CDP allows forecast consumption, product allocation, and available-to-promise (ATP) production based on characteristic values. CDP supports make-to-stock (MTS) in Industry Solution Mill Products for batch managed products. The CDP characteristics can be derived from Batch Characteristics (class type 023). A key challenge for users is to plan supply and procure components to fulfill customer requirements and at the same time ensure that the forecast consumption and ATP requirements are accurately met. CDP is used for supply planning of configurable products in SAP APO.

I will explain the functionality of CDP for MTO by focusing on the system prerequisites, master data, system configuration requirements, the overall planning process, and key benefits and limitations. The scenario in this article uses CBF, an SAP APO demand planning (DP) functionality, as the initial step to create the forecast of configurable products (demand planning). You then perform planning with Production Data Structures (PDS) explosion in SAP APO PP/DS – supply planning. The PDS explosion triggers the procurement of components and, at the same time, fully takes advantage of the additional features of CDP such as forecast consumption, availability product check, and forecast consumption using characteristics.

Limitations of the CDP Process

The CDP process offers numerous possibilities for planning based on a variety of settings within SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) and SAP APO, but it may not work for certain scenarios. Some of the important limitations are:

• CDP is not robust when planning products with multilevel variant configurations that need interactive assignment of characteristic values at lower level configurations. It does not support Multilevel ATP as CDP works with characteristic values on the requirements and receipts elements of an order. The Multilevel ATP is based on the ATP time series wherein the planning objects are managed for a combination of product, location, planning segment, and account assignment

• Currently CDP is also not designed to work with Supply Network Planning (SNP) and Capable to Match (CTM) planning processes. Each company has to carefully evaluate the benefits and limitations of using the CDP based on their specific needs and then design the process accordingly.

Prerequisites for CDP

The following are prerequisites for the CDP process:

• The configuration scheme in SAP APO customizing must be defined with the relevance as CDP (as opposed to classical variant configuration). The configuration scheme controls how classes and characteristics are used within SAP APO and allows activation of the complete functionality of CDP. The configuration relevance of CDP is defined in SAP APO Customizing under classification and configuration.
• Products must be defined as configurable materials in the material master or material variants with the relevant characteristic values within the material master in SAP ECC. Material variants are subsets of parent configurable materials and have fixed configurations (characteristic values) that are assigned to the material master.
• All planning-relevant attributes must be defined as characteristics and assigned to class type 300 (variants). This class must be assigned to the configurable product in SAP ECC.
• The configurable products must be assigned to class 400 (CDP Class) within SAP APO. This is created by converting SAP ECC class type 300 during the master data transfer.
• The requirement strategy for the configurable materials should correspond to MTO within SAP ECC and planning without final assembly in SAP APO. In SAP ECC this is 25 (MTO with configuration) and in SAP APO this is 30 (planning without final assembly). The account assignment within the strategy should correspond to E (customer individual requirement). 
• Rules for SAP APO Core Interface (CIF), integration model and logical transfer structures for master and transaction data must be defined within the supply chain planning interface. These include settings for the integration model, data change transfer, Remote Function Call (RFC) destinations, and queue monitoring.

The CDP process works across two system environments (such as SAP ECC and SAP APO) and a robust integration is essential for error-free operations. 

System Configuration and Master Data

You can design the CDP process using a wide variety of settings within SAP APO. Some of the important master data and system configuration settings are as follows.

Classification

CDP uses class type 400. The system automatically generates class type 400 in SAP APO by integrating SAP ECC class type 300 or 023 when the integration model transfers the master data from SAP ECC to SAP APO with the relevant settings for transferring classes and characteristics. The assignment of the CDP class 400 to the product master and the associated characteristics are also transferred automatically during this process. It is common to use organization area settings within characteristics as a selection criterion in the integration model to only transfer those characteristics of a configurable product that are relevant for the CDP process. The mapping logic for class types across SAP ECC and SAP APO are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Mapping of class types

PDS and PPM

Bills of material (BOMs), routing, and production version data of SAP ECC are considered the source of supply for the master data and are logically mapped to SAP APO master data objects using either Production Data Structures (PDS) or the Production Process Model (PPM). You have to specify in the material dependent settings in the integration model whether you want to work with PDS or PPM. I recommend you use PDS because no additional settings are needed. Also, it supports date-effective engineering changes and object dependencies to derive characteristic values in SAP APO. PDS can only be displayed in SAP APO.

