With regard to later procurement, and therefore requirement coverage, it is first useful to take an overview of the net requirements calculation for material requirements planning. A procurement is generally necessary only if the requirements situation exceeds the stock / receipt situation at the time of the comparison. Here, it is important which requirements are included in the requirements situation and how the requirements affect each other (for example, whether they are MRP-relevant and whether they offset each other). The respective requirements volume (and therefore, the production program) also depends on the default settings maintained in the planning or requirement strategy.
Note that from a technical point of view, this behavior is not the same as an availability check. The previous comparison is a net requirements calculation, as executed during Material Requirements Planning (MRP).
This unit deals with the properties of the important SAP S/4HANA planning strategies and how to use them to generate a relevant production program.
Reasons for Using Planning Strategies
A requirement is the quantity of a material that is required at a certain time in a plant.
Planned independent requirements have no relation to the requirements of other materials. In particular, planned independent requirements can be attained using flexible planning or manual planning in the SAP S/4HANA system. They can also be characterized under the general term "planning". Together with sales orders, they form the resulting independent requirements of a material (production program).
A planning strategy specifies one of a number of possible material planning procedures.
Some planning strategies support make-to-stock production. You could, for example, plan production or purchasing based on a forecast and then cover the sales orders from the stock.
Some planning strategies support make-to-order production. In this case, you may not start production or purchasing, for example, until a sales order has been received.
Some requirements strategies support a combination of make-to-stock and make-to-order production. You could produce the subordinate assembly based on a forecast, for example. You would not start the final assembly until a sales order is received.
Spectrum of Planning Strategies
Overview: Important Planning Strategies in SAP S/4HANA vs. PP/DS
The make-to-stock production strategies plan production or procurement using planned independent requirements, which can be created from sales or forecast figures. Sales orders are fulfilled by warehouse stock. Make-to-stock production strategies are used in industries where demand and sales fluctuate but where production should be kept at full capacity. Fluctuations in demand and sales are balanced out by warehouse stock.
When working with the strategies for make-to-order production, the sales order is the only pegged requirement. In addition to standard make-to-order production, planning without final assembly is also possible. Various strategies for assembly processing are also available.
For the standard strategies the matching of the planning strategies in SAP S/4HANA and the requirement strategies in SAP S/4HANA PP/DS is hard coded. However, it is also possible to use your own, customer specific strategies. Therefore, you have to define your strategy in both areas in the customizing as a planning strategy in the area of Production Planning and with the same technical key as a requirement strategy in the area of Advanced Planning.