CB forecasting

[Former Member]

Dear Experts in CBF forecasting there is the following documentation,

PP/DS creates planned independent requirements at configured product level. The demand for individual characteristic values/combinations is not transferred initially. When the PDS is exploded, the system determines the dependent demand for the components by referring to the demand plan for the characteristic values/combinations. It creates dependent requirements for the components in PP/DS, which can be converted to production orders or purchase requisitions

My question is as follows:-

1. In my investigation, the expectation is that I would not have any BOM's the forecast is for a car, of colour black and engine size 2.0 ltr. Can I create a requisition to match this combination or would the requisition be for a car only. Apologies the simplified supply chain is that I generate forecast for a car, however send the basic supply plan to the vendor (my supplier).

Paul

[Former Member]

Hi Paul

Assuming you are the car manufacturer, you would forecast with characteristics at a Car + Characteristic level. So with CBF, you would eventually have a forecast for a Black Car with a 2.0 engine. And another forecast for a black car with a 1.5 engine and so on. At this point, you dont need a BOM.

You then release forecast (with characteristics) to PPDS. Even here, you dont need a BOM.

But when you run the PPDS plan, it uses the Super BOM (VC BOM) with object dependencies to come up with a component supply plan. This is what you would use to make/ buy components.

Rishi Menon

[Former Member]

Rishi,

appreciate the response, one more question if I may.

In my planning process the intention is to have the car manufacturer as a supplier, thereby you purchase the cars from a vendor, there is no scheduling activities for PPDS being considered, currently anyway,

Therefore assuming all of my products were assigned as 'buy' if the forecast is release with the characteristics of colour and engine size etc is it possible to create a requisition for a ca, with colour and engine size and any other characteristic. this can be the trigger to represent the demand at the supplier who then performs the scheduling and manufacturing tasks.

Hope this makes sense.

Cheers

Paul

[Former Member]

Paul

What is your role in the supply chain ? Since you say you are not the car manufacturer and instead, your supplier is the car manufacturer, are you the distributor/ dealership ?

Once you develop the car forecast with characteristics -

1. Do you want to send that forecast directly to the supplier (car manufacturer) ?

2. OR, do you want to first net existing inventory/ supply in your locations and send only the net demand to the supplier?

3. Do you want your sales orders to consume forecast ?

Rishi Menon

[Former Member]

Rishi,

some background, the limitations are within the project, currently the manufacturer will remain on a legacy system, however the requirement is to provide the following:-

1. Capture the sales forecast from various distribution points (car dealers), this is for a car model and body type let's say

2. convert this to a requirements forecast, hence if the leadtime for manufacture is 4 weeks, your requirements forecast is date - weeks, reflecting current stock and any production profiling such as number of days cover. Send this to the supplier.

3. receive back from the supplier/manufacturer an agreed manufacturing plan indicating what can be produced by month, same level as above

4. Diaggregate and then add more characteristics to the demand, which would be things such as engine size, alloy wheels etc

5. Eventually release this demand to PPDS and generate purchase requisitions, the expectation is that the requisitions will mirror the PIR which has any and all the characteristics added via the demand planning process.

6. Send this purchase requisition to the supplier to confirm the request and who will receive the car when built.

Appreciate any feedback you have on this? although not a typical approach, the project scope is determining the fact that production planning is outside our scope. Hence only using PPDS to generate the requisitions as a means to confirm a proposed production plan.

Cheers

Paul

[Former Member]

Paul

Definitely not typical. You could do Step1 in CBF. For step 2 you would typically use PPDS, but you might be able to skip PPDS and instead use some complex macros in DP itslef to develop the "requirements forecast".

Do let us know how you finally get this to work !

Rishi Menon

[Former Member]

Rishi,

I am using SCM7.0, also following a guide written by Srinivas Matta on completing a demonstration model of CBF. I am basically creating all the master data in APO only, this includes the following:-

Product

Locations

Planning Area

Class and Characteristics

However when I attempt to create the CBF table in 'Maintain Master Data for CBF' my characteristics are not visible, although I cannot see any errrors with the master data created so far.

Can you provide any insight?

Paul

[Former Member]

Hi Paul

I'm not sure. But a few things to check -

1. What is the Data Type of the characteristic you are seeing ? I know Character formats work, not sure of others.

2. Is the Status of the characteristic 'Released' ?

3. What is the 'Value Assignment' of the characteristic. I know 'Single Value' works, but if I'm not wrong, there is a restriction on using 'Multiple Values'.

Rishi Menon

[Former Member]

Rishi,

the format is character and single format, and released.

The class type is 012 as per the document (although this seems to differ from SAP help)

One other point is that there is another class transferred from ECC, same type etc as the one I created, and I can successfully see the characteristics in the CBF table transaction.

Thanks so far for your help.

Paul

[Former Member]

Rishi,

completed the simple model, the problem with the characteristic, was that I could add directly using the insert function. not sure why it was not displayed initially.

cheers for the response

Paul