PPDS on S/4HANA

Note: I have used the term CIF which indicates Core interface.
PPDS: Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling

Introduction to PPDS (Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling)

Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling (PPDS) on SAP S/4HANA is the product
running on SAP S/4HANA. Production planning and detailed scheduling is a tool in APO
(Advanced Planning and Optimization) which takes care of planning and scheduling

considering the capacities of various resources.

You can use SAP PPDS on SAP S/4HANA to:

1. Create planned orders for in-house production for all the requirements.
2. Optimize the result so that the resources are well consumed.

3. Plan with various variants and yet produce the optimized results.

SAP PPDS for S/4HANA

SAP PPDS for S/4HANA allows the user to use PPDS in a more simplified way where he
doesn’t have to worry much about CIF.

Let’s have a look on what is the advanced feature in material master for S/4HANA with
PPDS.
In the transaction MM01, there is a new view “Advanced planning” which would tell whether
the material should be considered for planning immediately in PPDS.

It includes the data like planning procedure, horizon, plan explosion etc…

Similar way, work center also has a check box for ‘Advanced Planning’.

S/4HANA has made it simple for the master data CIF. PPDS for S/4HANA still uses only one
system but the CIF of data to PPDS is much easier.

The user has the liberty to create the product in ERP completely and then CIF it to PPDS,
‘completely’ I mean all the details like planning procedure, plan explosion, lot size etc.…
I use the term PPDS interchangeably with APO as for S/4HANA, PPDS means APO.

Pre-requisite

Set the advanced planning and Scheduling active.

This is done in SPRO.

Master data changes

The material master in ERP system has one more additional view as said which is ‘Advanced
Planning’ as shown below.
The ‘Advanced Planning’ view in the material has a checkbox ‘Advanced Planning’, PPDS
details like plan explosion, planning procedure, Demand details, Lot size details, GR /GI
processing times, and Shelf life times.
All these details can be taken from ERP system and planned in PPDS.
The flag for ‘Advanced planning’ indicates that the material should be transferred to APO
system for PPDS planning and this will be handled by the system itself. No additional effort
to CIF the data. It means that there is no need to create an integration model for the
material.
The screen below shows the Advanced Planning view in detail.
Along with the material, work centers are another set of master data which the PPDS would
be using.
Work centers are the actual resources using which the production takes place in the shop
floor.
There is a check box for ‘Advanced Planning’ in the Basic data tab of the work center in
transaction CR01.
The flag for this check box indicates that the work center is immediately available for
planning in SAP PPDS. Again, integration model need not be created for work centers.
The below screenshot shows the ‘Advanced Planning’ checkbox for a work center.
So, overall when you have your plants ready in PPDS system, you can create materials and
work centers which would immediately be available in PPDS for planning.

CIF – PDS

Production data structure or PDS is the blue print of the material with all the details like
BOM (Bill of Material), routing/recipe in APO. PDS is generated in the APO system using the
production version of the material. Production version in turn has the details of BOM and
Routing/recipe.

Now, the Production Data Structure needs to be integrated to APO system. This is not done
in the traditional way i.e., using the transaction CFM1, rather we use the transaction
/CURTOADV_CREATE.

The screenshot below shows /CURTOADV_CREATE screen.

Overall the introduction of PPDS on S/4HANA would allow the user to modify, rebuild the
master data structure and integrate it with the PPDS system easily with very minute
changes.

Important Notes:

 Important to mention that the S4-PPDS CIF set up is also simplified significantly.
 Plant/Location is the ONLY master data object that needs an Integration model,
unless you are using Block Planning
 Also, you now have to access SM30 to maintain a table that distinguishes a Plant in
S4 to be a MFG or a DC. That config node in the ECC >> DRP side, is now gone.
 Some key Heuristics like SNP2PPDS have been taken away.

An OPEN question for potential S4 1610 Customers, currently using CTP & Block Planning
(Mill Industry) is – what is SAP’s proposal on handling CTP for Orders. This, given the fact
that PPDS & aATP are now embedded with S4, while functions like CTP & RBATP have been
left out of aATP.