SAP AMERICA
Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
Page 1
SAP AMERICA
July 20, 2000
10:00 a.m. CDT
Coordinator
Good morning, and thank you for holding. I’d like to introduce today’s
moderator, Margaret Anderson. You may begin.
M. Anderson
Thank you. Good morning to our U.S. listeners. Good afternoon to our
European listeners. It’s my pleasure today to introduce our speakers. The
topic is BW and APO integration. We have three speakers today:
Natascha Marienfeld, who is one of our BW Content Developers; Lothar
Henkes, who is our BW Product Manager in Europe; and Andreas
Pfadenhauer, who is the APO Product Manager.
The three of them will be speaking during the course of the call. When
they’re finished with their presentation we will allow you to ask us
questions and they will go ahead and answer them. With that, I’d like to
turn the call over to Lothar Henkes.
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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L. Henkes
Thank you very much, Margaret. I’d like to welcome everybody to our
network call. As Margaret already mentioned, we’re going to talk about
the integration of BW and APO. We will do this in the interview style.
First, I’m going to interview Andreas on some issues and after this I’m
going to interview Natascha on special business content issues regarding
BW and APO.
But let’s have a look at the agenda first, which is PowerPoint number two.
We’re going to start with an overview, which will explain the integration
between BW, APO, and also OLTP systems, of course. Then in the
technical view we will cover the integration scenarios, especially between
APO and BW.
We will also provide information on possible business scenarios and
projects, it’s very important, the integration to MySAP.com, which means
actually roles and work base. Then in chapter 5, we’re going to discuss the
available business content. After this we will close with a short summary
and open the session for questions.
Let’s have a look to PowerPoint number four, which actually describes the
situation BW, APO, and OLTP. Andreas, slide 4 gives us an overview on
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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the integration between R/3, APO and BW. Can you explain to us a little
bit more in detail these connections? And especially what I would like
you to cover is the difference between CIF extractors and BW extractors.
Also if there are different extractors like CIF, like BW, are there any
conflicting situations between those two on the OLTP system?
A. Pfadenhauer
Let me start with the questions Lothar raised. I hope everybody has slide 4
in front of his or herself. Actually you see there more or less three
building blocks and the integration layers. So the building blocks are of
course APO, which is the right upper rectangle, which is BW on the left,
which is the OLTP layer or the execution layer just at the bottom.
In between you see here a rectangle, which is called PIXX. PI stands for
the plug in, plug in ’99 currently or plug in 2001, which was out. This is
actually the overall integration layer for MySAP.com, which helps
integrate, in this case especially between R/3 systems and APO between
BW system and different R/3 systems.
I think when we take a look closer to the difference between the exchange
of information or the exchange of data, master data or transactional data
between the execution layer versus APO and versus BW, we have to
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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understand what gets transferred between the two different types. So let’s
take a look at APO and the execution layer, APO and R/3, especially.
In this case, here we integrate using our core interface. CIF stands for core
interface. Here we exchange for most of the application, so you see supply
network planning. You see production planning. You see transportation
planning, and ATP. We transfer information that was related to master
data and to transactional data like orders, like stock items. So this would
be transferred back and forth.
What’s right now the common part or what’s the part that is interesting,
from a common perspective for BW and for APO, which is here especially
the demand planning part. Demand planning actually uses, as well,
extractors, BW extractors that come with the plug in that come with the PI,
and that let’s say extract or retrieve information out of the execution layer
and transport this information or bring this information on the one hand
into APO, in demand planning especially, here what you see. And of
course on the other hand that’s what you know from the field from your
field experience into BW itself. So this is I think for the rough-cut picture.
Lothar, what else do we have?
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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L. Henkes
Thank you. On the next slide there’s some details on the installation. You
already mentioned the plug ins. I think we can skip this one. Is there
anything else important like the kernel situation?
A. Pfadenhauer
Yes. I think just that you are aware of what we ship or what is actually
within APO. Some of you might have heard already that APO has a BW
data storage or BW system within the installation or within the application.
This is correct. This is right. We use special techniques for data storage,
for storing lots amount of data, a big amount of data to store historical data
for our demand planning applications. We will see on some of the
following slides what this means from a technical perspective and business
perspective.
Just to make it clear why do we have an APO tool, which was out Q3 last
year, Q3 ’99. There we have a BW 1.2b in that comes with the APO itself
based on 4.6a kernel and APO 3.0, which will be out at as a GA version at
the end of September, actually. We have a 2.0b system, a BW 2.0b system
in. This is based on a 4.6c basic system or 4.6c kernel. So much for these
technical terms here.
