Optimizer Run Details

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to describe the Optimizer Run Details.

Optimizer Run Details

The information provided on the Optimizer Run Details screen helps you to make the right settings for optimizer runs regarding an adequate runtime and appropriate cost settings.

You can find out how the solution quality develops over the optimizer runtime, using information under the Solution Progress section, while the impact of specific cost types on the solution is shown under Cost Type Distribution.

The size of the optimization problem, as well as its mathematical properties, are shown in the Optimization Problem Inputs section. In the header, you can find a link to the underlying profile, where you can adapt the runtime and some cost settings.

The figure describes the Optimizer Run Details.

Solution Progress

The costs of the solution computed by the optimizer can change over the runtime.

As shown in the figure, Solution Progress, stopping the optimizer at t1 would be too early, because the solution cost is still too high. On the other hand, a stop at t3 seems to be later than required: there is no drastic change in solution costs since t2.

Additionally, the long horizontal line - starting roughly when one-third of the time from t2 to t3 has passed - indicates that not much future change can be expected. In this case, stopping the optimization at t2 could be a good choice, as it is at a point that represents a balance between runtime and solution quality.

The figure describes the Solution Progress.

Cost Type Distribution

Run Order-Based Optimizer to Support Business Process

ExerciseStart Exercise

Business Example

The business process described in this exercise creates product allocations and a supply plan based on given capacities, supply chain constraints, and cost rules. These rules consider costs like, for instance, inventory holding costs, safety stock violation costs, transportation costs, procurement costs, production costs, and demand costs.

A specific planning version is used to finalize a feasible supply plan that is used as the input for product allocations. This ensures that the base planning version remains unchanged until a good result is achieved for the newly calculated supply plan. Supply Planning with Order Confirmation run an also be executed using Optimizer, however, is not part of this course.

Here is an overview of the business process:

  • The Supply Planner prepares the specific planning version and runs the Supply Planning run using an optimizer.
  • The Supply Planner checks the results provided by the optimizer-run algorithm. The planner can also check the supplier delivery and capacity consumption to identify potential bottlenecks.
  • The Account Planner then uses the constrained forecast as the input for the product allocations plan in the specific version.
  • The Supply Planner copies all data and adjusted constraints to the base planning version and runs the supply planning in this version.
  • A new feasible supply plan and a new product allocation plan are available in the base planning version.

Depending on your business requirements, you can either choose the optimizer or the heuristic for the Supply Planning Run.

In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with your group number.

This exercise is executed in the base version; however, customers will likely perform the Supply Planning with Allocation Creation run in a Planning version. After performing a what-if analysis, the results would be copied to the base version and integrated into SAP S/4HANA.

The features of optimizer are detailed in the SAP IBP 700 course. In this exercise, we will see where and how the global costs are maintained in addition to detailed pegging which is not part of the Time-Series Optimizer. Allocations were already discussed before, and therefore will not be considered here.

The planning results will be integrated with SAP S/4HANA and an update sent back to SAP IBP along with Production Orders, Planned Orders, and Stock Transfer Requisitions.

SAP recommends using demand cost rules. Demand cost rules give you more flexibility in defining non-delivery costs and late delivery costs. Irrespective of whether the demand costs are determined by demand prioritization or by demand cost rules, the optimizer applies discounting to demand costs. This works in a way that demands in later periods have slightly lower late delivery and non-delivery costs than demands in earlier periods. The discount is applied per demand to the cost value, considering the time lag from the planning started. This discounting increases the probability for prompt demand fulfillment in the optimizer plan as discussed in more detail in the SAP IBP 700 course.

For this exercise, Demand Cost Rules are used; Customer 3 demand has the highest priority, followed by Customer 2 demand.

Steps

  1. Review Planning Run Profile: PRP-Optimizer.

    1. Log on to the SAP Integrated Business Planning web user interface.

    2. In the Order-Based Configuration Group, choose the Planning Run Profiles - Order-Based Planning tile.

    3. Choose the PRP_OPTIMIZER profile.

      Note

      Do not change any settings of the profile, as this may impact the optimizer results.

    4. Observe that the Demand Prioritization Rule tab has no entries and check the Demand Selection Profile. Only the forecast will be considered.

