CBF Scenario

[Former Member]

Hi Experts

Our Material Master contains Following characteristics in the classification Tab(We are using VC):

1) Color

2)Suspension

3)Yearof Manufacturing

We want to plan in APO Demand planning based on the above Charcteristics.We have to plan in Months, weeks and days also.Our planning is based on the Top Down Approach.

ForecaST by Department AAA will be done in Monthly Level in the Material Code level.Department AAA fixes the Monthly Forecast at Material code level.

Forecast by Department BBB will adjust Monthly forecast (Which is Obtained from the Department AAA) to the Color, suspension and Year of Manufacturing Level in Weekly level.

This weekly forecast is sent to the Manufacturer/Supplier, Supplier will send the Daily Plan(Day Level) for the weekly forecast.

(We dont use SNP or PPDS and we dont generate PR's and PO's. we directly send our forecast through interface program to Supplier.

We have only 1 supplier and 1 plant.

Because of the above requirment we plan to take Storage Bucket in Month,Week and Day level.Our Planners want to see the daily demand from the suppliers in the planning book.

Design 1: Using CBF scenario in APO DP:

1) How Realignement works in CBF? Can we able to realign on Charcteristics level?

2) Storage Bucket Profile we have Month, Week and Day, whether CBF can support different periodicitys in Storage Bucket profile?

3) Since we fix the Forecast at Material level in Monthly level?Whether CBF can support Keyfigure fixing without propagation?

4) Maximimum allowed keyfigures in planning Area?

5)How to plan for new material if the material does not have historical data?

How to create New CVC for new material in APO in CBF scenario? Since we take 9AMV_PROF, 9AMV_ROW, 9AMV_TAB IN mpos, if we try to create new cvc in MC62 we dont find characteristic.

Design 2: Forecasting with Out CBF:

Since we are not using PPDS or SNP or MRP.

Taking Charcteristics of Material master as the Info objects and assiging these characteristics in the Master Planning Object Structure in APO DP.

(Worried about the CVC's,this can increase drastically CVC's)

New CVC's can be created using File Upload and Manually when ever new material or characteristic values are added in ECC.

Please guide me about design1 and design 2.

regards

Vasu

Edited by: vdeva79 on Jul 8, 2011 8:34 AM

[Former Member]

Vasu

Based on OSS notes and some documentation I've seen, these are some limitations of CBF (Newer releases may not have these limitations or may have other limitations - so go through release notes and better still prototype it thoroughly) -

1. The number of key figures that are allowed in CBF planning books has been limited for performance reasons. You can use up to 20 key figures. This includes the key figures for the proportional factor (APODPDANT).

2. In contrast to standard Demand Planning, you must also manually assign the key figures that are to be used for fixing to the planning book. In interactive planning these key figures can only be displayed. Recommended that you also hide them when designing the planning book in interactive planning. If fixable Key figures are required in your planning process, make sure that you include both Key figures, the Fixable Key figures and the fixed Key figures manually to the planning area. Otherwise there will occur an error message in the interactive planning. This is a different system behavior than in non CBF DP.

3. The storage bucket profile (periodicities for a planning area) can only contain ONE dimension; Dimension = Year/Month/ Week etc.

4. The realignment and copy process from one product to another product is only possible if these two products are using the same CBF profile. The automatic parallel execution of copying planning version and loading data from infocube cannot be used if the planning area is used for Characteristic Based Forecasting (CBF).

5. Functionality to distinguish 0 and nothing in the Planning Area is not supported.

6. DP BOM's and Promotion Planning is not supported.

7. Proportional factors can only be calculated at product level and not at the level of individual CBF characteristics. Technically speaking, disaggregation is possible using another key figure. However, this key figure cannot be populated with data using transaction "/SAPAPO/MC8V Calculate Proportional Factors".

8. BW Authorization Concept for Characteristics is not supported for CBF characteristics

9. In contrast to non-CBF Demand Planning, products must be defined in SAP APO

10. Key figures that you want to use in CBF cannot contain the calculation type N (no disaggregation) for disaggregation.