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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L. Henkes
Thank you, Andreas. I think also the end is very important on the
PowerPoint. If you have additional questions regarding the combination
of hardware, database and so on, you can check on our home page there.
Let’s continue. The next thing would be the technical view. This brings
me to PowerPoint number seven. The scenario basically describes the
demand planning integration, demand planning like uploading historical
data to APO, doing the forecast …on …
Andreas, can you explain to us a little bit more in detail what the recording
steps are? Also, on the consideration of transferring deltas. Can we
transfer deltas from BW to APO, which I think can be done? And what
about transferring deltas from APO to BW?
A. Pfadenhauer
Yes. Let me focus at first on the general picture. Again, you see here two
boxes, BW and APO. I said as well before that we use within APO as well
the basic architecture or basic functionality of BW to store data there. We
store information especially for our demand planning application. So this
would be one way to work just with APO and to store information in
demand planning.
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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But we have right here on this page or on this slide a much more
interesting, a more comprehensive scenario. Meaning that you hold all of
the information about historical data, in this case especially about sales,
historical sales, things that were sold as goods, this information is held
completely in BW.
Right now, this is actually intrinsic to demand planning. With demand
planning, we refer to historical data. We refer to data that lays in the past
and try to extrapolate this to the future to get a grip on future demand and
future sales.
So especially in this scenario we see that information about historical data
that comes actually out of different info sources from R/3 or from files is
held in BW. We transfer this information by the data mod interface into
another InfoCube that sits on the demand plan application in APO. We
use information there to progress here or to do forecasting.
Once we have the planning result that’s actually narrowed down just close
to the planned information here, we add the information again on the APO
side, but again, to do reporting or again to store the information, let’s say,
about plans, we transfer this information, the final plans to final result
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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back to BW to store it to have all the information about sales and forecast
complete in one point of information, which is BW at this point in time or
what we see here.
In terms of transferring deltas, there is currently no way to transfer the
information from BW to APO in a delta wave. So you have to transfer
always to compete a value and override the value on the APO side and do
the same as well when you do the same from APO to BW. So actually the
last step, transferring planning results from APO to BW.
L. Henkes
Thank you, Andreas. On the next PowerPoint, on number eight there is
again the scenario of what we are looking at with the demand-planning
scenario. My question for you would be, are the …InfoCubes that we need
to transfer the data from BW to APO and from APO to BW already
available? If they are not available, is there something like a step by step
for our customers that they can use?
A. Pfadenhauer
Let’s focus again on these two slides. I think at least what I know from the
BW there is predefined information to have an InfoCube where you have
sales data in. Let’s say the same is valid if you have this information on
the APO side. But just focusing on the demand planning cube, just on the
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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right where we have APO, there you need or people that use APO or that
use demand planning, they need to create their demand planning InfoCube
from scratch. Because they would like to set up specific forecasting
hierarchies, forecasting relationships between characteristics and key
figures, which is, let’s say, not foreseeable or not to be defined in advance.
So for some of the parts, some of the key figures that reside on the BW
side, this is I think pre-defined. This is available on the APO side.
Everything needs to be set up from scratch. But this is, I think, not an
advantage that’s like the people in forecasting or in demand planning work
because they want to map their … requirements to the demand planning
needs…
L. Henkes
Maybe a few comments on how the demand-planning cube is updated with
the forecast data?
A. Pfadenhauer
The demand planning cube, it depends how you set this up. When we take
a look at the demand planning cube itself, we do actually operations
directly on the cube, at least in APO release 2.0. So whenever we do a
forecasting on the APO side within demand planning itself, we calculate
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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the forecast, with let’s say, a processing layer that sits on top of the
InfoCubes or which resides in demand planning.
As soon as these values get calculated and we save this information, this
information gets automatically saved directly into the demand planning
InfoCube. And depending on the update rules, meaning the transfer
between APO and BW, this information gets done regularly, maybe once a
day or so transferred to BW.
L. Henkes
The second example on the next PowerPoint, I think, is pretty much the
same like the example number one, that we are using here MultiCubes for
analyzing the data. I think our recommendation is to use MultiCubes
instead of one big cube because what we found out here so far is that we
get a much better performance by using MultiCubes regarding query
results and also for updating them. So I think our recommendation is to go
with MultiCubes. Is that correct?
A. Pfadenhauer
Yes. I think this is completely correct. We have right now the possibility
to have a MultiCube approach, and especially when you have this
distributed scenario here. Having BW and having APO in the game,
having the actual or the historical data in one cube, transferring that to
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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APO and storing the planning results in another cube just for reporting, I
think this is the right approach.
