SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain ...

ThomasKlemm

We're excited to share our latest innovations with you.

Today, May 3, 2024, SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain 2405 was generally released as planned.

With our advanced AI-based technology, we have introduced a completely automated outlier detection system that empowers you to make data-driven decisions with utmost confidence, as it identifies and flags any anomalies in your data, ensuring accuracy and reliability.

Check out this and some of the numerous other highlights included in this release:

Demand

Improved Forecast Accuracy through AI-Powered Automated Outlier Correction

You can now automate outlier detection and correction in your sales history data by using machine learning algorithms.
Depending on the sales pattern (for example trend, seasonal or sporadic), the system automatically applies a proper outlier detection and correction method fitting to the individual product.

By automatically pinpointing and adjusting outliers in your sales history data, this feature minimizes the time spent on data cleaning while increasing the accuracy of your sales forecasts.
Leveraging multiple machine learning algorithms, the system ensures that each data point is cross-validated before being classified as an outlier, enhancing the reliability of your data.

Aggregated Lifecycle Planning for Product Assignments

Forecasting for new products is now a lot more flexible as product lifecycle settings can be considered when forecasting on aggregated level.

Let's assume you want to substitute an old product at the SKU level with a new one and therefore you create a product assignment in the Manage Product Lifecycle app. Your forecasting, however, is done at the product group level rather than the SKU level. In previous releases, the product assignment you just made would have been ignored. Now, the assignment can be considered by the forecasting engine, ensuring better forecasting results.

This feature can be used during forecasting as well as within ABC/XYZ segmentation and forecast automation.

Planning UIs

Efficient Analysis with Contextual Navigation

Quite frequently, an issue can’t be analyzed and solved with one single planning view. You often need to load additional components and adjust your filters.
To achieve optimal efficiency, the Planner Workspaces app now provides contextual navigation. This feature allows you to navigate from one component to another, while passing the selected context as a filter.

You can configure navigations tailored to your business needs that guide you through the Planner Workspace. By selecting data in the source component and opening a contextual navigation, the data in the target component is filtered using the selected data in the source component. You can request components on the fly to keep your workbook definition lean.

SAP Best Practices / Inventory

Deep Insights into Working Capital Decisions across the Supply Chain with Analytics Stories for Inve...

Analytics Stories for Inventory Planner are now included with SAP Best Practices content, serving as a foundation to adopt and analyze inventory investment for operational supply or tactical decision support. The dashboards help you evaluate scenarios to foresee risk and opportunities to balance service and cost.

The sample content can be used as a template for inventory operator outputs in SAP IBP, enabling a quick scenario output comparison to quantify impact of changes for improved inventory investment decision making. It includes visualizations on key operator inputs such as forecast error, lead time error, and target service level as well as outputs on slow moving stock, safety stock in volumes and currency, and key drivers of stock.

IBP General

Production Planning Integration Considering Minimum and Maximum Supply Constraints

With the latest feature pack SAP S/4HANA 2023 FPS1, you can now integrate minimum and maximum supply constraints. Using these constraints, you have the option to flexibly plan between these limits in production planning and detailed scheduling. At the same time, production planning and detailed scheduling adheres to the global SAP IBP supply plan as it stays within the given limits.

Consequently, you can now create inhouse production orders and distribution orders in production planning and detailed scheduling based on the SAP IBP plan. Specifying constraints for production planning and detailed scheduling helps, for example, to ensure the minimum resource utilization and increase planning stability between the limits.

Live Data Access to SAP IBP Planning Area Data from SAP Analytics Cloud

Customers of SAP Analytics Cloud are now able to visualize data from SAP IBP with a live data connection. The live connection avoids data replication between SAP IBP and SAP Analytics Cloud. The SAP IBP planning data can be visualized and reported on in SAP Analytics Cloud, and in unison with data from other SAP Analytics Cloud data sources, providing an up-to-date view of the supply chain plan and performance.

SAP IBP supply chain planning data can now be more easily combined with financial planning data in support of the Extended Planning and Analysis (xP&A) process. Representing supply chain planning data in financial terms in real-time helps companies more accurately predict and report on financial performance. Planners can visualize the current supply chain plan and performance with best-in-class analysis tools from SAP Analytics Cloud.

We also have impressive news in the area of real-time integration: SAP IBP Real-Time Integration: Empowering Businesses for Smarter, Faster Decisions