PPM can also be used in CDP but it has limitations and may not work for all situations. They require additional settings for characteristic propagation to controls characteristics values that are to be copied from the configuration. CDP class also needs to be assigned to the output product along with specific rules to control the selection of operations, activities, modes, and logical components that are required for the production of the product.

CBF Profile

The CBF profile is master data needed in SAP APO to facilitate forecasting of configurable products in DP and its subsequent release to PP/DS. The CBF profile is assigned to the configurable product using the CBF profile maintenance transaction and consists of the CBF table and characteristics values that are relevant for forecasting. These characteristic values are also used for forecast consumption and an ATP check. The structure of the CBF profile is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

Structure of CBF Profile

CBF/CDP uses the individual planning method, unlike SNP, which uses the net planning method. As a result neither the planned independent demand nor the sales orders based on characteristics can be seen in SNP.

Consumption Group

The consumption group consists of the configurable product characteristics that are relevant for the forecast consumption logic for sales orders. It is assigned to the configurable product master in SAP APO and also to the forecast release settings for PP/DS. The consumption group is defined specifically within the SAP APO customization settings for the specific planning areas as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3

Consumption group

Check Mode and Check Instructions 

Standard settings for the availability check have to be defined in customizing with check mode containing the value “assign customer requirements to planning without assembly” and check instructions specifying the suitable methods. The Check Mode setting (Figure 4) corresponds to the requirement type with the requirements class in SAP ECC and is transferred from SAP ECC sales and distribution to SAP APO at runtime. Enter the check mode in the product master in SAP APO.  

Figure 4

Check the mode

ATP Characteristics View

This is a special setting within SAP APO that specifies the characteristics combination that is needed for the product availability check at a characteristics level. It is defined separately for each configurable product; the details are as shown in Figure 5. When you activate the ATP characteristic view after you define it in configuration settings, postings (receipts, stocks, and issues) are automatically loaded in the time series based on characteristics.

Figure 5

ATP characteristics view

Product Allocation Group 

This setting within SAP APO specifies the configurable product characteristics combination that is to be used during product allocation check along with its consumption periods. The Product Allocation group is defined in SAP APO customizing in the Global ATP section. The details are shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6

Product allocation group

CDP Planning Process

SAP ECC and SAP APO offer the flexibility to use the CDP process in different ways. Some companies use CDP solely for driving demand of components using PP/DS whereas others combine it with a characteristics-based availability check, forecast consumption, and block planning and scheduling. When you decide how you would like to set up your CDP process, you should take into consideration the key benefits and limitations of each scenario. In this section I review the main features of the CDP process and its integration within SAP APO and SAP ECC. I break the CDP planning process into four steps for ease of understanding.

Step 1. Initiate forecasting in DP using CBF. You need to initiate forecasting for configurable products in the SAP APO DP module. Master planning object structures, planning areas and planning books, CBF profiles, and characteristic value combinations (CVCs) drive the forecasting process. The master planning object structure also contains three special InfoObject characteristics (9AMV_PROF, 9AMV_TAB, and 9AMV_ROW) to allow forecasting for configurable products. Create a demand plan for the characteristics or characteristic combinations in DP either interactively or using a background job. The CBF forecast has the total forecasted quantity at the configurable parent level and apportioned quantity for each configurable characteristic value (from the CBF profile). This demand plan is defined for the entire planning horizon. The CBF forecast is then directly released to SAP APO PP/DS, creating planned independent requirements at the configurable product level. The consumption group (created for CDP) is also included in the release settings to facilitate forecast consumption. The release process is shown in Figure 7. 

