How an Advent calendar can help you to understand the different options of restriction by own protection
With SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2202, the feature “restriction by own protection” has been introduced to supply protection. There are three different options to define if and how the demand is restricted by own protection.
In the screenshot below, you can see which options are now available if you create a supply protection object:
- No Restriction by Own Protection
- Restriction Outside Planning Horizon
- Restriction Outside Time Bucket
Options to define restriction by own protection
The Advent calendar is a very good example to understand the different options. The Advent calendar is very popular in Germany but also very common in many other countries. It’s like a “countdown” to Christmas. Starting with the 1st of December, you can open a window every day in the Advent calendar, and behind every window there is a surprise (for example, a piece of chocolate). In total, there are 24 pieces of chocolate for 24 days.
No Restriction by Own Protection
This option is the default for supply protection. This option means that the protection is a restriction for all others. So, imagine you have a son and a daughter. You prepared one Advent calendar for your son and one for your daughter, and you have already done the “handover” in November.
The option “No restriction by own protection” is typically not intended for the “use case” of an Advent calendar, but this option is obvious if your kid is not very patient. In principle, this setting would allow you to “consume” 24 pieces of chocolate even in November. Only the protection for the Advent calendar of the sibling must be respected.
To understand this example, we can ignore that the protection of both calendars is not yet consumed, but the stock has been reduced by 48 pieces of chocolate to only 24 pieces. This situation is known as “overprotection” – the stock protected exceeds the available stock.
Restriction Outside Planning Horizon
This option fits if your kid has accepted not to open the first window before the 1st of December, but all other restrictions are rejected. Now your kid can eat 24 pieces of chocolate on the 1st of December. As we have daily protection buckets, this can also run into an “overprotection”.
Restriction Outside Time Bucket
This option fits best the handling of the Advent calendar. The protection of every time bucket is a restriction. Only the piece of chocolate of the current day can be consumed, and all pieces of chocolate of the remaining days are restricted. However, as supply protection is a virtual reduction of the available stock it can happen that the son eats unconsumed chocolate of his sister, as protection can expire. If the sister has forgotten to consume her piece of chocolate on the 7th of December the son can eat this piece of chocolate on the 8th of December, if he is faster than his sister.
In other words, supply protection cannot solve all problems …
For sure, all options make sense and there are good use cases for the different options. The option “restriction outside time bucket” is quite restrictive but ensures that quantities are left at the planned point in time.
Update for Release OP2023
With OP2023 a new setting was introduced: Restriction outside Planned Protection
Additional Information:
Incident component for clarifications: CA-ATP-SUP
SAP Community Blog:
SAP Help Portal: Manage Supply Protection
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