SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO)

In the benchmark, we use mass processing, which allows you to create demand forecasts for large numbers of products, while optimizing system resources. All mass processing jobs run concurrently in the background.

For the Demand Planning Benchmark, we assume that each of 2,000 customers buys 500 products, resulting in 1 million characteristic combinations (2,000 customers times 500 products). As demand planning considers the last two years to plan for the next two years, the total number of time buckets (weeks) is 208 (4 times 52). Therefore, the total number of data records considered is 208 million. The number of automatically aggregated characteristic combinations (combinations of products and distribution centers) is 100,000. (All products are available in each distribution center.) The results of the benchmark are demand figures that result in actual demand.

Based on heuristics, a method of problem-solving that applies rules determined by experience or intuition, the Production Planning Benchmark solves specific planning tasks for selected objects, depending on the focus of planning – for example, products, operations, resources, or line networks – using a particular planning procedure algorithm.

This benchmark creates customer demands in each production plant and uses the production planning run to fulfill these demands. The benchmark covers two layers:

• Plants that produce materials
• Suppliers to the plants

For example, our supply network contains 20 suppliers, 10 plants, 10 distribution centers, and 250 transportation lanes. We assume 93 raw products and 10,000 finished products. In total, there are 120,093 location products. Each plant manufactures 2,000 finished products. At each DC, all 10,000 products are available.