11. For CBF Planning it is important to save data as accurately as possible, because the system uses a complicated combinatorics, aggregation and disaggregation. To avoid inaccuracies the live cache should store data with 3 decimal places.

12. Interchangeability cannot be used in conjunction with configurable products.

13. Planning for multi-value characteristics is not possible in characteristics-based forecasting. Define single-value characteristics for the planning.

14. Refer to OSS collective consulting Note 540241 for more details CBF.

In your design option 2, your number of CVC's does not increase in comparison with respect to design option 1. Even with CBF, your CVC's are a combination of product and every variation of CBF characteristics.

The bigger disadvantage of using regular characteristics instead of CBF is that you are effectively 'locking' the the number and characteristics that are used in the POS. What happens if you want to forecast another product with one more characteristic, say 'Engine'...will you create another POS ? Not very practical.

Rishi Menon

[Former Member]

Dear Menon

Thanks for the reply. Appreciate you for spending the time to write such a detailed reply.

1. The number of key figures that are allowed in CBF planning books has been limited for performance reasons. You can use up to 20 key figures. This includes the key figures for the proportional factor (APODPDANT).

20 KEYFIGURES is the limit of Planning Area or Planning Book?

2. In contrast to standard Demand Planning, you must also manually assign the key figures that are to be used for fixing to the planning book. In interactive planning these key figures can only be displayed. Recommended that you also hide them when designing the planning book in interactive planning. If fixable Key figures are required in your planning process, make sure that you include both Key figures, the Fixable Key figures and the fixed Key figures manually to the planning area. Otherwise there will occur an error message in the interactive planning. This is a different system behavior than in non CBF DP.

Based on the above point, i need to include even fixable keyfigure also in the Planning area and planning book.

3. The storage bucket profile (periodicities for a planning area) can only contain ONE dimension; Dimension = Year/Month/ Week etc.

Since we plan in Day, week and Month, CBF does not support all three for which i have to take day as the periodicity in Storage Bucket Profile.Please confirm.

4. The realignment and copy process from one product to another product is only possible if these two products are using the same CBF profile. The automatic parallel execution of copying planning version and loading data from infocube cannot be used if the planning area is used for Characteristic Based Forecasting (CBF).

If i use same CBF profile, we can copy and realign at product with characteristics level?

Since in our business process characteristics model year changes for the every Products(Material Code).In this situation we need to copy the History and realign the old model year with new model year.

5. Functionality to distinguish 0 and nothing in the Planning Area is not supported.

ok.

6. DP BOM's and Promotion Planning is not supported.

ok.

7. Proportional factors can only be calculated at product level and not at the level of individual CBF characteristics. Technically speaking, disaggregation is possible using another key figure. However, this key figure cannot be populated with data using transaction "/SAPAPO/MC8V Calculate Proportional Factors".

It means that proportional factors cannot be generated in characteristics level.

What i can do is we get the sales history at characteristics level, i copy the sales history to the future in the New kf and i will use new kf as source of distribution of forecast to detailed level by dis-aggregation type based on another kf.

8. BW Authorization Concept for Characteristics is not supported for CBF characteristics

ok

9. In contrast to non-CBF Demand Planning, products must be defined in SAP APO

i am not clear about above point.You mean APO product master?

10. Key figures that you want to use in CBF cannot contain the calculation type N (no disaggregation) for disaggregation.

ok

11. For CBF Planning it is important to save data as accurately as possible, because the system uses a complicated combinatorics, aggregation and disaggregation. To avoid inaccuracies the live cache should store data with 3 decimal places.

ok

12. Interchangeability cannot be used in conjunction with configurable products.

You mean Life cycle planning is not possible using CBF?

13. Planning for multi-value characteristics is not possible in characteristics-based forecasting. Define single-value characteristics for the planning.

i am not clear about above point.

In your design option 2, your number of CVC's does not increase in comparison with respect to design option 1. Even with CBF, your CVC's are a combination of product and every variation of CBF characteristics.

