APO-Demand Planning

Positioning of APO within SAP's Solutions

APO (Advance Planning and Optimization) is the production and
transport planning tool within the mySAP Supply Chain
Management (SCM) solution:

APO

BW
(Reporting)

(Production and Transport Planning)

R/3
(Production and Transport Execution)

SAP's SCM Solution Component Overview

OLTP (R/3)

SCM
Supply Chain Cockpit

LIS, CO-PA
HR, FI

Demand Planning

Customer
orders
Production
Scheduling
Inventory
management
Transportation
processing

Information
Warehouse
(SAP BW)
Historical
data

PP / DS
Global
ATP

Supply
Network
Planning

Deployment

Transportation Planning
SCM
Event Management

Inventory
F&R
Collaboration Hub
RFID

Key
Performance
Key figures
(KPIs)

XI-Server
XML/Mail
I/O

High-Level Business Process Planning Functions

Planning Horizon
(production plants)

Demand Planning (DP)

Supply Network Planning (SNP)

or:
Production Planning (PP)

Detailed Scheduling (DS)

(distribution centers)
Deployment

Transport Load Builder (TLB)

Interfaces to SAP R/3 or R/3 Enterprise

R/3

Initial Data Transfer

Plant

Location

APO

Customer
Product

Vendor

Resource
Material Master

Incremental Data Transfer

Job or Real-time

Capacity
Routing and BOM

CIF

Production Process
Model

Master Data

Initial Data Transfer

Purchase order
Sales Order

Purchase req.

ORDERs (PchOrd, PurRqs, SalesOrd,

Planned Order

Stock

Transaction Data

PlOrd, Stock .)

..

Incremental Transfer
Real-time

Transaction Data

Interfaces to Non-SAP Components

SAP R/3
NonNonR/3
R/3 System
System

LO

SD
HR

CIF

BAPI

(Core Interface)

BAPI

SAP
SAPAPO
APO

BAPI

BAPIs

Business Background
Demand Planning (DP)
Forecasting of market demand for your company's products.
This component allows you to take into consideration the many different causal
factors that affect demand. The result of APO Demand Planning is the demand
plan.
User-specific planning layouts and interactive planning books enable you to
integrate people from different departments, and even different companies, into
the forecasting process.
Using the DP library of statistical forecasting and advanced macro techniques
you can create forecasts based on demand history as well as any number of
causal factors, carry out predefined and self-defined tests on forecast models and
forecast results, and adopt a consensus-based approach to reconcile the demand
plans of different departments.
To add marketing intelligence and make management adjustments, you use
promotions and forecast overrides. The seamless integration with APO Supply
Network Planning supports an efficient S&OP process.

Typical DP process
R/3 System

SCM

BW

Demand Planning
Sales Information
System (SIS)

Perform Material
Requirements Planning
(MRP)

Data Load into APO Data

Mart
Execute
Promotion
Planning

Determine
Realignment
Procedures

Execute Forecast Run

Update Info cubes

Legacy / Flat File

Extract Data

Forecast Accuracy Reporting

Manufacturing /
Purchasing

Execute Consensus Meeting

Confirmation of Final Forecast

Collaboration Partner
Forecast /
Promotion Data
Collection/
Distribution

Release to R/3 or SNP

SNP *
Constrained Demand Plan
* Alternative steps, capacity constraint-based planning

