Introduction

Any good business will have a strategic plan,but few businesses can actually model or visualise it. Lack of alignment between supply chain planning and strategy is a difficulty that we consistently see, with no clear line of sight across the organisation. This leads to uninformed decision making, which relies on the expertise of a few individuals, rather than a resilient process supported by data. Particularly in this time of volatility, the ability to align through boardroom to shopfloor is what will set a business apart.

Introduction

First introduced in early 2019, the Web Based Planning app is not a new addition to the SAP IBP offering. However, what began life as a limited but useful app primarily to assist occasional users of the system with remote access, has since been steadily improved and enhanced over successive upgrade releases into what is now a powerful tool to enable and encourage collaboration with both internal and external business partners across organisations. Studies conducted in recent years suggest that more than half of IT executives now view the introduction of collaboration software as a high or even critical priority to conducting business*, with cost often being the most significant barrier. As such the Web Based Planning app now represents a huge opportunity within standard SAP IBP functionality for increased value-added activity in the planning functions of your business. This blog will demonstrate how it may be used to facilitate cutting edge best practice collaborative planning with internal and external partners alike.

*Source: Forrester Research report "Setting the Technology Foundation for Your Social Business and Collaboration Strategy

(5 MIN READ)

Businesses and their environment are growing more complex by the minute. Despite the many approaches, stakeholders, and circumstances around it, there is one invariable truth: serving customer demand is the reason for the existence of any firm.

This blog is the second part of my blog series on Managing an SAP IBP implementation and Rollout. Please refer to the first part of the blog here.

Challenges pertaining to the goals of the SAP IBP Implementation and Rollout projects:

“Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up.” – James Belasco and Ralph Stayer

I would like to share my learnings on important factors to consider for a successful SAP IBP implementation and rollout that I have unearthed.

Change is a 2-way process in an organization. The classic top-down approach for change is the highest risk to success, as the impact of the changes require willingness and participation from the user-community in the organization doing the groundwork. These challenges could be addressed by a simple training gap or introducing the new tools/processes or bringing a change in the organization and process structure or a combination of all.

(3-4 min read)

During scheduling solution implementations, we often come across capacity constraints which have either multiple dimensions or multiple capacities. Here we will provide a high-level overview about such constraints and discuss potential solutions.

Free ‘Planning & Scheduling Advisory Day’

In order to understand your companies options and requirements with regards to your SAP APO PP/DS roadmap and scheduling challenges.

Please get in touch now on: carl.dakin@olivehorse.com

(3-4 min read)

In Part 1 of this blog series, we started talking about the benefits provided when your scheduling solution is made up of a perfect blend of automation and exception-based alerts, including improved asset utilisation, greater visibility of inventory, and increased agility.

In this second part we will be exploring a little bit more around the types of exceptions that can be used within SAP Production Planning & Detailed Scheduling (PP/DS), and in what way these are beneficial compared to building the same restrictions into your automated solution.

Free ‘Planning & Scheduling Advisory Day’

In order to understand your companies options and requirements with regards to your SAP APO PP/DS roadmap and scheduling challenges.

Please get in touch now on: carl.dakin@olivehorse.com

(3-4 min read)

“We switched on alerts when we first went live, but we just ignore them now as there are far too many”

Does that sound familiar?

Incorrectly configured alert profiles achieve little more than noise creation within an organisation and provide a distraction from where a planner should really invest their time and attention. However, focused alerts with clearly defined tolerances allows schedulers to focus on real supply issues and is proven to provide real time and cost savings within your business.

Free ‘Planning & Scheduling Advisory Day’

In order to understand your companies options and requirements with regards to your SAP APO PP/DS roadmap and scheduling challenges.

Please get in touch now on: carl.dakin@olivehorse.com

(3-4 min read)

Business background

One of the key functionalities expected from an ERP tool is an “Order Fulfilment” process. The expectation is to provide an accurate and dependable order promise dates upon entry of a sales order. These dates should be proposed based on consideration of relevant stocks and in real time. As a next level of requirement, in situations where demand is greater than supply the system should be capable of taking business priorities as well as profitability into account and provide reliable dates.

Free ‘Planning & Scheduling Advisory Day’

In order to understand your companies options and requirements with regards to your SAP APO PP/DS roadmap and scheduling challenges.

Please get in touch now on: carl.dakin@olivehorse.com

(4-5 min read)

Conceptual Details

The term “Predictive” should not be confused with use of any “machine learning” or “artificial intelligence” capabilities but needs to be related with simulation capabilities. The simulation capabilities help planners to take decisions with changed conditions. One of the goals in S/4Hana, is to deploy most of these functionalities as part of Fiori Apps. This means there are no transaction codes that run the process. The whole process is covered by two Fiori Apps.