T-Lanes wrt External Procurement Relationships - No Connected SAP ERP

[former_member788088]

Hi,

We have APO7.2 which is used for Supply Network Planning. All Master and Transaction data is extracted using DB Connect from a legacy ERP system. We observe that VENDOR is NOT determined in the Planned Order (Purchase Requisition) despite a valid T-Lane. When I create an external procurement relationship and then create a t-lane wrt to the ext proc rel, the vendor is determined. All keys likes Source Category, purchasing org, document number, document item are entered manually in external procurement relationship. (thats the only way we have)

Questions:

1) Why is Vendor as a source of supply NOT determined with plain basic T-Lane?

2) Is external procurement relationship needed at all? (given there is no connected ERP to which documents are published.

3) What ATP category should an external purchase requisition be?

4) Does location type of Vendor has a bearing on ATP category? e.g. AG is both a purchase requisition and a stock transfer receipt.

Thanks

[thomas_schulze2]

Q1) Why is Vendor as a source of supply NOT determined with plain basic T-Lane?

A1: because a product needs to be valid for a TLANE inculding the referenced document as a SourceOfSupply (Inforecord, ScheduAgreement, contract) and therefore a basic TLANE between Source and TargetLoc is not sufficient for APO SNP

Q2) Is external procurement relationship needed at all? (given there is no connected ERP to which documents are published.

A2: if you want to use APO only as a "quantity+date to replenishment calculator" (PREQs not assigned to a source) - why not ? If you bring the PREQs back to your ERP system you could run the source assignment there while posting/loading the PREQs.

Q3) What ATP category should an external purchase requisition be?

A3: PREQs created in APO-SNP are of type "AG" independent if it is a true external or a plant-to-plant (same company code) stock transfer requisition. If you do not want to use a source determination in APO anyway then the ATP cat gets irrelevant anyway.

Q4) Does location type of Vendor has a bearing on ATP category? e.g. AG is both a purchase requisition and a stock transfer receipt.

A4: Shouldn't matter - see A3

Regards

Thomas