If we use Option 2, we have to generate the CVC's in Variant characteristics level.Example: If we have Model Year as 10 Years (2001 to 2011) it means 10 Characteristic Values, Suspension with 6 Options, color as 8 different colors.

Product master as 200 Products and 2 Plants and 200 Customers.

Possible combination will be 200 Products * 10 (Years) * 6 (Suspensions) * 8 (Color) * 2(Plants) * 200 (Customers) = 3.84 Crore of Possible combinations.Which is unpractical to implement in APO.Please correct me if my assumption is wrong.

Regards

Vasu

[Former Member]

Dear Menon

The bigger disadvantage of using regular characteristics instead of CBF is that you are effectively 'locking' the the number and characteristics that are used in the POS. What happens if you want to forecast another product with one more characteristic, say 'Engine'...will you create another POS ? Not very practical.

I am not clear about above point.

What if we use Detailed Locking.

How to create New CVC for new material in APO in CBF scenario manually when ever required?

Since we take 9AMV_PROF, 9AMV_ROW, 9AMV_TAB IN mpos, if we try to create new cvc in MC62 we dont find characteristic.

Regards

Vasu

[Former Member]

Vasu

1. Planning Book. Not aware of limitation on Planning Area)

2. Not sure

3. Correct

4. Not sure

7. Proportional factors cannot be generated using /SAPAPO/MC8V for CBF characteristics. You can follow any other approach (macros/ etc) as you described.

9. APO Product Master

12. Lifecycle Planning using Interchangeability is not supported. Not sure about Lifecycle planning without Interchangeability, but it probably is.

13. Characteristics that you use in CBF (transaction CT04 in ECC and CIFed to APO) --> Value Assignment should be "Single-Value". This means that a material can have only one value per characteristic.

In Design Option 2, are all combinations of model years, suspensions, colors, plants, etc valid ? If not, you should not have the invalid ones.

Using CBF, you will still have the same number of 'CVC's' (number of entries in the POS) because what CBF does is to take all valid combinations of CBF characteristics and refer them using a unique combination of 9AMV_PROF, 9AMV_ROW and 9AMV_TAB characteristics in the POS. The advantage of this approach is that the CBF characteristics are not 'hard coded in the POS.

Rishi Menon

[Former Member]

Dear Menon

First of all Thanks for your reply.

1) The bigger disadvantage of using regular characteristics instead of CBF is that you are effectively 'locking' the the number and characteristics that are used in the POS. What happens if you want to forecast another product with one more characteristic, say 'Engine'...will you create another POS ? Not very practical.

Can you expand your explanation on the above point.

2) Sometimes for new model launch we have to forecast.

CVC's are generated thru sales history for new model we dont have CVC for which we have to create manually in MC62.

In CBF how can we create CVC manually?

Please advice.

Regards

Vasu

[Former Member]

Vasu

I did not mean 'locking' in the technical sense. What I'm saying is that right now you forecast product XX which has 3 characteristics - Year, Color and Suspension. So say if you define your POS with Product, Location, and include Year, Color and Suspension. So far you are fine if you use regular characteristics instead of CBF.

But what if a year from now, you have to forecast another product YY which has 3 differrent characteristics - Year, Engine and Trim ? If you dont use CBF, you have two options - create a new POS with characteristics Product, Location and include Year, Engine and Trim. Or deactivate your existing POS (loosing all your planning/ forecast data in the process) and add characteristics Engine and Trim (in addition to Year, Color and Suspension). Both of these options are messy at the least and if you have say 8 products, each of them with a different combination of attributes, this approach is infeasible.

Instead, if you use CBF, you define your POS only once (inlcuding 9AMV_PROF, 9AMV_ROW, 9AMV_TAB ). Every time you have a different set of characteristics, you would only have to set up CBF master data in /SAPAPO/IPM01.

There are detailed steps for CBF in the SAP help here.

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_scm70/helpdata/en/5d/39df3a6610696ae10000000a11402f/frameset.htm

Rishi Menon