SAP DP Problem Analysis and Improvement

Why This is a Focus

SAP DP is the most common of the SAP SCM application suite to be implemented. However companies that implement DP are often in for a surprise. DP has a very difficult to master data workbench. It also has a statistical and causal forecasting front end that is complex to troubleshoot or to even understand.  The graphic below describes the common problems with SAP DP implementations.

Outcomes

The end result of all these limitations is that companies do not end up with the forecasting capabilities they thought they would have. What this means is that it is very common for SAP DP implementations around the world serve to enable the business to do the forecasting they want and should be able to do. In fact after visiting eight clients with DP installed, we have yet to see a client use DP to effectively support their forecasting process. The post below describes the issues with respect to statistical forecasting and DP.

http://www.scmfocus.com/sapplanning/2010/09/19/diagnosing-dp-statistical-forecasting-problems/

How Clients Respond

Many clients can be at a loss when it this happens. They think that SAP is a well established software company, and their implementation partner recommended SAP DP as well as the fact that so many other companies have implemented DP. They take this all as evidence that they must have personally done something wrong in the implementation or their users are simply resistant to change. While the consulting advice on DP implementations is in fact pretty poor, a number of these issues are related to the product itself. Companies need advice how to improve their DP implementation, but this advice is not available from either the large consulting companies or from SAP. In fact we have found most of the information provided by SAP to our clients to not be genuine and to contain multiple errors. One company was told by SAP that DP was not designed for their volumes. Interestingly, the client did not have a high SKU count.

Problems Fixed in SCM 7.0?

For years many companies have been hoping that problems with DP would be fixed with 7.0. However after extensively analyzing 7.0, it turns out that there is little that addresses the main issues that clients have with DP. In fact, most development in SCM has moved to the newer modules such as SPP and EWM. This usually comes as a disappointment because SAP uses the promise of future releases to defend against fundamental design limitations of their products. SAP sells the vision of a future that never comes, and we are in the position of giving the news that the next release will not solve all of their problems.

What Most Often Occurs in These Situations

Companies that don’t eventually address their DP implementations problems end up falling back to spreadsheet solutions. The forecasting is performed off-line, adjusted and then imported in to DP, many times through copying and pasting into a Key Figure. (SAP’s name for a row in a Planning Book). For products that can be entirely automated and do not require manual intervention, life cycle planning or disaggregated reporting, and pure statistical forecasting, DP can generally forecast these items.

Our Services

Most SAP consultants who work in DP can’t see its limitations, have no experience with other applications. Most SAP consultants see their incentives being to get you to use and keep using DP and to simply accept its limitations and adjust your business around DP rather than developing the best solution. Most companies are using DP is such a limited way, and lack the information to improve DP that we have yet to see a DP implementation that we cannot substantially improve.

Our Approach

We can take our knowledge of different problem DP implementations and can analyze your situation. Also, there are some things that you should not attempt to do in DP, even though the release notes say you can. We have prototyping tools and techniques to get the more from the system. We present the costs and benefits in a clear and understandable way. Secondly, our costs are low because after having worked with so many DP implementations, many of our methods can be implemented remotely and on a part-time basis. Part time consulting allows us to keep the costs low, and develop long-term relationships with clients and minimize the load placed upon their planners and resources.

In short, our approach is extremely different from most other consulting firms you have worked with and we think you will find refreshing. To find out more, contact us the email below:

info@scmfocus.com