As well, when we record these to expand or extend this example to the
same, to merge these two cubes that are on the BW side as well to the
APO side to have there as well two cubes, one for historical data and one
for planning results. So this would be then completely mirrored, let’s say.
L. Henkes
I think the only comment we should add to this is also that for this you
definitely would need a BW 2.0 system because the MultiCube feature was
not available in the 1.2b version.
A. Pfadenhauer
Exactly. The same is valid for APO. As you said or as you saw in the
beginning, APO has BW 2.0b only from APO 3.0. So we need to have
APO 3.0 here as well for it.
L. Henkes
Alright. With slides 10-13 we would like to discuss the question about
APO as a standalone or APO together with BW. What I would like you to
do is to comment on this slides and especially what is our
recommendation. Do we recommend to run APO as a standalone? Do we
recommend to have APO linked to the BW system? I think there’s also
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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something that you’re going to mention or will mention this. When you
use APO as a standalone, can we do reporting with BEx and what are the
limitations ?
A. Pfadenhauer
Yes. I think this is a very interesting topic, because on the one hand a lot
of customers are asking and I think it’s very important that we get the
message real clear out to consultants and as well to our listeners. So let’s
focus first on the standalone scenario. What is feasible from a technical
point-of-view?
What you see on slide 10 is actually an APO system that is integrating to
several execution systems, an R/3 system or several R/3 systems and
legacy systems, maybe some non-SAP systems. That’s it. What does this
mean? As humans, we want to use demand planning within APO.
Demand planning where we do forecasting.
We would set up of course InfoCubes for this. InfoCubes where we store
historical data. Historical data that gets extracted. Just a normal way.
You know it from your BW implementations, where you define info
source or you activate content with R/3 and transfer this information to
APO and store it there in specific cubes.
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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We use that information then to do demand planning, to do forecasting.
That’s fine. That’s actually a little bit described on slide 11, where we
have here technically spoken InfoCube for demand planning, which is
focusing mainly on the demand planning approach.
Technically it’s possible to do as well or to store other information there or
other information maybe about historical data or information about plans
in the same environment, meaning in the BW that sits within APO that is
used for demand planning. So that is what you see in that box on slide 11,
where we have other InfoCubes for reporting purpose. This is the one side
or the one side of the coin where we take a look at it from a technical
point-of-view.
What’s right now the recommendation? The recommendation where or
how to do on the one hand forecasting or intrinsic use of BW for APO
purposes and where should we do real reporting? What you can see on
slide 12 is that one thing is that we use actually separate systems for APO
and BW. A separate system in terms of separate installations, having a
component installation set up for APO, and having a completely different
installation for BW.
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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What does this mean? Technically as well that we store on the one hand
in BW all the reporting information or information that is necessary for
reporting. On the other hand we store in the APO only historical data or
we update historical data that is necessary for forecasting. One of the
reasons for that, technical reasons actually, that it’s mainly the case that
since they’re two different applications, BW and APO and the processes
that sit on top of it are designed for different purposes.
So the one is dealing of course in this case with demand planning and with
storing demand plans with storing forecasts. We have a completely
different approach in terms of performance and usage of performance and
usage of resources, technical resources. On the other hand, the BW system
is designed to do specific queries to specific reporting on the existing
content, on the existing InfoCube. So the idea is actually not to mix
everything up on one installation.
Maybe, based on these technical descriptions and based on this technical
architecture, some other information there, the reporting, which you can
find on slide 13. Technically, of course the reporting with the business
explorer is possible as well on the APO demand planning part. So
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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technically this is one thing. You need to install the BW front-end of
course.
The thing from a legal perspective or from a contract perspective we
included in the APO pricing we included the use of the business explorer
from July 2000 on. So technically you can find, anyway, the business
explorer on the front-end CD. And people in demand planning, people
that use APO can right now use it as well when they have a license for the
supply chain planner.
Another comment here on the business content. Technically this is all
possible to call KPI’s, we come to that on one of the following slides,
again to call KPI’s from the supply chain cockpit even when the content
for it, even when the KPI’s or when the key figures are available or stored
on the same system.
So actually you would use the demand planning BW, the demand planning
InfoCubes that fit or that come with APO to activate business content there
to do reporting, to do this on the same machine. As I said, this is not
recommended just from this difference point-of-view, usage point-ofview.
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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And I think you can find some detailed information in one of the notes
here that is described. And you can find some details there of what can be
done or what are the limitations when you go for such an approach.
I think that’s it more or less for the description of APO standalone.
Lothar, what else?
