CTM Planning run and BOP

[Former Member]

Hi All,

1. Deactivate ATP check IM.

2.Deleted all our transaction data from APO .

    At this point of time , we cant to any GATP check as there is no supply against which we can confirm( All transaction data is deleted).

   Hence we are deactivating the ATP check IM in step 1 , so that ATP check can take place in ECC.

3. Closed Queues

4.  Took CTM planning run

5.  We did a  BOP run also with CIF closed and ATP check IM as deactivate .

6.   BOP run completed successfully .  

7.   After BOP run , we will opened the queues and activated ATP check IM.

8.   BOP results were updated in ECC and APO.

But is this the right way to do BOP run? 

BOP run happened when ATP check IM was inactive and queues were closed.

What happens when ATP check is active and queues are open.

During the time users might create sale orders - which will block TQA in APO.Sales Orders will also come into APO during BOP run.

Does this interfere with BOP.

Is BOP capable of handling these.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

SC,

I think you are overthinking this.  It is not necessary to achieve perfection, it is only necessary to achieve an error rate that allows the business to run satisfactorily.

It is unclear why you have elected to delete all transactional data in SCM.  This is a substantial effort, and one would hope that the benefits you intend to achieve exceed the costs you are putting into this.  One would think that fixed supply and demand elements should not be touched.

It is common to suspend queue processing (including ATP queues) during big planning runs (RSTRFCI1 et al).  It is not common, however, to inactivate integration models on a regular basis, without a substantial reason.

BOP and planning both ideally should have static databases from which to extract their data and perform their calculations.  Realistically, though, I have seen planning runs done and BOP runs done with all queues open and all interactive processing permitted.  In many cases, resultant inconsistencies are relatively insignificant, especially if you time the runs such that they are executed during periods of lowest activities.  YOU HAVE TO ANALYZE the impact of what would happen in each implementation.

When you suspend queue processing, all transactions are queued up.  The planning run then occurs, planning run writes its results; BOP occurs; BOP writes its results.  When the queues are subsequently un-suspended, all transactions are then posted ECC<>SCM in an orderly manner.  For large datasets, you may have an issue with getting all the queues to process in a reasonable time.  This is one reason some companies choose not to suspend queue processing.

In general, BOP (background) performs four steps in sequence:  Selects the items; sorts the items; performs ATP, and then, when these three steps have been performed for all selected items, it writes the results back to ECC.  If CIF interfaces remain open, any orders that are being processed in ECC during the write phase are generally locked (this is a config setting) and BOP results will not be written for those locked orders.  Orders that are changed in ECC after the select phase and before the write phase may be inconsistent.  Such inconsistencies are typically addressed during the subsequent BOP run.

Best Regards,

DB49

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi DB49 /Sourabh,

  I will correct myself.

   2.Deleted all our transaction data from APO . ( Deleting Supply elements which are not firm)

      We are into Hitech manufacturing. Hence we confirm against unconfirmed PR's as well.Firm shipment plan is for very short duration 2 days due to constraints as production execution is done in external ERP.

       Problems we get if we don't deactivate IM during planning run:

      Once supplies are deleted. ( done after US working hours) there are very few supplies ( only stock /sto and firm PR's) in APO.

    1. Orders will be taken during working hours in other parts of world India/China/Korea etc.

        When order is taken it will never confirm immediately.

    2. If a old orders in released from credit hold an automatic avl. check happens , this will also not

        confirm immediately

    3. Users might do changes to date and quantity fields in old orders which will trigger a avl. check

        and the order will unconfirm as supplies are not there. This will cause confusion.

        * You can argue that this will be rectified after BOP . and there is no customer impact as we

          control sending acknowledgements after BOP run only. Only customer care person needs to

          be trained.

  * these above conditions can be handled if we deactivate ATP check IM. ATP check happens in ECC against the PR's published in previous run.

   Note: even if we delete orders only through CTM run ( there are multiple runs taken i.e first one for  3 months , then next 12 months etc.) then the transaction data will be deleted unevenly and confirmation on orders due to above steps will cause confusion to users. the CTM run's take 4 to 5 hrs to complete.

   Other issue in general:  When queues are closed -- Interactive BOP can't be used in APO system efficiently .If we use this will cause confusion as orders will not be updated back to APO.

@DB49: You had a comment:If CIF interfaces remain open, any orders that are being processed in ECC during the write phase are generally locked (this is a config setting) and BOP results will not be written for those locked orders.   

    Can you point me out this config setting ?

I am sure this problem would have been there at other implementations where common planning run happens for multiple geographies. One Product is manufactured at one plant only and sold to all countries. Hence capacity to be utilized is same , so one common planning run has to happen.

@Sourabh:  Ideally should not be an issue if you are taking BOP run during low activity hours.

Finding out low activity hours is a being a challenge with multiple geographies. 

Does it make sense to split BOP and run it just before working hours start for each country so that users can analyse the results / take decisions. What i mean is run BOP for Japan in 5 am Japan time and for USA in 5 am USA time and accordingly for each countries .