Figure 7

Forecast release process from DP to PP/DS

Step 2. Execute the production planning in PP/DS using CDP. During the release process, the system logic automatically creates the planned independent requirements specifically for the configurable product and each characteristic value combination from the DP CBF forecast. The characteristic value details for the planned independent requirements can also be viewed in PP/DS within the product view of interactive production planning. A special characteristics values icon is provided to view the value assignment in the product view screen of the interactive planning screen. The planned independent requirement created through the forecast release serves as the demand for the PP/DS planning run. The PP/DS planning run explodes the PDS based on the characteristics values and the planned independent requirement quantities to create planned orders. These planned orders create dependent requirements and trigger the procurement or production for the components and assemblies. These planned orders are then transferred to SAP ECC where production orders are created for in-house assemblies and purchase orders for components. Most of the standard PP/DS planning heuristics are valid for the CDP process. CDP also supports pegging via characteristics values. The SAP APO system compares the characteristics of both requirements (planned independent requirement) and receipts (planned orders) and performs pegging for identical values.

The planned orders created initially against the forecast are listed under a separate individual planning segment, planning without final assembly, and their purpose is solely to initiate procurement. The individual planning segments ensure that the planning is accomplished specifically for the characteristic combination. These are also displayed separately in the interactive planning screen of the product view. These planned orders cannot be converted to production orders. The production orders in SAP ECC for the configurable product always need a sales order assignment. The system creates these convertible planned orders later in the PP/DS run based on the sales orders for the configurable product. The PP/DS planning run and the consumption logic also ensure that these new planned orders are properly apportioned against those in the planning without the final assembly segment. The characteristic values for these convertible planned orders are derived from the sales orders. These are then converted to production orders during the transfer to SAP ECC, and manufacturing is initiated (Figure 8).

Figure 8

CDP process flow

Step 3. Initiate the sales order and forecast consumption. Sales orders are created in SAP ECC for the configurable product and then transferred to SAP APO by the CIF integration model. In SAP APO the CDP consumption logic searches for the matching characteristic values between the sales order and the forecast and consumes the forecast if these are identical. The purpose of consumption logic is to ensure that requirements are not duplicated. If a suitable match is not found during the consumption check, then the PP/DS planning run creates additional receipts to fulfill this sales order requirement. The sales order may contain more characteristics than those defined in the consumption group. However, all characteristics in the consumption group must be in the sales order for the logic to work.

Step 4. Perform the ATP and allocation check with characteristics. You can call the ATP check from within the SAP APO environment or SAP ECC during sales order creation and delivery proposal. The system transfers the characteristics values for the configurable product along with the sales order data from SAP ECC to SAP APO. The ATP check with characteristics is usually based on the planned independent requirements created in PP/DS for the configurable product. Other options are available using the product availability check feature with the ATP characteristics view. In the ATP allocation check with characteristics, the system carried out a product availability check in SAP APO at the characteristic level (i.e., all the characteristics that exist in the ATP characteristics view are used in the characteristics-based product availability check). The system performs the ATP check exactly against the time series in which the characteristic value assignment exists.

CDP also supports a product allocation check based on characteristics values. This can be carried out along with the availability check in the sales order and is controlled by the characteristics combination defined within the product allocation group. The product allocation check provides the control to plan efficiently in shortage situations. This additional check ensures the entire available quantity is not allocated to one customer and apportions the available quantity across different sales orders. If the requirement quantity is in excess of the product allocation quantity then a future delivery date is also suggested.

Benefits of the CDP Process

Some of the key benefits of using the CDP process are:

• The CDP process triggers the procurement of components and assemblies of the configurable product in advance and companies can react more quickly to actual sales order demand
• Forecast consumption and availability checks can be done at the characteristic level. The forecasts are assigned specifically to the matching characteristics within the sales order, which results in accurate and stable planning and procurement of components.
• Pegging relationships within CDP are based on characteristic values and offer better visibility of planning
• CDP supports ATP and the product allocation check at the characteristic level, which results in accurate planning and realistic commitment dates
• The CDP planning also provides an additional opportunity to use the block planning functionality within SAP APO. Blocks can be defined based on product characteristic values and the resource capacities can be pre-assigned for the blocks, ensuring more rational utilization of resource capacities.

Sobhan Vemulapalli

Sobhan Vemulapalli is an entrepreneur and a director of SAP at Radinnova Inc. He is an SAP, APO, and PLM specialist with 10 years of experience and has implemented 12 projects across the US, Mexico, and India. He is currently focused on building a specialty practice in SCM, PLM, and MDM, targeting their niche areas. Sobhan holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and an MBA in general management.

You may contact the author at sobhanv@radinnova.com.

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