L. Henkes
Demand planning and demand planning reporting on the next slide, on
PowerPoint 14, which says reporting for demand planner and sales
representatives. So my question for you would be the mentioned reports,
for example, regional forecast reporting, planned action deviation, and so
on. Where do these reports come from? They are not business content,
right?
A. Pfadenhauer
Yes. I think that that’s a very good question. Let’s explain this or let’s go
a little bit into detail here. On the one hand you have of course business
content, business content that described, for example, let’s say the actuals,
so actual sales that come out of the execution system, out of an R/3
system.
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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But on the other hand we have, when we take a look at the top ten
deviations, plan actual for example or planned information, planned actual
deviation. This is, especially the planned information, this is information
we only set up or get when we do the real forecasting. So there is no predefined content available for that because this is part of the whole setup
process.
What needs to be done here? What are the steps to come to such a report?
The actuals you have, this is something which comes with the content. I
think Natascha can focus on that a little bit more in a couple of minutes.
You need to set up a clear report that compares actually planned
information, planned numbers, and actual numbers and just calculate, let’s
say, within a macro, for example, deviation, store it as another key figure,
and get this out as a report.
So I think it’s important to say here that on the one hand something comes
with BW content. On the other hand, there needs to be some manual
definition or definition coming directly from the demand planner to come
to such reports or come to such results.
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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L. Henkes
Thank you. Then the next part would be PowerPoint 15, where we have
the execution of KPI’s from the supply chain cockpit. So the KPI’s that
are executed here, where at they located? Are they located on the BW
system or on the APO system?
A. Pfadenhauer
Actually, that’s a good point. I think we can already include a little bit
what you can find on the following slides 16, 17, and 18 you can come to
that a little bit in detail, which I can focus on that as well. So assuming
you have your APO supply chain cockpit. In supply chain cockpit you
might know. You see their landscape. You see the different locations …
and so on. You see as well products. And whether you want to see a
specific report or specific key figures or performance indicators for a
certain product or for a certain product that is located in the specific plans,
you can start such a query directly from the cockpit.
But what’s happening in the background is that an RC call is established
where a grid is transferred and this grid triggers actually a query in the BW
system. So the information here is not actually stored on the APO side.
You need, when we follow the recommendation here, the BW system.
And the BW system is retrieving the data in the business explorer and is
popping up or is showing the results of such a query.
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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Again, what we can do from the APO side is, I would say, a simple call of
a query that is already defined on the BW side and with all the information
that sits on the BW side, all the data that is stored there.
L. Henkes
You can do it if you want. The major point now would be how do we set
up these links, right? And that’s what we provide on the next two or three
PowerPoints. We have some screen shots on how we can actually link
BW workbooks to APO. Basically what you would have to do of course
you would have to define the RFC destination in the context menu here,
which says define default BW destination. Then you maintain the context
menu. And as a last step you define default context menu for your users,
for example.
In the context menu that’s shown on PowerPoint 17. Andreas, whenever
you want to interrupt me, just do it.
A. Pfadenhauer
I will, definitely.
L. Henkes
On PowerPoint 17, basically in the context menu we get all the available
workbooks from the BW system. And just by a drag and a drop I would
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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link the according workbooks or KPI’s so that I can have access to those
from the APO system.
As a last step I could change user specific settings with my own context
menu profile. That’s actually the last step that needs to be done to set up
this link to execute KPI’s from the APO system.
A. Pfadenhauer
Yes, I think you’re right here. These are actually detailed steps how to set
it up.
L. Henkes
Andreas, then maybe a quick run through the next one or two chapters,
which is the business planners and the workplace. Before we come to the
business content, I would like you to go over with us these business
scenarios and the results.
A. Pfadenhauer
What we have in mind here why we put these things in here is just a quick
walk through to how actually BW and APO’s use is embedded in real
business scenarios. So when we take a look at slide 20 we see sales and
operations planning. We see here the different planning steps. What’s
going on actually in the sales and operations planning that different people
here you see them are focusing on a specific plan, a mid to long-term plan.
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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So focusing on sales, focusing on forecasting, and focusing on operations,
something which you get out of APO, what we should do within APO.
Again, we discussed before a little bit the different scenarios. So you have
resulting information stored in APO, maybe actuals on BW. You can run
then. This is compared, this is described in step number four and will
teach you query, which actually goes to a cube in APO and goes to a cube
in BW. Or depending on how you define the …, transferring, this is step
number six as well. The final plan …BW, to store it there.
Actually, it’s the same approach more or less for slide 21, the network
analysis and design approach. Where you have from a planning point-ofview, a concert between APO and strategic enterprise management, SEM,
where you have specific information stored there while you plan or where
you get information about long-term plans, strategic plans.