    5. Check that in the Maximum Lateness tab, a rule has been created for maximum lateness for all the demands.

    6. Check that in the Inventory Costs tab, an inventory cost rule has been created. The Inventory holding cost rule has the catch-all segment with a cost value of 1, and the Safety stock violation cost rule has the catch-all segment with a cost value of 5, as shown in the following figure. Fair Share has been turned off.

    7. Check that in the Transportation Costs tab, the transportation cost rule has been created with a catch-all segment cost value of 2. Fixed cost rule is not maintained.

    8. Check that in the Procurement Costs tab, the rule has been created with the catch-all segment and cost value of 0.1. Fixed cost rule is not maintained.

    9. Check that in the Production Costs tab, the rule has been created with the catch-all segment and cost value of 10. Fixed cost rule is not maintained.

    10. Observe that in the Demand Costs tab, fair share has been turned off. Other settings should be as following:

      Determine Demand Costs By: Demand Cost Rules

      Late Delivery Cost Rule with a catch-all segment cost value of 50

      Non-Delivery Cost Rule with a catch-all segment cost value of 200

      In addition, Two Non-Delivery Cost Rules have been created:

      1. Customer 3 with non-delivery cost of 1200
      2. Customer 2 with non-delivery cost 500, as shown in the following figure.

      Note

      Substitution costs are out of scope for this course and are not maintained.

    11. In the Optimizer Parameters tab, you can set the runtime, the planning horizon, horizons related to lot sizes and fixed costs, define quota violation costs, and make settings to handle numerical issues. The planning horizon is set to 90 days and the maximum run time in seconds has been set to 300 seconds. Examples of some optimizer cost settings are shown in the following figures.

      The figure shows a screenshot for Maximum Lateness and Inventory Cost.
      The figure shows a screenshot for Demand Costs.

      For details of the horizon and other settings, use "F1 Help" as shown in the following figure.

      The figure shows a screenshot for the F1 Help.

  2. View the initial stock data in the SAP IBP workspace and change the Unconstrained Forecast.

    1. Log into the SAP IBP Fiori Interface, using the credentials supplied by your instructor.

    2. In the General Planner Group, choose the Planner Workspaces tile.

    3. Select your workspace IBP_800 ## and press the Workbook icon in the upper left corner of the Planner Workspaces screen. Choose your workbook Forecasts and Constraints ##.

    4. Create for you workbook Forecasts and Constraints ## a new component Projected Stock ##.

    5. In the upper right corner select Design mode and choose Go.

    6. The component Forecast and Allocation ## will be shown.

    7. To create the Projected Stock ## component, in the upper right corner select the + (Add Component).

    8. Select the Planning View.

    9. Choose Projected Stock created by Trainer 01 and choose Add.

    10. In theSetting section choose Save As and maintain Projected Stock ## as name and description for your new component.

    11. Mark the flag for Remove the original component from this workbook and choose Save.

    12. Select Filters in the Settings section.

    13. Select Load Planing Filter, and select the TXX_PHONE A.

    14. Review the filters and add for the filter Location ID with the existing value DC71 additionally the value FA71.

    15. Choose Apply.

    16. Choose Save Component.

    17. On the Data section on the top of the workbook, ensure the Version/Scenarios is set to Base Version and select the Plan mode.

      Result

      The initial stock is now displayed for your material at FA71.

    18. Transition to the Forecast and Allocation ## component within the Forecast and Constraint ## workbook and enter the following quantity for Forecast Unconstrained starting 14 days from today for 10 days for TXX_PHONE A in DC71:

      Customer 1 – Quantity of 1000.

      Customer 2 – Quantity of 1000.

      Customer 3 – Quantity of 1000.

    19. Delete all other Forecast Unconstrained values from the previous exercise and choose Save Data..

      Note

      We can only produce 480 pieces a day.

  3. Execute Supply Planning with Allocation Creation run using optimizer. Use the following parameters for your job:

    FieldValue
    Planning Run Type:C
    Planning Algorithm:Optimzer
    Planning Area:ZSAP7F
    Network/Subnetwork Selection5
    Planning StartTOD
    Generate Suppy Usage and Gating FactorsY
    Planning Run ProfilePRP_Optimizer

    1. In the General Planner Group, choose the Planner Workspaces tile.

    2. Select your workspace IBP_800 ## .

    3. Make sure that your workspace is in the Plan mode, select Jobs → Run Application Job app on the top of the screen.

    4. In the Job Template field, select ZOrder-Based Planning Supply Planning Run OPT PWS.

    5. In the Ad-hoc Parameters field, select Base Version, and set T##_PHONE_A as a planning filter.

    6. In the Schedule Single Run field, verify that Start Immediately is specified.

    7. In the Parameters section, ensure that the settings in the previous table are specified.

    8. Choose Schedule and Click Continue

    9. Check that the status of the job shows as Finished.

  4. Check the Results of the Supply Planning run using Optimizer in your workbook.

    1. Select your workspace IBP_800 ## and select the Workbook icon in the upper left corner of your Planner Workspaces screen for IBP_800 ##. Choose your workbook Forecasts and Constraints ## and choose Go.

