SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain ...

ThomasKlemm · ‎2024 Aug 02

While some of you may be away enjoying your summer vacation, we have some exciting news for all those eagerly anticipating our summer release:

Today, August 2nd, 2024, SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain 2408 was generally released as planned.

In this release we’re delivering two groundbreaking innovations to early adoption customers: Characteristics-based planning and the integration of Joule, SAP's new GenAI assistant.

On top of that, we have major enhancements in Planner Workspaces and Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO) to further improve your planning experience with SAP IBP:

SAP IBP presents Joule – SAP’s Generative AI Assistant

Generative AI is as exciting for us as it is for you! We see a lot of unique use cases where Generative AI and Large Language Models will drive efficiency and explainability of supply chain planning processes and results for all users, making it easier for them to interact with the solution and quickly get answers to their questions or drive action.

The initial release of Joule in SAP IBP comes with the very first GenAI use case that enables users to have on-the-spot access to assistance and enablement content and comprehensive product feature information. By curating the available information according to the user’s application and version, Joule eliminates the complexities of search and saves invaluable time.

Using a large language model, Joule offers immediate, concise answers by summarizing search results. It provides quick, straightforward access to help content and other information right when and where it's needed.

Please note that the first Joule use case in SAP IBP is released in an early adopter program and available based on individual customer request only.

Response and Supply

Proactive Supply Decisions with Characteristics-Based Planning in SAP IBP Response and Supply

Up until now, supply planning was done on the level of product-location. With characteristics-based planning (CBP) we enable supply planning on a more granular level by leveraging characteristics like colors, sizes, or country of origin, to name just a few.

Characteristics-based planning (CBP) in supply chains involves making decisions and improving processes based on specific attributes or characteristics of products, demands, or supply.

It enables you to make customized product offerings and proactively steer your supply chain to balance priorities. CBP can help to ensure that the right product is delivered to the right country based on authorized regulations/compliance and thus lowers the risk of incorrect shipping.

At the same time, it reduces the cost of master data management due to reduced material proliferation.

The source of supply can be selected based on CBP profiles. Several new SAP Fiori apps assist the process.

To support characteristics-based planning, we enhanced the existing real-time integration for segmentation, batches & stocks, and custom attributes.

Please note that CBP is only released for early adopters and available based on individual customer request.

All Order Details at a Glance with the New Fiori App Orders

The new SAP Fiori app Orders enables planners to search for any kind of order and provides detailed information for the selected order.

You can get an overview of all your orders across multiple location-products and order types and search for individual orders. The app allows you to access and review specific information about orders, collected centrally, by gathering data from various sources during the planning processes. You can further analyze the available data to have a better insight into factors that play a role in producing planning results, for example, receipt quantities, dependent and component demand quantities, dates, source of supply, capacity consumption.

It's now also possible to navigate directly from an order in the View Projected Stock app to review the details of this order in the Orders app.

Planning UIs

We’re continuously following our strategy to make Planner Workspaces the go-to place for all your supply chain planning needs and introduced a variety of new features:

Enhance Your Planning Views by Using Formulas, Totals, and Conditional Formatting

You can now define and perform calculations directly in Planner Workspaces. Formulas allow you to define your own calculations in the planning view. The calculations are being performed directly after adjusting the referenced key figures, delivering instant feedback. This allows users to create their own calculations on the fly and according to their individual needs without involving IT to adapt the data model.

In addition, the definition of totals has been enhanced. You can now select for which key figure a total is required. If you adjust the calculation method (for example, SUM or AVG), the totals are being updated directly after adjusting the referenced key figure.

Using conditional formatting, you can then highlight key figure values that exceed the defined threshold and draw attention to values that require action.

Save Time by Maintaining Your Master Data Directly in Planner Workspaces

Editing master data is now also much easier: We’ve made the core features of the Manage Master Data app available in Planner Workspaces, allowing you to modify the master data relevant for your tasks directly on the same UI and saving the changes along with other data in your workbook. You can delete and insert master data records. Contextual navigations help to guide you from a planning view or chart to the appropriate master data view.

Guided Planning Processes Using Tasks in Planner Workspaces

You can model and subsequently track your planning processes in SAP IBP. Each process can contain various process steps to which you can assign tasks. Tasks are a convenient way of informing planners about what’s coming up next. With release SAP IBP 2408, tasks are now integrated into Planner Workspaces. To give planners direct access to all information they need to accomplish their task, you can assign a workbook variant to a task that contains the relevant filtered data set.

This way planners can easily be informed about upcoming tasks and process owners receive instant feedback about the task completion.

IBP for Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO)

Improved Planning Accuracy with Aggregated Maintenance Order Data

You can now include aggregated maintenance order data in a time-series-based planning area for MRO (SAP9). This data helps to improve the accuracy of parts and resource planning by including data related to future maintenance orders in addition to future maintenance activities from plans that are not yet released.

The extended analytical capabilities provide a comprehensive view of future maintenance activities, including planned maintenance activities as well as activities for which a maintenance order was already created.

The extraction of aggregated maintenance order data is supported by out-of-the-box integration content.

Improved Planning Accuracy with Aggregated Maintenance Order Data

Enhanced Procurement Decisions with Rotables Sourcing Ratio Operator

The Rotables Sourcing Ratio operator supports supply and inventory planning of repairable parts by determining the sourcing ratios based on historical data.

This feature helps to enhance the accuracy of procurement decisions by performing an analysis of the historical data to determine the ratio of refurbished to newly procured parts. It gives you a better understanding of procurement and repair plans which are helpful for aligning plans with vendors and subcontractors. Since there are often multiple vendors or suppliers, it's useful to understand the proportion you expect to receive from each source of supply for a specific part.

Extended analytical capabilities enable a combined view of expected impact of procurement vs. repair decisions.

This enhancement is also supported by the SAP9 sample planning area.

Enhanced Procurement Decisions with Rotables Sourcing Ratio Operator

More Information

We also highly recommend the new SAP Best Practices blog series which gives you a great overview of the available content, planning areas, processes etc.