Again, as in SEM we use, as well, BW to store information there. We
could start, again, a kind of MultiCube query using the business explorer,
for example.
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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The last slide here is demand planning. That’s actually something we
described already before. That’s just another scenario where we store
information directly in APO demand planning. This is actually not on the
slide. You would exchange the information or send this information as
well through a BW system.
Actually this is the business view in all these steps and all these processes.
Just a couple of scenarios here. We saw these three when we take a look
at the role perspective, at the workplace itself. We have some examples
within the scenarios. What you saw here, demand planner, account
manager, and so on.
But of course we have as well defined some real roles embedded in the
workplace as workplace content or business content, and actually we have
more than eight pre-defined roles, three of them you see here. For
example, the supply chain manager and the strategic planner, the demand
planner, as well supply chain planner, production planner, and so on.
One of the main things here I wanted to mention of course, for example
supply chain manager, he has access to transactions that link to APO,
transactions that are linked to an R/3 to an execution system. That is why
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July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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this is important that this person, this guy, the manager wants to see as
well some rip reports, for example on performance, real business content.
We come to that I think in the next chapter.
So this is just a good example for a role within the workplace that has
access to distributed transaction or distributed information across the
MySAP.com landscape. Again, as well as for actually all the planners or
people …that sit within or that come as supply chain management content
within the workplace content.
I think that’s it, more or less, for the workplace and the roles. As I said,
we have more than eight supply chain management roles embedded in the
workplace.
L. Henkes
We’re going to continue then with the business content for APO.
Natascha, can you please tell us what kind of answers does the business
content for APO provide me with?
N. Marienfeld
You will be able to do a different analysis of your APO planning version.
For example, what will we produce in the next month or do I have enough
resources for what I want to do? How high is my capacity utilization? Or
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
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how many orders will be delayed? Is there one important customer that I
would make angry by doing the plan like I have it now?
(Interruption)
…as I use the different applications. So you can do this with your
business content. Another thing you can do is, if you have a planning
version from the APO, you load that to the BW and then you get the real
data, the actual data after you produce the…
(Interruption)
There’s some possibility to keep your information about a master plan in
the …you would like.
L. Henkes
I think a second question that I would have on business, it has been
answered already. But maybe we point it out again. APO is a BW system.
This is a whole business content available on the APO system as well.
What is our recommendation regarding activation of business content?
Should it be done in APO or in BW or in both?
N. Marienfeld
To the first question is the whole business content that we deliver is
available in the APO systems? Yes, it is. But to the second question,
where should we activate it? Also we have said in some slides before that
you should have two separate systems if you want to do a lot of reporting.
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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But if you would only want to do reporting on APO, … maybe you might
want to activate the content in the APO system.
But that’s not our recommendation. You should activate the content in
your BW system. And you have the advantage that you can actually do
reporting on the planned version from APO and the actual data from the
R/3 systems. So we would recommend that.
L. Henkes
I think this, again, shows that we should definitely use two separate
systems, the APO for the whole planning purposes and definitely the BW
system for any kind of analysis, right?
N. Marienfeld
Right.
L. Henkes
The next question I would like to ask is, the APO monitor offers a certain
kind of analysis already. Why would I use, in addition to that, business
content?
N. Marienfeld
That’s a good question. In the APO monitor you can already see some key
figures for your planning versions. But the advantage of the BW is the
OLAP functionality, you can actually slice and dice on the data you have.
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Moderator: Margaret Anderson
July 20, 2000/10:00 a.m. CDT
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So you can actually find out if the capacity utilization is very high, which
machine is causing the bottleneck. Maybe you’ll want to further
investigate is the machine very high on maintenance. So I might have
problems in the future. If it’s an old machine, questions like that would be
able to answer with the BW, which is harder to answer with the APO
system.
On other parts they are nice, but also the BW, you have HTML reports you
can do and you have geographical integration. You can total the numbers
on a map. We will have an example for that a little bit later. The other
advantage is an integration to your R/3 data.
L. Henkes
Thank you. The APO product map is on PowerPoint 29. It gives us an
overview on all available APO functionality. My question for you would
be, from which areas do we extract data? Or in oter words, where do we
have business content for?
N. Marienfeld
Maybe we should say, which release do we have, which content? If you
have an APO 3.0 system you have a BW 2.0b system. Then you have
business content. Then you have business content for APO in the areas of
PPDS and of the network design planning. These are the two main areas
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we concentrated on, but the map planning, like Andreas told you before,
there is no standard content for it. So the customer has to build his own
cube, which is difficult. In the other two areas described here, there’s
quite a few content objects here.
