SAP HANA Tutorial, Material and Certification Guide

Overview

◉ Shelf-Life Planning is a feature introduced as part of SAP IBP 2211 release within the Response & Supply Planning module (Order-based planning). In order to use this feature, the IBP Planning Area must be based on the SAP7F model entity and use RTI for data integration between IBP and S/4 (or ECC) systems.

◉ It’s a critical feature for companies that manage the shelf life of their products, therefore it is addressing industries that deal with perishable goods such as Pharmaceuticals, Food and Beverages, and Chemicals.

Some of the reasons why IBP Shelf-Life Planning is such a compelling proposition:

◉ Cost saving & minimize waste: Using FEFO (First Expiry First Out), companies can efficiently manage their inventory by automatically shipping the batches that are closer to their expiration date, thus reducing obsolete inventory and excess production.

◉ Compliance with regulations: Many industries are highly regulated and require companies to manage the shelf life of their products, as some of the goods can only be shipped with a predefined amount of shelf life remaining.

Features

– Supply & Deployment planning engines that use finite heuristic have been enhanced to consider Shelf-Life information. Integrating Shelf-Life planning information in the planning processes allows the system to consider Minimum Remaining Shelf Life (MRSL) requirement of the customer demand and reduces the risk of scrap/wastage.

– Finite Heuristic engine, both for supply planning & deployment planning, has been enhanced to match Minimum Remaining Shelf-Life (MRSL) requirements of independent demands and expiration dates of supply/receipt elements.

– Shelf-Life planning within IBP Response & Supply follows FEFO (First Expire, First Out) approach. In case of multiple supply elements available, the system picks the one which is set to expire at the earliest.

– With the planning run profile (PRP) closely integrated with Finite Heuristic, demand streams for a customer can be prioritized and matched with competing batch stock. For instance, stock getting expired earliest is matched with a sales order demand instead of a forecast. The goal is to match least remaining shelf-life supply with prioritized demand.

– If a Shelf-Life requirement of a demand cannot be met, the system generates a gating factor record “Projected Stock – Shelf Life” and this can be shared with the supply planner for further analysis.

– Apps like Intelligent Visibility can help to efficiently handle alerts generated for demands with shelf-life requirements enabled.

Process Flow

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Figure 1: Process Flow

Master Data

1) Product: This MDT has been enhanced to include 2 attributes: “Shelf-Life Planning Active” and “Minimum Remaining Shelf Life”

Figure 2: Master Data – Product

2) Location Product: This MDT has also been enhanced to include both shelf-life related attributes as mentioned in Product MDT.

Figure 3: Master Data – Location Product

3) Transportation Lanes: RTI generates Transportation Lane based on Purchase Info Record and copies its value into this MDT, including the Remaining Shelf-Life information.

Figure 4: Master Data – Transportation Lane

4) Production Data Structures: RTI generates PDS in IBP based on Production version (combination of BOM and Master Recipe / Routing). Attribute of the PDS “Shelf Life of Planned Production” gets populated based on MRSL maintained in S/4 material master.

Figure 5: Master Data – Production Data Structure (PDS)

Transaction Data

1) Forecast: As shown below, there is a forecast requirement of 5 PC on 01.04.2023. MRSL requirement of this forecast is determined as 120 (Picked from S/4 material master). This means the supply element (existing one or new one generated) should have expiration date of atleast 30.07.2023 (01.04.2023 + 120 days) or later.

Figure 6: Transaction Data – Forecast

2) Sales Order: As shown below, there is a Sales Order of qty 10 PC with material availability date (MAD) as 17.04.2023. MRSL requirement of this sales order is determined as 44 days (This is calculated as a difference between SLED of batch [31.05.2023] assigned and MAD [17.04.2023]). This means the supply element (existing one or new one generated) should have expiration date of atleast 31.05.2023 (17.04.2023 + 44 days) or later in order to meet this sales order requirement.

Figure 7: Transaction Data – Sales Order

3) Stock: RTI allows to integrate batch stock from S/4 to IBP. Similar, to other master data elements, it requires to generate & activate integration model for stocks.

Figure 8: Transaction Data – Stock

Supply Planning Run based on Finite Heuristic

With this data setup in place, as the next step performed the supply planning run based on Finite Heuristic planning engine.

Figure 9: Supply Planning Run

Planning Results – Assessment

– System has generated 2 planned orders of 5 PC. For both cases/scenarios – In addition to the requirement date and quantity, system also considers the shelf-life requirement of the demand elements and generate the receipt/supply elements with expiration date greater than or equal to the corresponding MRSL.

– First planned order “T1163082” is pegged to the forecast demand “F1163073”. Similarly, the second planned order “T1163084” is pegged to the Sales Order demand “2457”.

– Remaining 5 PC of Sales Order demand is met with the stock of “BATCH2” as the MRSL of Sales Order (31.05.2023) < Expiration date of batch stock “BATCH2” (29.06.2023)

Figure 10: Planning result at Plant

– At the upstream, System has generated 2 Purchase Requisitions of 5 PC. Note: As of current IBP release, Shelf-Life requirement doesn’t propagate at the component level, and this is why system doesn’t show MRSL against Planned Order components. This is planned as an enhancement in future release.

– The PRs generated have expiration dates calculated as GR date + Shelf Life of Transportation for component material