Thanks in advance for your suggestions .

Regards,

SC

[sourabh_jain66 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Splitting BOP runs region wise can be a solution but it would pose different sort of challenges which you need to find optimal solution for, for example

Region for which you take BOP run first will consume available receipts first irrespective of customer priority etc., though this problem might not arise if you have quotas in place.

Rgds

Sourabh

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

SC,

2.Deleted all our transaction data from APO . ( Deleting Supply elements which are not firm)

I am still not sure why you are doing this.  We already discussed that in many implementations, the queues are suspended during the CTM run itself.  Once you have elected to take this path, it really doesn't matter if "...confirmation on orders due to above steps will cause confusion to users...."?

 Can you point me out this configuration setting ?

OVZ1 in ECC.

ATP check happens in ECC against the PR's published in previous run.

???  In most APO ATP implementations I have seen, the reason it was used was because the ATP offered in ECC was inadequate and unacceptable.  If the ATP's you are generating in ECC are actually acceptable, as you say, one could speculate about how much actual benefits you are getting by using ATP in APO.  I will assume you have already asked and answered that question to your satisfaction.....

  1. Orders will be taken during working hours in other parts of world India/China/Korea etc.
        When order is taken it will never confirm immediately.
    2. If a old orders in released from credit hold an automatic availability check happens , this will also not
        confirm immediately
    3. Users might do changes to date and quantity fields in old orders which will trigger a avl. check
        and the order will unconfirm as supplies are not there. This will cause confusion.

I guess these issues are a result of deleting supply elements, and then leaving the queues unsuspended. which I would never recommend. In this case, yes, if you can't trust the supply situation that are shown in APO, it is better to leave ATPs unconfirmed than to propose bogus confirmations.  I suppose if your company thinks it is acceptable to perform ATP in ECC, then inactivating/reactivating the ATP IM regularly might be a workaround.  You will generate inconsistencies using this technique, but I assume you are willing to accept this.  I have never seen anyone do this in production, caveat emptor, and good luck.

You might want to consider another workaround to minimize your problem.  Think about running CTM in a different planning version, and then merging the results into the active version at the conclusion of the CTM run.  This can reduce the amount of downtime to your end users.  It does have it's own set of issues, but in some cases the benefit (shortened period of no GATP functionality) is considered worthwhile.

Also, I note the issue of 'confusion' throughout your post.  Confusion only occurs when communication breaks down.  For instance, if the users know up front that ATP cannot be performed during a specific time frame, my experience is that they adapt without problems.  In the case of suspended queues, once the queues are restarted, any suspended transactions flow in a timely manner, and are posted against the newly-planned data in APO.

Best Regards,

DB49

[satish_waghmare3 · Accepted solution]

Hi

There is lot of information being shared here already.  But I try to give you some insight and hope it will help someway -

Before taking actual BOP run you may want to take BOP run with "Cancel Confirmation" option. This option can be seen in Parameter Check Tab in BOP variant. This BOP run will cancels all the existing ATP confirmations from the open orders. At the end of this BOP you will not have any Sales Orders with confirmed Qty.  Note - No impact to the orders/line items for which delivery already created.

And Then,

Once above BOP run is completed( X= updated ended), then you can run the another BOP to confirm the order based on current supply/stock situation and which will respect Sorting/Order Prioritization as well. Orders will be confirmed based on Business rules - prioritization.

Also I suggest you to run Delivery Creation Job before the "Cancel Confirmation" BOP run.  Also run delivery creation job after 2nd BOP job runs which confirms the sales order based on current(true) Supply/stock situation.

Above should solve your problem.

Region wise BOP has its own challenges, Run the BOP by the Plant. If you have 1000 Materials then you may group the SKUs by logical grouping them by Plant.  You may try scheduling these job in sequence or in parallel as per your requirements.

Please let me know if this helps.

Thank you

Satish Waghmare

[sourabh_jain66]

Hi,

As rightly mentioned by DB here, you need not to follow the process of deleting all the transaction data (assuming you mean Planned order and Purchase Requisitions by all transaction data or other APO elements only) here and not the sales orders, STOs or other ECC elements.

So here you need to measure the level of inconsistency you are experiencing without closing CIF and keeping ATP check activated. In case you are experiencing huge TQA piled up because of this then probably yes you can stop CIF queues and deactivate ATP check, but in this case also you need not to go through deleting all transaction data, your CTM run should take care of this automatically, you can probably choose option of delete all orders first in CTM and then CTM will take care of it (will save some time and effort for you) .

Once you are done with planning part then based on the volume of inconsistency you are experiencing and impact of this inconsistency on business, you can choose to close or not to close CIF and ATP check IM during BOP run.

Ideally should not be an issue if you are taking BOP run during low activity hours.

This might be a bit tricky to decide on such time when you are dealing with multiple geographies with different time zones.

So in general needs a lot of discussion at your end with business guys to reach on some conclusion here.

Do let me know for further questions.

Rgds

Sourabh