Production Planning Integration – Synchronized Planning for Production Using Key Figure Integration and the New Flexible Constraint Heuristic

[Berthold_vH]

For production planning integration we now offer an integration of key figures from SAP Integrated Business Planning (SAP IBP) into the new flexible constraint framework available in SAP S/4HANA Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling (PP/DS).

Note: This blog is about key figure integration using SAP Cloud Integration for data services (CI-DS) as integration technology. For order integration, the standard way of production planning integration is using real-time integration (RTI). For more information on this process see the product assistance on the SAP Help Portal.

 

What is it about?

Have you seen my blog for the key figure integration which is mainly based on note 3255350? Now we have great news for you. With SAP S/4HANA 2023, a new heuristic is available in PP/DS which allows planning with flexible constraints out of the box without having to implement a Business Add-In (BAdI).

This allows you to integrate selected key figures from the global supply plan as constraints into PP/DS. The new heuristic creates a local feasible plan considering these constraints created by the integration.

The integration is based on a loosely coupled integration. ”Loosely coupled” in that context means that in both systems different constraints exists: For example, in tactical supply planning no specific setup times are maintained, whereas PP/DS uses precise setup times, or short-term downtimes are only known in PP/DS and not in SAP IBP.

 

Process flow

The planning process is cyclic as the results from PP/DS are also respected in SAP IBP tactical supply planning. This means, planners get feedback on the production planning results from PP/DS and can directly analyze the effects on their supply plan.

Figure 1: Cyclic planning Process between tactical supply planning in SAP IBP and PP/DS

 

This is how the process would look like:

A supply planner creates a supply plan based on key figures to cover demand. By using CI-DS, key figure quantities are extracted and sent to PP/DS.

Figure 2: Supply plan shown in the planner workspace of SAP IBP

For the integration to PP/DS, CI-DS templates are delivered for the following elements:

• forecast

• transport receipts and production receipts as flexible constraints into target supply

Note: The templates are delivered on level location – product – source of supply. These setting as well as the key figures themselves can of course be exchanged based on your business needs.

A new transaction is available in PP/DS which allows you to display and change the constraints.

Figure 3: Flexible constraints in PP/DS

 

After the integration, the Planning of Std. Lots (Flex. Constr.) heuristic is using the constraints to create orders, while respecting quantities, availability dates, and the sources of supply defined in the constraint tables. Of course, a planner can also adjust the supply plan if necessary.

In addition to planned orders, also stock transfer requisitions, purchase requisitions or subcontracting requisitions are created by the flexible constraint heuristic dependent on the sources of supply defined for the location products.

Figure 4: Product planning table including flexible constraints per period

 

When the production plan is final, the results are sent back to SAP IBP and can be validated there. This can be done shortly before the next supply planning cycle is executed, or more frequently, because the integration uses a delta function to monitor deviations from the last plan.

But not only orders can be integrated on an aggregated level from PP/DS: Starting with SAP IBP 2311 and SAP S/4HANA 2023, five additional selected PP/DS key figures from the PP/DS plan monitor can now be integrated to key figures in SAP IBP. These KPIs give you more information on resource capacity usage and on delays of orders.

Figure 5: Analytics view on capacity supply and capacity usage in SAP IBP

As before with the BAdI-based key figure integration, you can transfer not only the baseline version to PP/DS but also different simulation versions.

 

Outlook

With the next feature pack of SAP S/4HANA, we plan to provide the capability to use minimum and maximum constraints in addition to the target supply constraint, and a SAP Fiori app to manage flexible constraints. We also plan to allow additional KPIs to be extracted from PP/DS.

 

Additional information

For more information on the business process check out the application help or this very informative blog on the flexible constraints for PP/DS.
For a quick introduction you can watch this video. 

Let us know if you tried out the new process - we are looking forward to your feedback!