ATP check on a specific batch characteristic

[prasnop]

Hi Experts,

Is possible in GATP to check on a specific batch characteristic?

For example:

Sales order:  Customer request SKU A (1000KG) with quality profile with a specific characteristic e.g. Water content need to be between 110 and 130 ppm.

Production manufacture the SKU A with quality profile Water content between 80 and 160. Production is completed and goods are on hand.

Stock on hand of the SKU A

250 KG Batch 1 -> Water content 85 ppm

250 KG Batch 2 -> Water content 120 ppm

250 KG Batch 3 -> Water content 140 ppm

250 KG Batch 4 -> Water content 115 ppm

250 KG Batch 5 -> Water content 122 ppm

250 KG Batch 6 -> Water content 117 ppm

Is it possible that GATP runs this check on order entry ?

1000 KG SKU A required, GATP is searching and finds 250KG batch 2, 250KG batch 4, 250KG batch 5, 250KG batch 6.

Does standard GATP provide this functionality ? If yes, how does it support this business process ?

Thanks,

[Parth_Soneji]

Hi Prasnop,

I agree with Rishi. This can be achieved using Characteristics based ATP. However, this can be easily achieved if the characteristics are discrete in nature, i.e. color of the product. In your case, you have a characteristic which is continuous i.e. Water content between 110 and 130 ppm. This can be tricky and you will have to use Characteristics Substitution in Rule-based ATP. This substitution will have a list of possible values for your characteristics. In your case, for example, from 85 ppm to 222 ppm ... When this particular rule is picked up by the SO using RBA, it will evaluate these values one by one. This can also mean that you will have to set up requisite rules according to certain criteria. I have not seen a performance impact of this yet myself, but I suspect if the order volume going through this RBA is too high, it might affect the performance.

We had a similar requirement for remaining shelf-life of a product which is again continuous characteristic and we used this approach. There was some development required to change the remaining shelf life characteristic (in days) due to some custom requirement.

Hope this was helpful.

Regards,

Parth Soneji

[prasnop]

Hi Rishi &Parth

Thanks for your information.

Could you please provide me that what are the config settings are required for discrete characteristics and Continuous characteristics to achieve this.

Please provide me some required config setting in ECC and APO to test this scenario. Please provide me some config setting guide doc.

Thanks,

[Parth_Soneji]

Hi Prasnop

There is no separate configuration for discreet or continuous characteristics. Also, I do not have a document to share. However, the points mentioned by Rishi should help. Please go through the links shared by Rishi. You can also try searching SAP help. I am just giving a list of steps which you can follow:

1. Define characteristics for your product as suggested in the SAP help
2. CIF the relevant objects to APO
3. Enable Characteristic based ATP in check mode
4. Enable RBA
5. Create Rule for your scenario and assign it to a characteristics substitution procedure
6. Characteristics substitution procedure should have the list of characteristic values (70, 71, 72 PPM etc.)

Hope this was helpful.

Regards,

Parth Soneji

[Former Member]

Hi

It appears that you are describing a scenario where goods are sold from stock. In that case you can use the Characteristics Based ATP check.

Characteristics-Based Product Availability Check - Global Available-to-Promise (Global ATP) - SAP Li...

Search on this forum and SAP help for more details. Customer requirements for characteristic values of batch are maintained in Sales Order using batch search strategies (Tcode VCH1).

Since customers will potentially accept multiple values of a characteristic you can use characteristic substitution in Rules Based ATP to check for multiple discrete values.

Characteristics Substitution Procedure - Rules-Based Availability Check - SAP Library

Note that characteristic based ATP (with or without characteristic substitution) may be difficult to use if a characteristic can have continuous values or if the value of a characteristic changes over time (for example, remaining shelf life or quality grade).

Characteristic substitution creates sub-items in Sales Orders for every substituted characteristic value. May or may not be acceptable from a logistics execution perspective.

Finally, this gets even more complex depending on your scope of check. Foe example, if you want to commit to Inbound STO's at a distribution center, these ATP categories do not have characteristic assignment.

An alternative to using Characteristics Based ATP is to use Characteristic Evaluation functionality. See OSS note 601813 for its several limitations. From a performance perspective it is preferable to use Characteristics Based ATP over Characteristic Evaluation since it uses the ATP time series instead of detailed pegging relationships in order live cache.

Rishi Menon

[andy_yeri]

Yes, this is quiet poss in gATP. You'll 've to use Characteristic Dependent Planning with CTP (Capable to Promise). Then, with each Sales Order creation, during the ATP process, system checks the characterisitcs of the supplies during the netting process.

[prasnop]

Hi Yeri,

Thanks for you note. Could you please provide me some information or link that what are the settings it is required to achieve this.

Thanks,

[prasnop]

HI,

Can someone please help in the above requirement how it is possible?

Thanks,

[babu_kilari4]

Hello Prasnop,

Please see the below link.

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_apo700_ehp03_on_erp/helpdata/en/ad/947337e68ae526e10000009b38f889/conten...

Also, I think when you define the check mode, you should select the Prod Type as "A- Characteristic Evaluation" in the following node apart from the CTP settings.

Advanced Planning and Optimization -> Global Available-to-Promise (Global ATP) -> General Settings -> Maintain Check Mode

Hope this helps.

Babu Kilari