DP data model
No master data is required for demand planning!
- Plant
- Material

All we need are characteristics and key figures

Demand Planning Process

Administrative tasks

1.
The planning area is the basis for all activities in APO Demand Planning. It is a
collection of parameters that define the scope of all planning tasks. The planning area
is linked to the data mart. You load into the data mart the actual history (for example,
bookings, shipments or billings) that wlll be used to create the DP master data and
generate the demand forecasts.
2.
Map the structure of your company (for example, regions, divisions, brands,
products and customers) for planning purposes in the DP master data.
3.
Configure the layout of the planning screens for the different parties who will
participate in demand planning by designing planning books. Define macros to
perform calculations, carry out tests, and warn you of exceptional situations. 4.
Define forecast models for time series forecasting, causal analysis and/or composite
forecasting.
5.
Create a forecast of market demand using a top-down, middle-out, or bottom-up
approach. Choose from a wide variety of forecasting methods and techniques. See
6.
Forecast new products and discontinued products by applying lifecycle planning
and "like" modeling techniques.
7.
Plan promotions and other events. Examples of promotions are free-standing
inserts, coupons, discounts, product displays, trade shows, dealer allowances,
coupons, contests, and advertising.
8.
Fine-tune the demand plan by adding management overrides and modifications.
9.
Reconcile the demand plans of different departments by merging the plans into a
one-number, consensus forecast.
10.
Simulate different planning scenarios.
11.
Monitor exceptional or critical situations through the Alert Monitor.
12.
Make the demand plan available in SNP by releasing it. The demand plan is
often unconstrained by any production or distribution restrictions. This step can be
completed by either the demand planner or the SNP planner.
13.
Make the SNP plan available to DP by releasing it. The SNP plan takes into
account any production or distribution restrictions. A comparison of the two plans
could lead, for example, to the opening of a factory to meet demand in a new market
region.
14.
Store the forecasts made at different times for a period.
15.
Update the actual data.
16.
Verify the accuracy of the forecast; for example, by comparing it with the
constrained forecast from SNP, with actual data and with other demand planning
versions that you did not release to SNP.
17.
Revise the master data to reflect the addition of new products, customers, and
so on.
18.
Refine the forecast models in the light of knowledge gained from forecast
accuracy checks. Add new models for new products and product lines.

Demand Planning
APO
BW

APO
BW

APO DP

SNP

Timeseries

Order

liveCache

liveCache

Infocube

OLTP

R/3
R/3
Plant
Plant
Material
Material

APO
APO
CIF-interface

Location
Location
Product
Product

Important Reports
/SAPAPO/TS_LCM_CONS_CHECK
Consistency Check for Existing Time Series Network
/SAPAPO/TS_LCM_PLOB_DELTA_SYNC
Adjust time series objects
/SAPAPO/TS_PSTRU_GEN
Regenerate dynamic programs
/SAPAPO/TS_PSTRU_TOOL
Toolbox for Planning Object Structures
/SAPAPO/TS_PAREA_EXTR_MGM
Extractor checker
/SAPAPO/OM_REORG_DAILY
Periodic (Daily) Reorganization of COM Objects in liveCache

Important Tables
Planning Area

Forecast

/SAPAPO/TSAREAKO

TS Designer: Planning Area

/SAPAPO/TSPAPLOB

TS Designer: Planning Area Plng Object Struct. (Key Fig)

/SAPAPO/SDPTSTR

Time Streams for SNP/DP

POS (Planning
Object Structure)

/SAPAPO/DP440G
/SAPAPO/TSPLBAKT

Master Forecast Profile

Background Planning Activities

/SAPAPO/TSAKTMSG

Error Handling in Background

Processing

/SAPAPO/DP440P

Univariate Forecast Profile

/SAPAPO/TSPLOBPO

TS Designer: Planning Object

Structure Characteristic

Macros

/BIC/F<POS name>

Generate InfoCube for internal

use

/SAPAPO/PBMADVM

Defined Macros in Planning

Book

/SAPAPO/TSPAPLO

TS Designer: Planning Area

Planning Object (VersionDepend.)

/SAPAPO/ADMAKRO

Advanced Macros

/SAPAPO/FUN_STEP

Macro steps

/SAPAPO/TSPLOBTE

Technical Field - Planning

Object Structure - SystemDepend.

/SAPAPO/FUN_RES

Results of Macro Steps and

Conditions Within the Step

RSDDIMEIOBJ

InfoObjects per dimension

(where-used list)

Planning Book
/SAPAPO/PBMVW

Existing Planning Books

/SAPAPO/SDPTBPOS

Position Table for Time

Buckets Profile in SNP/DP

/SAPAPO/PBMLKEY

Planning Book Worklist (Key

Figures)

Selection Variants
/SAPAPO/TS_SELKO

Batch Job
/SAPAPO/TSPLBAKT

Background Planning Activities

/SAPAPO/TSPLB

Background Job for Planning

Area

Alerts
/SAPAPO/AM_ALERT

Release
/SAPAPO/TSUPREL

Header Selection Variants

Alert Monitor Alerts

Release Profile: Demand

Planning to SNP

Important Programs/Functions
Reading / Writing Data
Function /SAPAPO/TS_DM_GET
Function /SAPAPO/TS_DM_SET
Reads Data according to the key figure attributes from InfoCube or liveCache (Timeseries or orders).
Interface
IS_READ_OPTIONS
IT_SELECTION
IT_GROUP_BY
IT_KEYFIGURES
CT_LINES
CT_COLS
ET_TAB

/SAPAPO/PROGNOSE
Forecasting