    2. The key figure, Constrained Forecast, shows the planning results.

      Note

      The Optimizer tries to meet Customer 3 demand first, followed by Customer 2 demand, and any leftover is sent to Customer 1.

    3. Choose the Projected Stock ## component.

    4. Observe that as the demand due date comes closer, the initial stock is moved to DC71 from FA71 and distribution receipts are created at DC71 to satisfy customer demand. In addition, notice that optimizer first tries to fulfill the demand of Customer 3. Allocations are ignored by the optimizer.

      Furthermore, check the resulting job log, where there will be a warning on allocations ignored and missing quota, as discussed before. You may also want to filter based on severity, the warnings, and any potential errors in the log to get to the result more quickly.

  5. Check if gating factors are being generated by the optimizer.

    1. Log on to the SAP Integrated Business Planning web user interface.

    2. In the Supply Planner Group, choose the View Gating Factors tile.

    3. Select your finished materials TXX_PHONE_A.

    4. Set date horizons so that all forecasts are included.

    5. Choose Go.

    6. The only gating factors considered by the Order-Based Planning: Supply Planning Run using the optimizer and the Order-Based Planning: Deployment Run using the optimizer are the Supply Chain Model and Projected Stock gating factors.

      Result

      You will observe that no gating factors were generated

  6. Analyze supply usage.

    Using the concept of detailed pegging, you can use this app to analyze two aspects of your supply chain:

    In the Supply Usage tab, you can directly trace the pegging relationship of individual receipts on any level of the supply chain to their independent demands.

    In the Resource Usage tab, you can see the resources that are occupied for production and transportation. The resources would be shown in the same table row as the independent demand these mobile phones will cover. Since this allows you to see whether a resource is occupied to cover an important independent demand, you can react and free up resources to fulfill independent demands of higher priority, if necessary.

    1. Log on to the SAP Integrated Business Planning web user interface.

    2. In the Supply Planner Group, choose the Analyze Supply Usage tile.

    3. On the Filter bar, choose ZSAP7F/Base Version from Version ID dropdown list.

    4. Enter your Product ID TXX_PHONE_A and date horizon, for example, current date + 56 days.

    5. Choose Go.

    6. Choose the Supply Usage tab.

    7. The following figure shows the pegging relationship of individual receipts to their independent demands.

    8. Choose the Resource Usage tab.

    9. The following figure shows you that the resources are shown in the same table row as the independent demand.

    10. Select one of the entries and choose Show Order Network to view further information on the demand, such as order network items, which can also be displayed in a graph, as shown in the following figure.

      The figure shows a screenshot for Analyze Supply Usage app.The figure shows a screenshot for Analyze Supply Usage app.The figure shows a screenshot for Analyze Supply Usage app.

  7. View projected stock.

    Check the planning results in the Projected Stock app.

    1. Log on to the SAP Integrated Business Planning web user interface.

    2. In the General Response Planner Group, choose the Projected Stock tile.

    3. On the Projected Stock screen, on the Filter bar, select ZSAP7F/Base version and your material number TXX_PHONE_A.

    4. Set the horizon end date, for example, Current Date + 56.

    5. Choose FA71 as location number.

    6. Choose Go.

    7. Check the Element view.

  8. Check the integration result.

    Check the outbound integration result on the SAP S/4HANA side. The order number of MRP elements matches the numbers you had seen in the Projected Stock app.

    1. In the SAP S/4HANA system, access the transaction by entering transaction code /nmd04.

    2. On the Stock Requirement list, enter your material number TXX_PHONE_A and FA71.

    3. The Stock Transfer Requisition and Planned Orders numbers match with the numbers reviewed in the Projected Stock screen in the previous step.

    The figure shows a screenshot for Projected Stock app.

Learning

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