Constrained Supply and Production Planning in SAP Apo - Paperback

by Shaun Snapp (Author)

Constraint-based planning generates something that is appealing to all manufacturers: a feasible supply and production plan. However, constraint-based planning software was first implemented over twenty years ago, and yet few companies have mastered constraint-based planning. This book provides the background information, detailed explanations, step-by-step examples, and real-life scenarios to assist a company in becoming proficient at constraint-based planning, along with valuable information about what SAP APO can do for supply and production planning in reality, rather than just in theory. Here you will learn about resources-the mechanism for constraining the plan in APO and for determining the feasibility of the plan-and how constrained supply and production planning work together (and how they don't). In addition, this book talks about constraint-based planning at the supplier level: can a vendor's production be capacity-constrained? By reading this book, you will learn: - The different resources available in APO, how production resources differ from supply planning resources, and the role resources and other important constraints play in constraint-based planning. - How constraints integrate across the supply planning and production planning applications. - The areas of disconnect between supply and production planning applications, and between SNP and PP/DS in particular. - The difference between unconstrained (or infinite) planning and constraint-based planning. - The benefits of constraint-based planning and how it differs from capacity leveling. - Various types of demand, and how backwards and forwards scheduling work. - The benefits of using production constraints in the supply planning system, and how SNP and PP/DS can be synchronized to produce the desired output. - The methods that can do constraint-based planning in SNP and PP/DS-heuristics, CTM, and optimization-and how to configure these methods. - The difference between hard and soft constraints, and how to plan using multiple constraints.