS_BATCH_RUN.

This report performs specified SDP mass processing activities.






SDP Job Log /SAPAPO/MC8K

After each run of /SAPAPO/TS_BATCH_RUN.

Red or yellow traffic lights shown

According to the warning or error reported (see message long text).

Application support


APO report /SAPAPO/TS_BATCH_LOGFILE

This report deletes old SDP Job Logs.






APO report /SAPAPO/AMON_REORG

This report deletes old database alerts of various types.

SM37 Depending on your process




Contact software monitoring team.



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Business Process Step 9: Exchange Requirements with Supplier In some cases, it is desirable to exchange requirements with suppliers. In SNP, it is usual to transfer the data periodically, rather than immediately after planning is complete, as is the default setting in PP/DS. These settings are maintained in transactions /SAPAPO/SDP110 and /SAPAPO/C4 (the latter is user specific). Note that, while the information is user specific, you cannot use wild cards here, but must either specify the full user ID or user entry * for all users not explicitly specified. In addition, please refer to the corresponding documentation on CIF functionality regarding transactional data transfers between R/3 and APO. A number of consulting notes exist regarding the transfer of APO orders to and from R/3 in the context of exchanging information with suppliers; for example, Notes 443500, 206679, and 432038.

Jobs for Monitoring "Exchange Requirements with Suppliers (APO)

To ensure that the planning results are published to R/3 and that the relevant data is consistent in both systems, certain jobs must be scheduled on a regular basis. These jobs are:

Publish Planning Results with report /SAPAPO/RDMCPPROCESS. This report evaluates the APO change pointers (not the same as ALE change pointers!) that are written during planning activities. The corresponding objects, such as planned orders, are sent to R/3.

Check Processing of APO Change Pointers with report /SAPAPO/RDMCPPROCESS. This report verifies that all change pointers are processed by checking that the list displayed in the report /SAPAPO/RDMCPPROCESS is empty. If change pointers remain unprocessed, contact the application support team to clarify whether these change pointers are needed and why they are not processed. Note: Deleting change pointers may cause inconsistencies, as the corresponding order changes are not transferred to R/3.

The jobs mentioned in the Manage APO Core Interface in mySAP SCM, section Operation and Monitoring of the APO Core Interface.

Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Monitor Time

Indicator or Error


Respon-sibility


APO Report /SAPAPO/RDMCPPROCESS

This report publishes the results of automatic and interactive planning to R/3.

SM37 Depending on your needs, or at least once a week




Contact Application Support.

APO Report /SAPAPO/RDMCPPROCESS to display change pointers

SM37 Weekly Status Check if job is running as scheduled.

If job is not scheduled on a regular basis and periodic publishing of data to R/3 is performed on the system, schedule the job daily.


Contact Application Support



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Business Process Step 10: Load Data into BW As mentioned above, every SAP APO system comprises a complete SAP Business Information Warehouse System (BW), which should be used exclusively for APO purposes. Though in this business process step data is extracted from a separate BW system, all periodic monitoring tasks have to be performed in the APO system as well as job definition and most of the configuration tasks. In order to load the data into BW, the data must first be extracted from the SNP planning area. Please refer to Note 428147, which discusses limitations of this functionality in detail. Note 507810 describes the complete procedure for performing BW reporting on SNP remote cubes. The function of creating, checking and test

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