cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

one or two certifications for APO associate consultants

Grzegorz
Advisor
Advisor
0 Kudos

Hi APO Experts,

As you know there is just one(!) APO certification in SAP Education: C_TSCM44_65 SAP Certified Application Associate - Planning and GATP in SAP SCM APO 7.0 covering together major aspects of APO - DP, SNP, PPDS, GATP: https://training.sap.com/certification/c_tscm44_65

Form my experience there are at least 2 major roles/profiles of APO consultants:

  1. DP & SNP
  2. PPDS & GATP

Would it help you if SAP Education create in the future two APO certification adjusted to the mentioned roles? Would the change encourage you to make such a certification, or would you like some other changes?

Thanks for all your comments!

Greg

Accepted Solutions (0)

Answers (1)

Answers (1)

Former Member
0 Kudos

Hi Greg,

Since you have raised a right topic, I will expand this for a
take on this from mature professionals in APO space.

The way I look at it, after being certified in SCM many moons
ago, is APO's associate level certification (which is the only certificate
available in APO) lacks the rigour that is expected from an APO consultant who
is supposed to know all that a PP, MM, LE, LO, SD consultants know and much
more than that, at least by the customers, the clueless employers and the
non-certified consultants.

I will attempt a different take on this with conclusions in the
end.

APO can be deemed as a big brother of ECC- PP that is more
widely used, widely documented, widely understood, widely tested and widely
appreciated application. So if a person "begins" his career in APO,
without appreciating the maturity of PP, a gap always exists in making best use
of APO plan to inventory processes, irrespective of whether the consultant is
certified or not.

In such a scenario a certification in APO can at best be an
illusion of intellectual attainment. This is a gap that SAP needs to address to
create consultants who are indeed "advanced" supply chain planning
consultants and towards that end I find much rethinking needs to happen on how
to certify SCM consultants using mix and match of applications in ECC, SCM and
possibly SRM and other applications like MII and Auto-ID. I have yet to see a
APO production system where any heuristic other than SAP_PP_02 has been used.
This is no more than basic MRP that happens in PP too, at least as far as the
qualitative part of the planning results are concerned.

In APO you can do an S&OP sort of thing by releasing SNP key
figures back to DP or may be by creating special books in DP or SNP to build an
S&OP like process. In PP the menu is much more neater and separate (PP -
SOP). Then there is PP DRP that covers most functions of APO DP and more viz.
sales planning, flexible planning, standard SOP and Demand Management and also
deployment which is bundled in SNP in APO. Then there is demand management,
long term planning and MPS under production planning. Then there is MRP in a
separate menu that is analogous to SNP heuristics. Then there is shop floor
control and capacity planning that is analogous to detailed scheduling
functions. Then there is planning for repetitive manufacturing and JIT in PP
that are hidden in some heuristics in APO that most certified consultants would
conveniently ignore. The basic ATP functionalities are also included for
component checks in PP.

What is not included in PP and also not tested as part of APO
associate certification is the TPVS part. Enough confusion exists with
consultants on whether it is worth gaining expertise in TM or TPVS. Recent past
has shown choice of the former and these initial "APO" consultants
find themselves in good company of SD/LE consultants.

What is also conveniently ignored in APO certification is the
collaborative planning part. A customer of SAP would like to have a certified
consultant who knows how to implement collaborative demand and transportation
planning that is so really useful and noble with a strong possible use cases in
several large CPG organizations but I have yet to see such consultants who have
implemented collaborative planning e.g. on DP.

Then there are "non-APO" applications like Event
Management, EWM and SNC with separate certifications but I won’t be able to
tell how much of a rigour exists in these certifications and where these consultants
eventually lead to from a career progression point of view. If I were a buyer
of SAP, I would expect to see ONE consultant who can explain the suitability
and fitment of SAP WM and EWM but rarely one comes across such consultants.
This is precisely because the original SAP WM consultants were not even aware
or don’t even care to know what EWM can or cannot do that WM can.

Then there is a big "hole" area of CBP, CDP and VC
that is not tested in APO certification. I believe as an APO consultant that it
is a crime to be ignorant of these applications esp. after being certified with
4 or 5 projects experiences under the belt. At least basic theoretical SAP
knowledge is a must. Clear business cases exist in several businesses for CDP
but most consultants in APO are yet to graduate beyond basic planning books and
planning strategies.

Then there are some applications like SPP and MSP in APO on
which I am not sure whether any certifications are offered. I think SAP does
probably now.

These are the gaps that SAP needs to address and this can happen
only with rigorous certifications on on-going basis at various
"levels". I don’t expect a consultant to know everything in 8 or 10
years of experience on 3 or 4 projects but intellectual leadership and advisory
skills based on solid fundamentals of SAP design are important.

So coming back to your question the answer is APO certification
needs to evolve in terms of coverage, rigour and maturity. I believe the answer
can’t be as easy as splitting the modules to DP/SNP and PPDS/GATP conveniently
because there is only so much a consultant ever does or wants to do but to
really test consultants on a combination of applications that can drive entire
plan to inventory processes whether
or not they will get an opportunity to implement the same.
For
example GATP standalone knowledge is of absolutely no use to a customer when
you have no clue of sales, delivery and production execution processes.
Similarly it is difficult to test someone on detailed scheduling in APO without
a strong background in PP-shop floor scheduling. Similarly I don’t want a
consultant pontificating me on basic SNP unless he gives me clear pros and cons
on basic vs. characteristics dependent planning and which one fits well as a
long term decision. Similarly I don’t want a consultant who can’t explain the
detailed rationale for choice of TM over TPVS and vice versa. As it stands
today, most certified consultants (with some significant experience) possibly
can't answer these questions with the credibility and confidence that is
expected by the customers.

I haven’t yet ventured into IS specific expertise in APO!

Thanks

Guru