Exploring SAP Applications for Production Capacity Planning and Evaluation (31L)

• Maintain PIRs (F3445)

• Schedule MRP Runs (F1339)

• Manage Work Center Capacity (F3289)

• Check Material Coverage (F0251)

You can use this app to create and monitor planned independent requirements (PIRs). You use PIRs to procure materials or components prior to receiving sales orders for the materials. Working with forecast demand is particularly important if the lead times demanded by your customers are shorter than those to which your suppliers can commit.

This app helps you to detect forecast errors early on so that you are in a position to produce or purchase sufficient quantities of material to cover future sales demands on time. With the app you can process planned independent requirements for materials that have a forecast period indicator defined in the material master. The system also displays materials for which PIRs exist but where the material status indicates that no forecasting is allowed.

You can perform the following tasks if the role Production Planning – Demand Forecasting has been assigned to your user:

• Determine the reach of your PIRs and find materials with an insufficient reach.
• Find materials with open PIR quantities in the past.

  You can then accept or delete past PIRs.

• Find materials with issues regarding the material status such as the following:
  • The deletion indicator is set for a particular material at either plant or cross-plant level.
  • A material status that does not allow forecasting exists for a material in the material master.
  • The forecast period indicator has not been set for a material in the material master.
  • Maintenance is required, that is, no issues have been detected regarding the material status and you can maintain the PIRs.
• See how accurate your PIRs are for each period or see the deviation between your PIRs and the actual sales demand. Use this information to improve your future PIRs.
• Create PIRs on the material details screen. To perform this task, the system provides you with the following information:
  • The current released forecast
  • Last year's goods issue quantities per period
  • The actual forecast consumption quantities for the current period
  • The actual demand per period. That is, the total quantity from received sales orders

You want to make sure that all the materials you are responsible for have forecast demands for the next six months, for example. To do this, proceed as follows:

1. Search for all materials with a current forecast reach of less than six months by making the necessary filter settings on the Material List screen.
2. Navigate to the Forecast Demand screen by choosing the row for which you want to maintain PIRs. If a forecast demand is already available, it is displayed in the Draft PIRs column and can be changed as necessary.
3. Enter your forecast demand quantities in the Draft PIRs fields. Several columns are available here to help you. For example, you have information on the total goods issue quantity per period in the previous year and you also have information on the current demand resulting from received sales orders per period.
4. Choose Save Draft or choose Release PIRs to release your new or changed forecast demands. The forecast demand quantities are now displayed in the Released PIRs column and the forecast demands are automatically included in the next MRP run.

During the MRP run, the system checks whether current material demand can be covered by current inventory and expected material receipts. In a regenerative MRP run, the system plans all materials irrespective of whether they have been changed since the last MRP run. In a net change MRP run, the system only includes materials that have been changed since the last planning run in the new planning run. If current demand is not covered, the system creates purchase requisitions.

You can use this app to create and schedule a job for executing your MRP runs. To automate the planning process, the MRP run has to be carried out on a regular basis. You can use this app to create a job that performs this task for you, reducing your workload by running this task smoothly in the background.

You can perform the following tasks if the role Production Planning – MRP Runs is assigned to your user:

• Create and schedule jobs for your MRP runs. You can define the following:
  • The description, start date, start time and recurrence of the MRP run
  • Specific control parameters for the MRP run
  • The planning scope of the MRP run
• Monitor the jobs and display information on the status, planned start, end, and duration, for example. On the Job Details screen, you can display a log with information on the planning run.
• Cancel the job.

1. Define the start date of the job on the Application Jobs screen and choose New.
2. Enter a job description in the Job Details section and define the scheduling parameters in the Scheduling Information section.
3. Define the following settings in the Control Parameters section of the screen:

   • Regenerative Planning – Select this indicator if you want the system to execute a regenerative planning run. In this type of planning run, the system plans all selected materials irrespective of whether they have been changed in any way relevant to MRP since the last planning run. If you do not select this indicator, the system automatically executes net change planning. Net change planning reduces MRP runtimes and is, therefore, the recommended planning type.

   • Planning Mode – You can choose between planning mode 1 (adapt planning data) or planning mode 3 (delete and recreate planning data). Planning mode 1 (adapt planning data) reduces MRP runtimes and is, therefore, the recommended planning mode.

   • Proposal in Past Allowed – Select this checkbox if you want to allow the system to create purchase requisitions in the past.

4. Define the scope of the planning run in the Planning Scope section of the screen:

   • You can limit the planning run to one or more plants, materials, or MRP controllers.

   • You can perform the planning run for a combination of these settings.

5. Choose Schedule to complete the process.
6. Optional: In the Display MRP Key Figures app, you can find detailed information on the completed MRP runs. In the Display MRP Master Data Issues app, you can find information on all issues concerning master data that were detected during an MRP Live planning run.

With this app, you can visualize the capacities of work centers, and the loads on work centers. The app provides you with the ability to detect overload situations across select evaluation horizons based on bucket (or grouping) types, such as days or weeks. For a work center, you balance several factors to ensure that you are optimally utilizing its capacity such that there are no overloads across your evaluation horizon, as well as no backlog in terms of orders or operations. With the information provided in the app, you can make informed decisions to achieve this balance.