L. Henkes
I think that’s explained on the next PowerPoint. It talks about life cache,
for example, net shop scenarios is another expression that comes up here.
What does this mean in terms of business content?
N. Marienfeld
What we do in these areas, I said before PPDS, we extract data from the
order based APO application from the life cache order net. So when you
extract data, what you actually do is you take a snapshot of your planning
scenario of your planning version as it is right now. You upload this
…and if you compare it to planning versions, you can actually upload the
planning versions in your … To do that, you have to specify a name for
the… So you can identify it later in the analysis, as I say if…
In the network design area we are able to just play the planning results you
did in a geographical…
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Now I’d like to describe a little bit more what key figures we can provide
you with. We start with the first cube. This first cube is called Order
Data… and it includes all the data that the order had holds in the APO
system. The according info stores that provides this information is listed
below. We show you some key figures used, for example you can show
the lead time on your orders or the delay time, the set up time on the
machines, which is very important because of work in process time you
have on your planned version right now.
After we get all the different quantities, the personal quantities, the open
quantities on the order… We see the lateness of the order. That means
you can actually see if I do the planning version like it is now, what kind
of percentage of my orders are too late. We included also our status of the
order so you can do different reporting on your status.
L. Henkes
When I have a look at these InfoCubes, I think one InfoCube is different,
and that’s the second one. ZeroAPO_CO1. This InfoCube, in contrast to
the other two is updated from two different info sources. So what is the
business need behind that?
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N. Marienfeld
This InfoCube is special in this region because the one info source
provides the resource date from your resources like the capacity, what is
the total capacity of the resource, how much is free capacity, and what is
your capacity load. So you get the resource information on all your
resources and then you have a different question. You want to…, capacity
utilization is very high on machine A, but which orders are causing this.
So the second info source, which is called operations, provides all the data
from the operational feature order. So there you have also the different
times and the quantities and the status you can report on. With this
combination you actually get an explanation of what causes your resource
situation.
The last cube we have in the PPDS area is the order picking data. In this
InfoCube you get the packing between what order belongs to which
customer or which order causes a different order. Then you can also do
some analysis on which orders are late, what percentage of my orders are
late, what quantities do I produce for which customer, and things like that.
Then we have another cube that’s mentioned on slide 32. That is the
network design data for products from the network design-planning cube.
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In this cube you can upload the results of your planning from the network
design and you get some figures like the demand, the full-scale quantities,
the cost for the production, for the handling and for the procurement. And
actually what is the really nice thing about it is that you can display it in
the geographical interface, which is shown on the right-hand side. You
can display the results on the map.
L. Henkes
I have two questions on this. First of all, are we supporting with the
business content also already pre-designed queries or workbooks on these
InfoCubes? But I can’t imagine very often we or the customers are going
to build our own queries on these InfoCubes. Are there any common rules
to follow when we want to do or when we want to build queries on the
InfoCubes? And are there some written recommendations on this?
N. Marienfeld
What you have to keep in mind is that we always load up snapshots of
your planning versions. So you have to pay a little attention on how your
snapshot is cut. If you have a snapshot with one planning version, you can
build a query. Just take the snapshot in the query and see your key figures.
But if you have a snapshot with two or more planning versions, you have
to be careful so you don’t sum up key figures over two planning versions.
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So this is something you have to keep in mind. But if you have built a
query before it’s easy to do. It’s not very complicated. It’s just something
you have to keep in your mind.
L. Henkes
The last question. How complicated would it be to integrate geographical
information, just as you have shown us here?
N. Marienfeld
It’s not very difficult. The queries we deliver for the network design are
fitted for just integration. So all you have to do is go into our front-end
tool and attach a map to the query and do some positions on how do you
want to display the key figures. For example, do you want the production
cost as a pie chart or what chart do you want to display beside it. That’s
mainly what you have to do is five steps or so, and then you’re finished.
L. Henkes
These five steps are documented?
N. Marienfeld
Yes. There’s also some documentation on it in the sub-net, how you can
do it.
L. Henkes
On the next PowerPoint we have a screen shot of the browser. It shows us
the workbooks that are supported for the role of the production planner.
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Can you provide us with some more details on this ? The other question
is, are there other roles in the company that might use these workbooks as
well?
N. Marienfeld
Yes. When we see the role for the production planner, on the left-hand
side you see the areas he has workbooks for. So the top three parts are
order, view and operations views. Those contain the data that comes from
the R/3’s for the actual data.
