Shelf-Life Planning within SAP IBP Response & Supply Planning

Overview

• Shelf-Life Planning is a feature introduced as part of SAP IBP 2211 release within the Response & Supply Planning module (Order-based planning). In order to use this feature, the IBP Planning Area must be based on the SAP7F model entity and use RTI for data integration between IBP and S/4 (or ECC) systems.
• It’s a critical feature for companies that manage the shelf life of their products, therefore it is addressing industries that deal with perishable goods such as Pharmaceuticals, Food and Beverages, and Chemicals.

Some of the reasons why IBP Shelf-Life Planning is such a compelling proposition:

• Cost saving & minimize waste: Using FEFO (First Expiry First Out), companies can efficiently manage their inventory by automatically shipping the batches that are closer to their expiration date, thus reducing obsolete inventory and excess production.
• Compliance with regulations: Many industries are highly regulated and require companies to manage the shelf life of their products, as some of the goods can only be shipped with a predefined amount of shelf life remaining.

Features

– Supply & Deployment planning engines that use finite heuristic have been enhanced to consider Shelf-Life information. Integrating Shelf-Life planning information in the planning processes allows the system to consider Minimum Remaining Shelf Life (MRSL) requirement of the customer demand and reduces the risk of scrap/wastage.

– Finite Heuristic engine, both for supply planning & deployment planning, has been enhanced to match Minimum Remaining Shelf-Life (MRSL) requirements of independent demands and expiration dates of supply/receipt elements.

– Shelf-Life planning within IBP Response & Supply follows FEFO (First Expire, First Out) approach. In case of multiple supply elements available, the system picks the one which is set to expire at the earliest.

– With the planning run profile (PRP) closely integrated with Finite Heuristic, demand streams for a customer can be prioritized and matched with competing batch stock. For instance, stock getting expired earliest is matched with a sales order demand instead of a forecast. The goal is to match least remaining shelf-life supply with prioritized demand.

– If a Shelf-Life requirement of a demand cannot be met, the system generates a gating factor record “Projected Stock – Shelf Life” and this can be shared with the supply planner for further analysis.

– Apps like Intelligent Visibility can help to efficiently handle alerts generated for demands with shelf-life requirements enabled.

Process Flow

Figure 1: Process Flow (Click to enlarge)

Master Data

1) Product: This MDT has been enhanced to include 2 attributes: “Shelf-Life Planning Active” and “Minimum Remaining Shelf Life”

Figure 2: Master Data – Product (Click to enlarge)

2) Location Product: This MDT has also been enhanced to include both shelf-life related attributes as mentioned in Product MDT.

Figure 3: Master Data – Location Product (Click to enlarge)

3) Transportation Lanes: RTI generates Transportation Lane based on Purchase Info Record and copies its value into this MDT, including the Remaining Shelf-Life information.

Figure 4: Master Data – Transportation Lane (Click to enlarge)

4) Production Data Structures: RTI generates PDS in IBP based on Production version (combination of BOM and Master Recipe / Routing). Attribute of the PDS “Shelf Life of Planned Production” gets populated based on MRSL maintained in S/4 material master.

Figure 5: Master Data – Production Data Structure (PDS) (Click to enlarge)

Transaction Data

1) Forecast: As shown below, there is a forecast requirement of 5 PC on 01.04.2023. MRSL requirement of this forecast is determined as 120 (Picked from S/4 material master). This means the supply element (existing one or new one generated) should have expiration date of atleast 30.07.2023 (01.04.2023 + 120 days) or later.

Figure 6: Transaction Data – Forecast (Click to enlarge)

2) Sales Order: As shown below, there is a Sales Order of qty 10 PC with material availability date (MAD) as 17.04.2023. MRSL requirement of this sales order is determined as 44 days (This is calculated as a difference between SLED of batch [31.05.2023] assigned and MAD [17.04.2023]). This means the supply element (existing one or new one generated) should have expiration date of atleast 31.05.2023 (17.04.2023 + 44 days) or later in order to meet this sales order requirement.

Figure 7: Transaction Data – Sales Order (Click to enlarge)

3) Stock: RTI allows to integrate batch stock from S/4 to IBP. Similar, to other master data elements, it requires to generate & activate integration model for stocks.

Figure 8: Transaction Data – Stock (Click to enlarge)

Supply Planning Run based on Finite Heuristic

With this data setup in place, as the next step performed the supply planning run based on Finite Heuristic planning engine.

Figure 9: Supply Planning Run (Click to enlarge)

Planning Results – Assessment

– System has generated 2 planned orders of 5 PC. For both cases/scenarios – In addition to the requirement date and quantity, system also considers the shelf-life requirement of the demand elements and generate the receipt/supply elements with expiration date greater than or equal to the corresponding MRSL.

– First planned order “T1163082” is pegged to the forecast demand “F1163073”.  Similarly, the second planned order “T1163084” is pegged to the Sales Order demand “2457”.

– Remaining 5 PC of Sales Order demand is met with the stock of “BATCH2” as the MRSL of Sales Order (31.05.2023) < Expiration date of batch stock “BATCH2” (29.06.2023)

Figure 10: Planning result at Plant (Click to enlarge)

– At the upstream, System has generated 2 Purchase Requisitions of 5 PC. Note: As of current IBP release, Shelf-Life requirement doesn’t propagate at the component level, and this is why system doesn’t show MRSL against Planned Order components. This is planned as an enhancement in future release.

– The PRs generated have expiration dates calculated as GR date + Shelf Life of Transportation for component material

Figure 11: Planning result at Vendor / Supplier (Click to enlarge)

Planning Results – Synced between IBP and S/4 systems

In order to publish the planning results from IBP to S/4, we need to run the job in IBP based on template “Real-Time Integration (Outbound)”.

Figure 12: Orders at Plant after IBP outbound run (Click to enlarge)

Similarly, after integration PRs for “Raw material” are also synched both between IBP and S/4 as shown below:

Figure 13: Order situation at Supplier after IBP outbound run (Click to enlarge)

Scenario Summary

Figure 14: Scenario Summary (Click to enlarge)

References

1.) SAP Help:

Shelf Life Planning

Setting up Shelf Life Planning

2.) SAP webinar on Shelf-Life Planning

Pre-Requisites

Key OSS notes to be implemented to enable shelf-life data integration from S/4 or ECC to IBP:

3227077 – SAP IBP Real-Time Integration – Integration of Shelf-Life Data DDIC

3235672 – SAP IBP Real-Time Integration – Integration of Shelf-Life Master Data

3243733 – SAP IBP RTI: Sales Document Enhancement with Shelf Life – UDO Report for DDIC

3230564 – SAP IBP RTI: Sales Document Enhancement with Shelf Life

3230504 – SAP IBP Real-Time Integration – UDO Report for DDIC enhancement of the transportation lane integration related to transportation load building and shelf-life planning

3218522 – SAP IBP Real-Time Integration: Splitting of CIF_MAPPING_IBP Class (Pre-req note)

3243080 – SAP IBP Real-Time Integration – Enhancement of the transportation lane integration related to transportation load building and shelf life planning

Conclusion

This covers a brief introduction to Shelf-Life Planning within SAP IBP Response & Supply (Order-based Planning), it’s process flow, master data, transaction data, planning run based on Finite Heuristic and lastly planning results assessment. SAP does promises to include many more features on this topic in it’s future releases.

Figure 15: Future Roadmap (Courtesy: SAP)

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