The Problem Using DP for Lifecycle Planning

Using DP or SPP for lifecycle planning brings up a number of difficult to manage issues.

What This Article Covers

• Issues with SAP forecasting systems for life cycle planning.
• How to perform lifecycle planning in both SAP DP and SAP SPP.

Background

The issues with the DP user interface are well-known by consultants and users alike. This limitation runs through the SAP APO-SCM suite with only the SAP SPP module having parts of the interface that can be considered to be competitive.

This post will describe and provide screen shots of just a few of the DP interface issues that interfere with better forecasting, and how Smoothie could be used to improve the process.

Using APO for Life-Cycle Planning

While the current process within APO DP does work, it takes far more time than in necessary, and is overly manual. The project team’s estimation is that it can be vastly improved upon if done within Smoothie.

Using DP for lifecycle planning has the following advantages and disadvantages.

Pros:

• Reporting capabilities (everything is in one place)

Cons:

• Only one person in table at a time
• Requires maintenance in multiple screens (selection IDs, LCP table)
• Cumbersome process
• Requires monthly maintenance (snapshots, date range changes)
• Limited choice of Phase-In and Phase-Out profiles

Steps involved within APO DP:

• Review titles history through reporting or visual analysis and decide on appropriate LCP assignment
• Insert title into the LCP table and LCP selection ID
• Run title in interactive mode or wait till following stat run to see desired results

Because the representation of making different changes to the forecast with profiles is inefficient (increasing the forecast by 2% is one profile, increasing by 2.5% is another) there are many thousands of profiles that have been created and are maintained by the company. A screenshot of just one page of these profiles is listed here.

A related issue is that while these profiles are explicitly designed for phase in – phase out profiles, because most planners at clients I have worked with are not comfortable with the limited DP user interface, these profiles are the primary mechanism for entering manual changes to the forecast. This is the proverbial “every problem looking like a nail if you only have a hammer.” In fact, more controls need to be used by planners to make manual changes to have more control over the plan.

Conclusion

• If continued, there is minimal improvements that can be made if any. Planners are currently relying too heavily on this and should shift to using traditional statistical models
• Within smoothie, no table maintenance is required and planners can visually see their adjustments instantly as they are made

In general, phase in phase out-phase out profiles are a maintenance issue for clients, and an inefficient mechanism for planners to make manual overrides. They are also overused for all types of manual changes because the planners do not have sufficient tools at their disposal to make different types of manual alternations for the forecast. In my view, manual adjustments should be performed in an external application that is integrated to DP or SPP.

Share