And the one we have right now, operating planning analysis, also have the
workbooks that have the data that comes from the APO system. Here you
see we have about ten workbooks on the APO, KPI’s. They differ
between if you want to do an analysis on one planning version or if you
want to do a comparison between several planning versions or what kind
of data you want to look at, the order data or the resource data.
This is just one example. You can imagine that other supply chain roles
are able to use the APO workbooks, for example supply chain manager or
the supply chain planner would be also interested in these kinds of
workbooks. And I think other, maybe production roles are interested in
the APO workbooks.
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L. Henkes
I see. On slide 34, business content master data. Which InfoObjects are
available in BW for APO master data ?
N. Marienfeld
This slide just shows the main master data InfoObjects for the things you
will need if you want to report on APO. It’s location products, location
products, you all know these business objects. What’s interesting about it
or what we supply is a link to the R/3 object. In R/3 you don’t have a
location. You have a plan, and we make the connection between those
two. We merge those two already together so you can use them in the
report and compare the different data. We do this by supplying a
navigation attribute for the mapping for the link.
L. Henkes
What I see here is that we have an InfoObject, which is called
zeroAPO_GROD. And I think this object is for information like material
number or a product number in the APO system. My question for you
would be, how do we establish the link with BW? Because in BW we
have the raw materials to store the material number.
N. Marienfeld
Yes. That’s …navigation attributing. Each APO master data InfoObject
has a navigation attribute with a corresponding R/3 InfoObject. So you
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can link the two things together and do an integrated reporting about R/3
and APO.
L. Henkes
What I would like you to explain to us also is, are there any business
scenarios available as business content, which show the integrated analysis
of R/3 and APO data in BW?
N. Marienfeld
Yes. I brought an example with us. The next three slides show just a
quick run through one of the scenarios you could actually do of the
business content. So on the first slide you have a query that shows the
total capacity of requirements for your resources. There you see that on
week 20 on resource XR11, the total capacity requirement is about 95%,
which is very high.
Now you have done your planning version and you might think about
95%. Can I really make the products I have to with this high capacity
requirement? You might want to check in the R/3 systems. Did I have a
lot of down times for this machine in the last couple of weeks? Because if
I had a lot of down time in the last couple of weeks, I might also have
down times the next week and this might hinder the plan to be used as I
would like to.
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The next slide shows the query and it shows the down times from your R/3
system. There you see that for the work center XR11 you have a down
time for the last month for 38%. So you already know that the plan you
did will not be fulfilled as you wish. You might want to do another
planning and include a second machine to help this one resource where
you have a shortcoming here.
Then you go back into your APO system, do a new planning, and upload
that again to the BW system. Now you can compare the two planning
versions you did.
On the next slide, you see in the column with planning version 000 that
was the old planning with the 95% capacity of requirements. And in the
new planning version, Marietta, you see that now because we have added a
second machine, the requirements went down to 54%. Now you might be
sure that the plan will be fulfilled as you wish.
This is just a short example of what you could do with the integration
between APO and R/3. This is all done by the … business content that we
deliver.
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L. Henkes
I think that’s a very good example on how the R/3 integrates with APO,
and all of these are shown on the BW system. I would like to come to our
last chapter. The last chapter as usual is the summary. I would like to
summarize a little bit of what you’ve heard so far.
First of all, I think we all know it’s pretty clear right now that the …
workbench in an APO system includes all functions of BW. But there are
some limitations for the InfoCube. Also, Andreas pointed out very clearly
it is possible to perform reporting with … analyzers from InfoCubes in an
APO system, but SAP we definitely recommend to prepare separate
systems for APO and for BW. So different systems for planning and for
reporting and analysis.
We also talked about Plug-in 2000, that we recommend to have Plug-in
2000 on the system. And when we look for the integration scenario, we
see that actual data is sent from BW to an APO system. We do the
planning there. We do the forecast there. And we send back this data via
the data master interface to the BW and to the analysis part in the BW.
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That’s the last point. Analysis on plan versus actual data, this should be
performed on the BW system. In this context we also mentioned the
availability of the MultiCubes to get a better performance on the analysis.
That’s pretty much what we wanted to present to you. I’ll hand it over to
Margaret Anderson again.
M. Anderson
At this point we’re ready to take some questions. We’re sort of short on
time for that today. But we do have time for five minutes’ worth of
questions.
Coordinator
Pat Venezia, you may ask your question.
P. Venezia
My question is on the cube to cube deltas between APO and BW. You
said currently there’s no way. When do you expect to be able to deliver a
way, with what version?
A. Pfadenhauer
Lothar, I think it’s a question for you.
L. Henkes
I cannot support you with a sincere date at this time. It’s part of the
development plan, but it’s not finalized yet.