You can perform the following tasks if the role Production Planner is assigned to your user. You will also need the role Production Supervisor – Discrete Manufacturing assigned to your user to enable navigation to apps that let you manage products, orders, or operations.

• Evaluate critical and overload situations based on priority, using KPIs such as first critical load, first overload and maximum load.
• View the backlog of overdue orders and operations for work centers.
• View the capacity required to fulfill all the open orders in a set evaluation horizon.
• Visualize work center capacity utilization based on set bucket types, such as shifts, days or weeks.
• See the average load and overall percentage load across an evaluation horizon to understand load distribution.
• View the capacity requirement and available capacity for work centers.
• See operations relevant to a work center, with operation-specific capacity information.
• Navigate to apps that let you manage orders and operations.
• Manage shifts for a work center to enable a better utilization spread across an evaluation horizon.

In addition, the app supports the following technical features and options:

• SAP Jam Integration
• Email Integration
• Save as Tile

You can use this app to solve any coverage issues for your materials based on the settings you made in the Monitor Material Coverage app. This app shows you the net requirements segment, individual customer segments, and direct procurement segments that exist for each material. To help you solve your material shortages, the system proposes different solutions. You can simulate the solution to preview its effects and you can apply the solution that best solves your issue.

Note

The system can only propose solutions for externally procured materials, but not for materials produced in-house or materials required for direct procurement.

Because this Manage app provides detailed information and proposed solutions for specific materials or items, you must first select which materials or items you want to manage. Therefore, no separate tile is delivered for this Manage app. To access the Manage Material Coverage app, you first have to start the Monitor Material Coverage app and make various settings to display only those items you want to monitor. After selecting one or more items in the list, you can navigate to the Manage app where you can solve your issues. If you save your personalized settings as a variant tile, you can access this Manage app directly from your home page.

Note

If you want to view the planning situation for one material only, you can also start the Manage Material Coverage app directly from the Check Material Coverage tile, which is also delivered by SAP.

Depending on the role to which you're assigned, you can perform the following tasks:

• View a list of your materials.
• View details of the stock/requirements situation as a table or as a chart.
• Choose a different shortage definition to check how the stock/requirements situation changes for the selected material.
• View an aggregated table in which the same MRP elements for the same day are aggregated into one line.
• View additional material information.
• Display, edit, and enter notes for the material.
• Select an MRP element link to open a quickview with further details.
• Perform the MRP run at material level.
• Select a shortage to check the different solutions proposed by the system.
• Preview the effects of the proposed solutions as a table or as a chart.
• Choose a solution to apply the changes.
• Open the delivery schedule for materials with scheduling agreements and solve the shortage by creating or changing schedule lines or creating releases.
• Open a list of goods movements for a material from the delivery schedule and view additional material information.
• Contact your vendors to request changes to purchase orders and stock transport orders.
• View a list of open change requests for a material in a popup.
• Navigate to the Manage Change Requests app to place and manage your requests.
• Navigate to the Monitor Material Coverage app to get an overview of the shortages.
• Navigate to other apps to access further information or change material data.

In addition, the app supports the following technical feature and option:

If the order unit of a material is different from its base unit of measure (base UoM), you can change the quantity of purchase orders and requisitions in the order unit. The system immediately shows you the quantity in the base UoM as well. You can access the popups for changing dates and quantities from the respective quickviews and when applying solutions.

1. In the stock/requirements list, the problem rows are indicated by a red line and an arrow. Check first to see whether these shortages can be solved quickly by carrying out an MRP run. Choose Start MRP Run to perform the planning run.
2. If the MRP run cannot solve the issue, choose the row with an arrow to navigate to the Material Shortage screen. The system displays the shortage and proposes changes that will solve it.
3. Choose Simulate to simulate the solution. The system displays the result of the simulation in the list.
4. Choose Apply to execute the solution. For example, if the solution proposed by the system is to create an additional purchase requisition, a screen is displayed in which you can check the details.
   Note

   Ideally, choose a solution with three stars, meaning the proposal would completely solve the issue. If the best solution is to change a purchase order or stock transfer order, you can contact your vendor or the other plant to request the change. See How to Create a Change Request in this section for more details.
5. Choose OK to complete the process or Cancel to choose another solution.

If the solution card proposed by the system involves a change to a purchase order or a stock transfer order which has already been sent to your vendor or the other plant, you can opt to change the order immediately or you can create a change request. This means that you can contact your vendor or the other plant first and make sure that the change is feasible. Proceed as follows:

1. Choose a proposed change that affects a purchase order or a stock transport order.
   Note

   Ideally, choose a solution with three stars, meaning the proposal would completely solve the issue.
2. Check the delivery date and quantity proposed by the system.
3. You now have three options:
   • Change date/quantity now: Choose this option if you have already contacted your vendor who has agreed to the changes and can still deliver on time.
   • Requested, waiting for answer: Choose this option if you have contacted your vendor and are still waiting for an answer. The system provides a note box where you can record any relevant information. Choose OK to create a change request with the status Requested.
   • Request later: Choose this option if you cannot get hold of your vendor at the moment, or if you want to collect several changes for a certain vendor first and then contact your vendor later. The system provides a note box where you can record any relevant information. Choose OK to create a change request with the status New.

You can now process the change requests in the Manage Change Request apps.

• SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer

• SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition

• SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition

• SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library

Note

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