- SAP Managed Tags:
Perhaps, in some of your own projects, your clients have expressed difficulties in interpreting the results of Forecast Consumption.
In this world's first, I would like to share with you my custom solution for SAP IBP Forecast Consumption, using only SAP IBP standard Key Figure formulas.
My custom solution has some advantages over the SAP IBP standard forecast consumption.
I hope you may find the algorithm (which you will find explained in the video) beautiful in a mathematical abstract sense, even if you are not familiar with Forecast Consumption or Supply Chain. You will find more details about the items mentioned in the video, in the blog post below.
Last year, while I was implementing a large-scale SAP APO to SAP IBP migration as a freelancer, my customer asked me: "We would like to use forward forecast consumption, but we notice that the planners often seem confused about the end-result. Is it not possible to implement a kind of “Backlog” which can help clarify why and how large of a quantity exactly is being consumed each month, in case of a deficit of forecast in the past which is being pulled forward?"
I was up for the challenge and quickly realized that, in order to create this backlog, there was one problem with the SAP IBP Cumulative Aggregation SUM function, namely that it also keeps aggregating the positives, whereas in fact, for our backlog case, we would like it to 'reset' whenever it passed from negative over or to the cut-off value of 0, that is: after whenever you reached non-negative output.
How to achieve this 'reset'? I asked for help in SAP Community (see Q&A > How to force IBP_CAGGR to only cumulative aggregate until positive output, then reset to 0),
but SAP colleagues could not see any possibility to do so:
In the end I was able to come up with a solution using normal key figure calculations, which very much satisfied my customer and which I will explain here.
Contrary to the SAP IBP standard Forecast Consumption, my solution
- requires no extra Master Data set-up (Compare with the SAP standard Forecast Consumption in SAP Help > Creating a Forecast Consumption Profile for the SAP standard Master Data required):
- it is not license-dependent as it only uses calculated key figure formulas (Compare with the SAP standard Forecast Consumption in SAP Help > Applications and Features of SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain 😞
- and lastly there are no limitations which you would encounter in the SAP IBP standard Forecast Consumption, such limitations being for example not being able to use demand categories, shelf life IDs, or calculated key figures.
For the SAP standard Forecast Consumption, see:
... the limitation with regards to SHELFLIFEID in SAP Help > Forecast Consumption Profiles:
... the limitation with regards to Demand Categories in SAP Help > Time-Series-Based Forecast Consumption
... the limitation with regards to calculated Key Figures in SAP Help > Calculating Forecast Consumption:
Performance-wise I have observed lightning-fast speeds in a productive Planning Area with a quarter million planning-relevant products.
In the video at the top of this post, we examine exactly how I have created this new solution for forward forecast consumption in SAP IBP.
Of course, there are still cases where you will probably opt for the SAP IBP standard Forecast Consumption. While we can create extra custom algorithmic Key Figures solutions for e.g. backward Forecast Consumption, and would be able to switch between them using IF(...) Key Figure formulas, the Master Data set-up of SAP IBP standard would be useful in case the users would like to switch ad-hoc between the different Forecast Consumption modes. Of course, the custom solution showcased above, could also use Master Data attributes in the IF(...) Key Figure formulas. Also, note that in our custom solution, in the Cumulative Aggregation function we can also use resets based on time profile level (for example Week, Month, Year,...) by adding a 5th parameter (see SAP Help > Cumulative Aggregation😞
Generally. my advice is always to stick to the SAP standard, in order to benefit from future developments. Perhaps the idea of a “Backlog” 🏃 could be one day integrated into the SAP IBP standard Forecast Consumption?
However, for some clients, the advantages of the custom solution described above could be preferred.
You can find this post on LinkedIn here: 🔗 𝐒𝐀𝐏 𝐈𝐁𝐏 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦 𝐀𝐥𝐠𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐦𝐢𝐜 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐅𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐅𝐎...
Connect with me on LinkedIn for more content: 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/verheyenvincent/
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