New Product allocation (PAL) features in Advanced ATP (AATP) of S/4HANA 1909 Release

Highlighted in my previous blog https://blogs.sap.com/2017/05/22/future-of-apo-and-its-migration/ that Advanced ATP (AATP) in S/4HANA will be the successor for APO – Global ATP (GATP). AATP is being built from scratch in S/4HANA (unlike embedded Extended warehouse management and Transportation Management in S/4HANA) and hence evolving in every release of S/4HANA.

Prior to S/4HANA 1909 release, Advanced ATP used to support only Sales based product allocation (PAL).  Release 1909 has provided the option to combine Sales product allocation (PAL) and Availability check also to be combined with Capacity product allocation (PAL).

Product allocation (PAL) is generally used when the demand is more than supply (Sales) and / or capacity. Say for example, a product is in very high on demand and its supply can be only 200 Pc in a week though its demand is 400+pc in a week . In that situation , product seller (or manufacturer) decides to allocate specific quantities of product to its customers depending on the price , payment terms of the respective customer and/or other strategic parameters.

Capacity can be modelled in different ways in terms of

• Production : A product can be produced only specific numbers in a week or day. Planned shut-down of factory can also be considered here.
• Transport : A product can be transported only specific quantity in a week or day like a truck with specific capacity or a ship with a specific booking

This blog is to describe and show how the capacity PAL can be combined with Sales PAL and Available-to-promise (ATP). Suppose , the supply (or available quantity) for a product (FG802) is 400 pc . A customer (10100001) has ordered for 200 pc , however only 150 pc per week has been allocated to that customer (10100001) and only 100 pc can be accommodated in a truck which goes only once in a week to that customer (10100001). The scenario is depicted in below image.

Above scenario was set up with S/4HANA Sales order and the below image depicts that the sales order has been confirmed for only 100 Pc though the (open) order quantity is 200 Pc .

If we click on the ‘Product allocation’ on above image , then below image pops up showing the rational for sales order confirmation of 100 Pc.

We see that the confirmation was first set to 150 Pc considering the Sales PAL and then subsequently reduced to 100Pc considering the Capacity PAL as set in product allocation data of Fiori app ‘Manage allocation sequences’ of S/4HANA in screen shots embedded in above image. As per design , system first checks for Sales PAL and then capacity PAL.

S/4HANA 1909 release has the fiori apps in below image for PAL.

The scenario described in this blog is quite simple, however complex scenarios can be modeled depending on the business requirements.

Alternative based confirmation (as known as ‘Plant substitution’ in APO – GATP) was introduced in 1809 release and has described in my blog https://blogs.sap.com/2018/10/28/alternative-based-confirmation-abc-of-advanced-atp-in-s4hana-1809-release-for-location-substitution-of-apo-gatp/. My next blog will highlight the enhancements in ABC in 1909 release of S/4HANA.