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P. Venezia
So that means it wouldn’t be in APO 3.0 also?
A. Pfadenhauer
This is correct.
L. Henkes
That’s correct.
A. Pfadenhauer
This is something, which has to do actually with the BW architecture, so
it’s not in APO 3.0.
Coordinator
Raghu Bhardvaj, you may ask your question.
R. Bhardvaj
We are using the scenario where you have the R/3, BW, APO systems in
place. I was trying to see, we have a Plug in 2000 applied. I was
wondering where to locate the business content you are talking about
either in the BW or in the R/3? But we have not done the … integration.
So I would like to get a better feel on how to activate the BW, the business
content, and where do we look for it.
N. Marienfeld
You have two places to look for it if you have an R/3 system with a Plug
in 2000, to activate content in your OLTP system, you can use the
transaction SBIW. That is the content implementation guide. There you
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will find a point where you can transfer the business content in your OLTP
system.
If you have a BW system where you want to activate content, you have to
either go into the admin workbench of BW and there choose the point
business content, or you can use the transaction RSOR. This is your
cockpit for transferring the business content to an active version and use it
later. Does that answer your question?
R. Bhardvaj
No. I want to define that a little further. I did SBIW, used the business
content in the APOI application hierarchies, because I tried to activate
those, and it said, “There is no business content in those hierarchies.” I
even put a … note through to ask this question, and it went through the
system and they said that Plug-in 2000 is applied properly. But we are still
going back and forth on where the actual content is. I still haven’t found
it.
N. Marienfeld
You mean the APO sources that I described for the four cubes?
R. Bhardvaj
Yes.
N. Marienfeld
Those are in your APO system, not in the Plug in.
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A. Pfadenhauer
May I step in, shortly. I think you are using APO release 2.0. Is that
correct?
R. Bhardvaj
Right.
A. Pfadenhauer
So this is content, which is part of APO release 3.0. So you cannot find it,
I think.
R. Bhardvaj
Okay.
A.Pfadenhauer
…on the APO side is something which comes with APO release 3.0. We
have actually generated the ability at the end of September for this release.
So from this point on, the thing will be officially available.
R. Bhardvaj
I have a related question. We are going live in January. How would you
advise if we want to think about APO 3.0 at this point of time? Would
that be something practical in a go live situation?
A. Pfadenhauer
I think if you want to go live in January, I would focus on APO release 2.0
right now. From a functional point-of-view everything is fine. And would
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think of an upgrade scenario let’s say for next year, somehow based on the
functionality or based on additional functionality and based on other
reasons when there could be a good date for upgrading.
R. Bhardvaj
That’s our rationale, too, but we just wanted to get an expert advice.
A. Pfadenhauer
Yes. So I would focus on that. I would not start in the beginning of
October as a project with that. To focus three months later on going live.
R. Bhardvaj
Thank you.
M. Anderson
We have time for just one more call today.
Coordinator
David Demarco, you may ask your question.
D. Demarco
Can you talk a little bit about the compatibility of APO version 2.0 with
BW 2.0 or APO 3.0 with BW 1.2b?
A. Pfadenhauer
I think maybe I’ll start answering the question. I think you’re referring
mainly on the link between or the business scenarios, the scenarios we
described when we link the demand planning part and the InfoCubes in
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APO with InfoCubes in BW and vice versa and exchange information or
exchange data here.
I hope this is correct, this assumption or your question. To answer this, this
is just like relating or linking two different BW systems together. Lothar,
if I’m wrong, correct me. I think you can just link 1.2b BW system to a
2.0b system and vice versa just by defining info sources on the one system,
but that link to the other system.
From a general point-of-view, from a rough cut perspective, I would
describe it like this. There is compatibility between these systems as when
you take a look at APO you always have BW core, either 1.2b or 2.0b in it.
L. Henkes
Yes. There is compatibility between those different systems. But the
point that comes up in this discussion is always the one that we have a
plug in that supports maybe much more functionality that the content that
you have on your BW or your APO system. But this will not affect the
compatibility there. Do you want to add something to this?
N. Marienfeld
Does it answer the question?
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D. Demarco
Yes. Thank you.
M. Anderson
Thank you, everybody, for joining our call today. I would especially like
to thank our three speakers, Natascha Marienfeld, Lothar Henkes, and
Andreas Pfadenhauer. Our topic today was BW and APO integration.
Next week a transcript of this call will be available on our Web site under
the Know How network topic at the BW site.
The next call with take place on Thursday, August 3. The topic will be
MultiCubes on partitioning. The speaker will Ron Silverstein from the
BW rig in the U.S. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.