Explaining aATP

During order creation (wholesale sales order or store order) you need a realistic confirmation date and quantity based on the most up to date supply and demand situation.

The slide above shows advanced ATP components and related functionality in the context of order fulfillment.

Relevant customizing is maintained in: IMG → Cross-Application Components → Advanced Available-to-Promise (aATP).

During order (sales order or store order) availability can be checked. This is called product availability check PAC. It is also known as "ATP check".

PAC functionality includes:

• Time phased check of availability of desired product for the required quantity at the requested location
• Mass enabled check
• Check against all kind of supply elements
• Checks for SO & STO
• Support special stocks and batches

Relevant customizing is maintained in: IMG → Cross-Application Components → Advanced Available-to-Promise (aATP).

If activated PAC performs the check during order creation taking into account promises given for orders that were created earlier.

In general PAC first checks if requested quantity and date can be fulfilled (backward checking) and is this is not (completely) feasible PAC performs a forward checking to propose earliest possible dates by when the requested quantities can be fulfilled.

In the check control you define what kind of supply and what kind of demand are considered.

Relevant customizing is maintained in IMG → Cross-Application Components → Advanced Available-to-Promise (aATP) → Product Availability Check (PAC).

If ATP is activated and there is not enough supply to cover the demand the ATP result screen will be displayed. (can be configured in IMG)

Different options can be selected:

• One-time delivery - only the quantities available now will be shipped.
• Complete Delivery - all quantities will be shipped on the latest date.
• Delivery proposal - multiple planned shipment dates.

A requirement consists of various attributes, most importantly a requested material in a specific quantity, a requested delivery plant and delivery date. You can use Alternative-Based Confirmation (ABC) in aATP in SAP S/4HANA to check for all possible alternatives to confirm a requirement when, for example, the availability of a material in a requested material-plant combination is insufficient to confirm the original requirement. With ABC, your system can exchange the originally requested delivery plant with an alternative plant, with the aim of providing, for example, more quantity and/or an alternative delivery date that better fulfills the customer's original requirement. In doing so, the system calculates all possible alternatives and determines an alternative plant automatically: if more than two alternative plants can equally fulfill a requirement in terms of quantity and delivery date, the originally requested plant is used as the delivery plant.

Using ABC logic is supported with two applications:

Configure Substitution Strategy

• Define substitution methods for plant substitution.

• Display substitution methods and their values.

• Activate inline, plant substitution for sales order line items.

Configure Alternative Control

• Create alternative controls (a set of values assigned to a given set of selected characteristics).

• Display, edit, copy and remove existing alternative controls and their values.

• Display, edit, add and remove characteristics.