SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer (SAP APO)

The Demand Planning Benchmark is one of three benchmarks in the SAP APO Benchmark suite. Demand planning enables supply chain partners to forecast and plan demand in consideration of historical demand data, causal factors, marketing events, market intelligence, and sales objectives. Results from the planning process can be automatically fed to other nodes of the supply chain.

Benchmark Results

Benchmark Description

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.

The Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling (PP/DS) Benchmark is one of three benchmarks in the SAP APO Benchmark suite. The component Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling (PP/DS) enables companies to plan and optimize multi-site production, while simultaneously taking into account product and capacity availability.

Benchmark Results

Two-tier Internet configuration, SAP APO 3.0A

Benchmark Description

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.

The Supply Network Planning (SNP) Benchmark is one of three benchmarks in the SAP APO Benchmark suite. SAP APO enables organizations to create a very close match between supply and demand by integrating purchasing, manufacturing, distribution, and transportation into one consistent model. By modeling the entire supply network and related constraints, SAP APO is able to synchronize activities and plan material flow throughout the entire supply chain. The results are feasible plans for purchasing, manufacturing, inventory, and transportation.

SAP APO also includes functionality to enable organizations to dynamically determine how and when inventory should be distributed. The system draws on the data universally available in liveCache to optimize deployment plans based on available algorithms, as well as user rules and policies. In the benchmark, we use mass processing, which allows you to run the heuristic planning for large numbers of product-location combinations, with mass processing jobs running concurrently in the background.

Benchmark Results

Two-tier Internet configuration, SAP APO 3.0

Benchmark Description

This benchmark covers the demand of the distribution centers (DC) that has been created by the demand planning run. The benchmark covers three layers:

• The DCs that have the demand
• Plants that produce the materials needed
• 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.