Global Available-to-Promise

The Global ATP scenario includes real-time, global order promising, which checks the availability of
finished products, components and resources in a matter of seconds. It also encompasses order
management, including the creation of quotations, sales orders and bills, and even provides
transportation and delivery schedules

Process Flow

The Global ATP check commits order quantities based on actual stock, plans and allocations. It
supports different sales strategies flexibly through global sourcing and substitutions of locations
or products considering network constraints, such as manufacturing resources and transportation
capabilities.
By using product allocations, the flow of products through the sales channels to the end
consumer is managed. These allocations enable you to match combined supply against market
demand in the most profitable way. Allocations can be defined to describe availability of finished
goods, companies and capacities.
The ability of demand and supply reassignment dynamically reassigns order and supply matches
to satisfy customer demand based on priorities. This allows you to react appropriately to shortterm changes in supply as well as unexpected shifts in demand to avoid backorders.

What Will GATP DO?

Prevent over-commitment
Manage backorders
Let you search in multiple locations (GATP)
Automate a manual process
Reduce the amount of time it takes to process an order
Give you visibility of your sales commitments for every material you ATP check,
regardless of the results.
Give Production something besides a forecast to work with.
Allow you to prioritize customers and realign commitments of constrained product when
necessary.

What Happens When an ATP Check is Performed

The Choices:
A basic ATP check (in APO)
A rules-based ATP check
Product substitution
Location substitution
May include a Calculation Profile
A Multi-level ATP check
Perhaps in combination with rules-based ATP
A Product Allocation Check
A Production capacity check (Capable-to-Promise)

 A combination of the above

Why is it Global ATP Different?
ATP check against time series in a memory-resident database
Alternate product and / or alternate location searches can reflect a real business
strategy
Capable-to-Promise (CTP) returns results based on finite scheduling run in PP/DS
Product Allocations allow both forward and backward consumption of unused
quantities from other periods
Interactive Backorder Processing (BOP) supports mistake free updating of sales
orders
Multi-level ATP (MLATP) check allows alternate product and location
substitutions of components as well as finished goods.
Rules-based check supports fulfillment strategies, not the whim of the order
processor.
Match Supply and Demand with Global Available-to-Promise
The Global Available-to-Promise (ATP) component uses a rules-based strategy to ensure you can deliver
what you promise to your customers. Global ATP performs multilevel component and capacity checks in
real time and in simulation mode to ensure that you can match supply and demand. You can also perform
these ATP checks against aggregated, memory-resident data for even better performance. Global ATP
maintains simultaneous, immediate access to product availability along the supply chain, so you can be
confident that you can meet your delivery commitments.
Global ATP draws on a number of criteria to arrive at a commitment, including:

Product substitution: If a finished product or component is not available, the system

automatically selects a substitute using rules-based selection criteria.
Selection of alternative locations: As with product substitution, Global ATP can source
materials from alternative locations. You can also integrate this logic with the product substitution
rules.
Allocation: You can allocate products or components that are in short supply to customers,
markets, orders, and so on. The ATP calculation and response take these allocations into
consideration.

Global Available-to-Promise
Set and Meet Expectations
Your internal processes must be robust enough to overcome unexpected upside and downside changes
to supply or demand and still achieve your companys short-term and long-term objectives. You must take
advantage of each sales opportunity. You must set product definition and delivery schedules with your
customers, and these expectations must accurately represent what your company can produce and
when.
The available-to-promise (ATP) functions in the SAPR/3 System are integrated across the supply chain so
you can set expectations with your customers and then meet them.

Multilevel Component and Capacity Checks

The Global ATP component uses various strategies to ensure you can deliver what you promise to your
customers. Global ATP performs multilevel component and capacity checks in real time and in simulation
mode to ensure that you can match supply and demand. You can also perform these ATP checks
against aggregated, memory-resident data for even better performance. Global ATP gives you immediate
access to product availability along the entire length of your supply chain so you can be confident that you
can meet your delivery commitments.

