Lesson Overview
APO resources are derived from SAP ECC work centers. There are various options available for maintaining available capacity relevant to APO planning.
Lesson Objectives
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
• Describe the transfer of work centers via the CIF
• Use external capacity
Business Example
SAP ECC work centers have been transferred via the CIF and need to be used in SAP APO for planning.
Figure 25: Resources in APO
Resources are a type of APO master data in which capacities and working times of machines, personnel, means of transport, and warehouses are defined.
Resources can be defined as single-activity resources, multiactivity resources, or bucket resources.
The single/multi-activity resources can be used for continuous and exact time scheduling. Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling (PP/DS) uses single-activity and multiactivity resources.
SCM250 Lesson: Resources
Bucket resources are used for medium-term and long-term planning in Supply Network Planning (SNP). The time periods are at least one day long.
Mixed resources can be used in both SNP (planning with buckets) and PP/DS (time-continuous planning).
Figure 26: Work Center and Resources
When transferring an ECC work center to APO, each capacity category is mapped to a separate resource. These resources are usually independent of each other in APO.
The resources in APO must have unique names. The transfer uses the following naming convention: The name of the work center starts with a “W”, followed by the name of the plant in which the work center originates and ends with the name of the capacity category.
ECC work center capacities are normally transferred as “production” type multi or single-activity resources. In contrast to mixed resources, these resources can only be used in PP/DS. As of SCM 4.0, the result of the transfer to APO can be set from ECC (up to APO Release 3.1, it is set using a customer exit (see SAP note 329733)).
Figure 27: Available Capacity for Planning in APO-PP/DS
SAP ECC work centers or resources for which capacity planning is to take place in APO-PP/DS must be included in an active integration model. The corresponding APO resource is created the first time you activate this. As of SCM 4.0 and Plug-In 2003.1, there are various options for defining the available capacity for planning in APO-PP/DS:
Option 1: The available capacity is maintained in APO. Only the header data of the work center capacities (for which a change transfer is possible) is transferred from SAP ECC. Intervals of available capacity that exceed this overall capacity are maintained in APO. This option allows you to define whether the APO resources are to be created as single resources, multi-resources, or mixed resources in the SAP ECC work center capacity or using transaction CFC9.
Option 2: The available capacity is maintained completely in SAP ECC. Intervals of available capacity created in SAP ECC are therefore used for planning in APO (“External capacity”). Any intervals of available capacity that are maintained in APO have no role in planning. However, any downtimes that are defined are taken into account if necessary. The resources have to be included in an active integration model in this option also. As explained above, you can define whether the APO resources are to be created as single resources, multi-resources, or mixed resources.
SCM250 Lesson: Resources
Figure 28: SAP ECC Work Center Capacity and APO Resources
You can make settings in SAP ECC that only apply to a specific transfer of an ECC work center capacity to APO. To maintain these additional fields, press the
“APO Resource” pushbutton in the capacity.
Depending on the settings in transaction CFC9, you can define the following data, for example: Resource type for the initial creation of the resource in APO, use of the external capacity, validity period of the available capacity in APO, finiteness level, and so on.
Figure 29: Transfer of Header Data from Resources
With the initial transfer, all capacity categories of an ECC work center are mapped to an APO resource.
The resource type (for example, multimixed) in APO is defined before the first transfer to ECC (ECC work center or ECC transaction CFC9). You cannot make subsequent changes to the resource type in APO. Mixed resources can usually be used.
APO resources can be used both in production process models and in production data structures.
Changes to the header data of the work center are maintained in SAP ECC and can be transferred to the corresponding resources in APO either periodically or online, depending on the settings you make in transaction CFC9 (“Immediate Transfer” indicator). The change transfer includes all fields in the work center whose contents can be transferred to APO. In contrast, shift models and intervals are not transferred.
In transaction CFC9, you can also make settings to determine the effect of the change transfer on planning version-dependent resources.
You can maintain additional data for APO resources in the SAP ECC work center directly (press the “APO Resource” pushbutton in the work center capacity header).
Figure 30: External Capacity
The APO Core Interface does not support the transfer of shifts, shift sequences, or breaks from SAP ECC to SAP APO. However, you can still use all of the ECC work center data in the APO resource by choosing the external capacity option provided as of SCM 4.0 (on the “External Capacity” tab page in the APO resource). Therefore, the available capacity of the APO resource is determined directly in SAP ECC using the referenced intervals of available capacity rather than by the data defined in APO (with the exception of downtimes, which can be
SCM250 Lesson: Resources
these, together with the shifts maintained in SAP ECC, determine the available capacity. In other words, the APO downtimes and the ECC available capacity are combined. Any shifts maintained in the APO resource are irrelevant in this case.
You use transaction CFC9 in SAP ECC to activate the external capacity and to determine whether the external capacity is to be used for all transferred resources or whether this decision should be made for each individual resource (to make this setting, press the “APO Resource” pushbutton in the ECC work center capacity).
The functions described above are provided as of SAP SCM 4.0, R/3 Plug-In 2003.1, and SAP R/3 4.0B and higher.
Lesson Summary
You should now be able to:
• Describe the transfer of work centers via the CIF
• Use external capacity
SCM250 Lesson: PPM and PDS