planning area stuff

[former_member205751]

Hi

my  demand scenario is a bit freaky

Variants exists to an exponential degree

Demand may require last minute corrections

Innumerable amendments /corrections are required even after releasing the production plan..

My client wants a pristine clear demand plan, against the turbulent demand emerging from the market

In essence

When  n number of variants exits for n number of products, which  way works better

For example I can fix Cake as a planning area ,cake  is a general term ,but the variants involved are spice cake,cream cake,red cake,blue cake,mustard cake ,chilly cake,like wise it goes on and on

Of which spice cake and blue cake are meant for exports

Chilly cake  ,mustard cake are meant for domestic consumers the previous APO implementers have fixed the “export” as one planning area and “domestic “ as one planning area……and planning is done based on these planning areas but with uncomfortable results. Why should not I fix chilly cake as one individual planning area,,cream cake as one individual planning area,like wise for all  variants …at the end will the planning run yield a descent result.Or do I sound absurd ???..(am not sure)

[Former Member]

Hi Rahul,

Nothing absurd but probably you have limited understanding of the APO DP architecture.. There are 100's of possibilities of implementing an end solution for an end business objective and most importantly users comfort and ease of working with the system

Planning Area is "container" of sorts where you hold the data for demand planning. e.g. demand history,, forecast, adjustments, formulas etc are data. They are called Key figures in APO DP. It is like a folder in Microsoft language. Within this folder you have files (planning books) and worksheets (data views). Planners work on Data views but all changes are ultimately saved into the planning area.

You can Plan ANYTHING in one single planning area or you can have separate Planning Areas for separate products / brands / businesses / countries / Geo's etc. or any classification along the dimension of products, locations, organization (e.g. sales managers)  This (how many planning areas are needed) is decided at the very start of the project.

The criteria whether to have one or many depends on data volumes, number of planners, units of measure (planning in bottles and square meters ), performance of the system or any other "convenience". A bit of future proofing is needed. Just the way you wont create 10 folders to save the same thing at 10 different places on your computer and expect them all to be in sync if you make change to one.. bad example but that's the kind of thinking that needs to go into it.

So in your case cakes, chilli flakes, spice cakes, blue cakes can ALL be Planned in a SINGLE planning area with different books and views or you can have separate planning area for each one of these product lines.

Usually changes to the core design is difficult mid-way...rather difficult in anything in SAP. Because the system is supposed to work like a horse every time even if no human is around.

So if you think your demand planning results are not good because of so many planning areas.. you need to evaluate it more critically at depth and see what exactly is wrong.. rather if someone reported the truth or just made it up 🙂

I hope this answer is in someway useful.

[former_member205751]

thanks for the time you have taken .....well i will do my homework first