The Global ATP component has four main sections:

n Basic methods
n Advanced methods
n Rules-based ATP
n Explanation and Simulation

Basic ATP Methods:

Basic ATP methods include material ATP, product allocation, and checks against planning. The basic
methods for checking material availability are:
n Check against ATP logic
n Check against product allocations
n Check against planned independent requirements
n The consecutive execution of all three checking methods
These methods allow you to perform the following availability checks:
n Material availability check against stock, planned receipts, and issues
n Material availability check against a master plan (by material or plant)
n Availability check against the planning structures in consistent planning
n Allocations
n Capacity check
n Single-level confirmation calculation (correlation)

Advanced ATP Methods:

An advanced ATP method combines basic methods so that you can check the material availability of
requirements groups. For example, a requirements group could be all the schedule line items in a sales
order or all the materials in a bill of materials (BOM). The basic idea is to give you the three options in
case of a product shortage. You can:
n Substitute a similar, better, or worse product
n Obtain material from a source other than your usual one
n Produce more product

You can look at production as the multilevel explosion of a BOM and the process of checking availability
at a given level. This feature involves ATP as well as methods of advanced planning and scheduling, such
as those found in the Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling component.
The advanced methods are:
n Assembly order processing
n Material availability and product allocations
n Availability-driven product determination in the sales order
n Alternative items or parts to be discontinued
A common feature of all advanced methods is that they may perform multiple checks depending on the
operation in question. In the context of product determination, for example, checks continue until the
incoming request has been fully met.

Rules-Based ATP;
Rules-based ATP uses these advanced ATP methods. In SAP APO, rules-based ATP is a step-by-step
availability process driven by rules you define for your company. In conjunction with predefined
Parameters, the results of one step determine whether the availability check should be continued.
The following steps are an example of rules-based ATP:
1. Is the product available at this location?
2. If not, is an alternative product available at this location?
3. If not, is this product available at a different location?
4. If not, is an alternative product available at an alternative location?
5. If not, trigger production.
Rules-based checking constitutes an additional level of availability checking beyond advanced methods.
In the most general case, selecting rules leads to a network of several advanced methods. This means
that following this selection, the system will conduct a multi step check. Besides performing these various
checks, the current approach also applies conditions that control the progress of the checks. The decision
to continue or terminate the sequence can be made based upon this procedure.
Global ATP allows you to look within a multi step process for available quantities in all reasonable
locations and for all selectable products. Rules-based ATP in a global environment provides the basis for
decision support to determine realistic delivery dates. By integrating the advanced ATP check and the
explanation facility within a complex business process, more transparency is guaranteed for the entire
supply chain even within a heterogeneous system environment.

Explanation and Simulation:

The Explanation and Simulation component of Global ATP helps you interpret the results of ATP checks.
The system gives the results of ATP checks in the form of simple dialogs, material availability dates, and
confirmed quantities. It can also give complex, multilevel dialogs. The system would provide such a dialog
for rules-based availability checks with combinations of basic methods that take different organizational
levels into consideration. Dialogs are at the heart of the Explanation and Simulation component. The
results of checking are made up of the results of a large number of individual steps ,and the sequence in
which steps are performed can alter the results of a check. Therefore, the component
guides you through the dialogs so steps are performed in the proper sequence. At the final product
level, you can drill down to the individual checks. Using the Explanation and Simulation component, you
can simulate ATP checks based on one or more basic methods. You can also run simulations of rulesbased ATP checks.

Availability Overview:
The Explanation and Simulation component provides an overview of availability. The availability overview
displays the ATP situation of a certain product at a given location. The underlying basic method is material
availability checking .If the system takes required quantities into account, it will not account for confirmed
quantities. This makes it possible to simulate creation mode requirement checks for ATP groups. If you
want to take the check horizon into account, the system will indicate the end data of the check horizon.
Requirements that are scheduled later than the end date of the check are considered confirmed. You can
decide whether entries should be displayed once the check has been
completed.
The availability overview also displays the daily aggregated ATP situation for the product location you
select. You can trace this aggregation back to the data design of the time rows. For each scheduled data
and category, the system displays:
n A totals record with goods received (but only for stocks and goods receipts)
n A requirement quantity of a confirmed quantity (only for requirements)
n A cumulative ATP quantity
n A discrete ATP quantity

Simulation
Using the Explanation and Simulation component you can simulate a material availability check. You can
simulate:
n An availability check according to ATP logic
n A product allocation check
n A check against planning
n A combination of basic methods, defined by the check mode
n A rules-based availability check

Monitors:
The Explanation and Simulation component provides several monitors, including time series and delta
records. The monitor for time series displays the current data records in live Cache. You can customize
which fields the system displays, and you can sort and filter the records. The system displays delta
records

