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As our team further enhances and expands our Digital Supply Chain SAP S/4HANA product portfolio in support of Intelligent Enterprise, I am excited to announce the October release of the SAP S/4HANA 2021 version of SAP S/4HANA advanced Available-to-Promise (aATP).
As an important and integral part of the order fulfillment process, SAP S/4HANA advanced Available-to-Promise provides accurate and reliable order promise dates considering the relevant stock in real-time, while protecting companies’ business priorities and profitability goals. Built natively in SAP S/4HANA Core, aATP is available in all deployment options of Public Cloud, Private Cloud, HEC and On Premise. With this latest release where we provide some of the most-awaited functionalities in order promising, SAP reinforces the intelligent enterprise strategy, adds customer value, and strengthens our position in supply chain planning and logistics space.
Product Substitution as part of Alternative-Based Confirmation (ABC) allows to confirm sales orders based on the availability of substitute products in case the supplies for the originally requested products are insufficient to fulfill the sales order demand. Key features include:
- New product substitution master data supports supersession, form-fit-function class, promotion period, expiration and other contextual parameters.
- Substitution controls, substitution groups, and Object and Value Determination (OVD) to control substitutions on the basis of specific attribute values for sales orders and to define an access sequence of characteristic combinations.
- Determination of the best-possible alternative(s) to confirm a sales order requirement, according to the substitution strategy, considering product substitution master data.
- Display of alternatives in the final and intermediate results of the RACR screen.
Location Substitution as part of Alternative-Based Confirmation (ABC) allows to confirm sales orders based on the availability of requested materials in alternative locations in case the supplies at the originally requested delivery location are insufficient to fulfill the demand completely. Key features include:
- New location substitution master data supports both plant and storage location substitutions.
- Determination of the best-possible alternative(s) to confirm a sales document requirement, according to the substitution strategy, considering location (plant and storage location) substitution master data.
- Simultaneous consideration of alternative products and locations according to the substitution strategy.
- Consideration of Product Allocation and Supply Protection during substitution.
- Display of alternatives in the final and intermediate results of RACR screen.
Review Availability Check Results (RACR) screen provides detailed explanation of ATP results helping the order fulfillment manager/sales representative to understand why an order is confirmed the way it is. Key features include:
- Display if products can be delivered in time and quantity, as requested.
- Display when and how much of the requested products can be delivered.
- Explain on the Intermediate Results sub screen, the contribution of the individual ATP check methods and features to the final availability check result.
(Product Availability, Product Allocation, Supply Protection, Alternative-Based Confirmation) - Offers forward navigation to the delivery proposal screen which can be used to fine-tune the confirmed dates and quantities.
- The RACR is seamlessly integrated into the legacy UI of the sales order and shows up dynamically or on request.
Supply Protection ensures minimum guarantee to certain orders by protecting quantities of a material in a specific plant against other competing demands. This capability has been available since 2020 release. In the 2021, we have enhanced the usability/functionality by the following features:
- Supply protection data maintenance in tabular format
- Cross navigation to related Supply Protection objects
- Display of aggregated quantities and protection group details
- Flexible time buckets
- Alerts for multiple matches in supply protection
Product Allocations helps companies to avoid critical situations in demand and procurement by allocating materials in short supply to, for example, specific regions and customers for a specific time period. This is one of the most mature functionalities of aATP. In 2021 we add additional features such as
- Detailed explanation of the product allocation check results in RACR screen
- Ability to change time series or check parameters before the allocation check using a BAdI
- Additional backward consumption direction for product allocation periods
- Ability to perform availability checks for scheduling agreements without delivery
With the combination of Product Allocation, Supply Protection, Product Availability and Alternative-Based Confirmation, all in the same single ATP check, aATP has truly become a very powerful and sophisticated order promising solution.
Additional information on SAP S/4HANA advanced Available-to-Promise (aATP) can be found here:
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