Business Process: Final Demand Plan Key Figure in the past for APO DP

[Former Member]

Hello APO process experts,

I have a BPX question for APO DP process owners, consultants or gurus:

1.- Have you ever seen in any SAP APO customer, that in their APO DP planning books, they chose or designed to update the Final Demand Plan key Figure in the past closed historical buckets with the Actual Sales?

Meaning that that in the Past closed historical Buckets, Actual Sales and Final Demand Plan, look exactily the same.

Meaning that they create a dynamic Final Demand Plan key figure so to speak, yet they did not choose to create a key figure that also keeps the Final Demand Plan as originally entered.

2.- Would you think that doing the above, without keeping any keyfigure in the planning book that actually shows what the Final Demand Plan was in the Past, is a good practice?

The Demand Planner could still retreive the Final Demand Plan from BI reports, yet, dynamically they could never really see it in the planning book.

3.- Do you think the above dynamic key figure would bias the Demand Planner's behaviour to manipulate the future open Final Demand Plan buckets to enter volumes in order sum to a monthly total, independently of what were the over and underachievements in the past (since they are not really visible to him) ?

I would really like your feedback,

thanks in advance!

JD Loera

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

JD

I cannot think of a single business reason why you would intentionally overwrite historical forecasts with actual sales.

Rishi Menon

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Thanks for your feedback.

I agree with your point, and I hope that i still get more feedback from other Business Process Experts.

I am trying to build a case for my client, to challenge the decision of their initial design as this practice is going to hurt the Demand Management process, if what they intend to achieve is a true "unconstrained demand plan"

Much appreciated

JD Loera