Multilevel Organizational ATP Checks

Manage Materials at Multiple Levels:
Materials management of products can also occur at multiple organizational levels. Products are stored at
a plant within several storage locations or warehouses. Some products need to be managed the lot or
batch level. The goal is to apply ATP at these location- or batch-specific levels. The integrity of ATP must
be maintained in environments where a mix of these processing levels occur.
Check Lots and Batch Inventories:
Global ATP provides a multilevel ATP check that recognizes the existence of storage location-assigned
inventories and batch inventories. The ATP check always starts first at the lower level and confirms the
integrity of its lower level results by also checking at the plant level as well. Global ATP also permits
options regarding where and when in the fulfillment process the specific location or batch may be
identified, in the sales order processing or later in the distribution processes. Therefore, you have the
greatest possible flexibility in selecting when ATP will be applied at plant,
storage location, batch, or storage location level.
Execute End-Item Checks with Forward and Backward Consumption Rules:
You may wish to forecast at the end-item level and assemble the end items based upon demand. You
may want to manufacture or procure the assemblies to support the end-item forecasts with a make-tostock planning approach. Availability checking in Global ATP allows you to execute the ATP check at the
end-item level and recognize that each product may have unique forward or backward consumption rule
options applied in the ATP matching of demand to forecast. To support this approach, Global ATP does
not check stocks or planned receipts. Instead, it only carries out the check against planned independent
requirements (the demand forecasts) from the Demand Planning component. The details of the ATP
check are at the level of the forecast period.

ATP Processing for Multiple Plants:

Identify Stock at Multiple Plants
Large companies have different manufacturing and distribution sites that can ship the same product to
customers. In this multiplant environment, sales representatives must be able to easily and quickly
identify which location has the appropriate product and select the best site.
Global ATP handles this during sales order processing. You can check the ATP for some or all of the
possible delivering plants, determine the optimum solution, drill down to ATP details, and easily select the
desired delivering plant. In addition, you can also select other options, such as complete or partial
deliveries, for any source plant that you select.

The requested delivery date is calculated as follows:

Date Determination
Transportation and shipment scheduling is able to calculate the following dates depending on the process
from which scheduling was called:
Unloading date (the date on which the goods are available to the recipient for further processing)
Delivery date
Goods issue date
Loading date
Material availability date
Transportation planning date

Scheduling determines these dates based on a specified entry point date, depending on the chosen
scheduling type, and using the following activities:
Unload
Transport
Load
Pick/pack
Plan
Transportation and shipment scheduling takes account of the following calendars:
The shipping calendar of the start location to schedule the activities plan, pick/pack, and load.
The transportation calendar defined in the transportation lane to schedule the activity transport
The receiving calendar of the destination location to schedule the activity unload
If you have not specified a calendar, the system assumes a continuous working time.
Configurable process scheduling can also use other calendars.
In the case of scheduling using configurable process scheduling, additional dates can be calculated
considering additional durations and calendars.

Scheduling Direction
Depending on the type of entry point date entered (for example, the delivery date or material availability
date), the system schedules forward or backward. In the case of backward scheduling, one of the
calculated dates (such as the material availability date) might lie in the past. The system automatically
puts this date on the current time and automatically executes forward scheduling starting from this date.
This means that the dependent dates in particular the entry point date can be shifted into the future.

Depending on the object sales order, delivery-the order type or the material ,the required logic of the
ATP check might be different. For sales order for example a planned receipt in future might be sufficient
for confirmation ,where as for the confirmation of a delivery usually stock on hand is required.
The parameters for the check are defined mainly in the check instruction and the check control resp. the
scope of check.
1.) CHECK INSTRUCTIONS: The check instructions mainly define which basis methodthese are product check ,allocation check and forecast check are used for the ATP
check .Additionally the use of the advance methods-rules based ATP and start of
production are selected here.
2.) CHECK CONTROL : The check control contains the scope of check: here all the
categories for the receipt and the requirement elements are defined which are used for
stack calculation and thus determine the available quantities.
The use of past receipts determines whether receipt elements with due dates in the past
shall be used for confirmation or not. If e.g. a production order has its due date already in
the past ,this could mean either that it is going to become inventory soon or that there is
something fundamentally wrong with it and should not be used therefore. This entry must
be set according to the business context.

The sales order represents a contract with the customer ,the delivery merely executes
the agreed conditions .The purpose of the ATP check in this case is there fore to make
sure that planned quantities are really available as inventories The product check is to be
used in these cases and the scope of check is limited to certain stock categories.
Product check: The most obvious method of ATP is the product check ,where
requirements are balance with the receipts.
This calculation performed using time buckets of one day in the ATP time series live
cache where all orders of a location product are stored with their quantities and their
order category.