Solutions Consulting

SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO)

APO in SCM 5.0 (and 7.0) is a powerful demand planning tool. Are you leveraging the full functionality of APO modeling and exception management?

• We can help you develop consistent processes to leverage the modeling power from basic time series to multiple linear regression models.
• We will work with you to re-engineer your APO DP modeling and create a more streamlined demand planning process.
• Interested in our customized in-house APO DP Training? The APO DP training offered by DemandPlanning.Net is a comprehensive three day course that will teach your planners both the theory as well as the modeling mechanics of the tool. Put to work your million dollar implementation!

We can help you re-energize your implementation to

1. Take advantage of the many automated modeling strategies
2. Better use causal modeling
3. set alert thresholds so modeling is done by exception
4. create a more streamlined planning process and organization

APO also offers the capability to forecast and manage the process by exception through

• Uni-variate forecast alerts and
• User defined macro alerts.

APO offers a variety of modeling options from basic time series models to multiple linear regression models.

• First Order Exponential Smoothing Models or Constant Models
• Moving Average Models
• Linear Regression Models and MLR Models
• Second Order Exponential Smoothing with Trend
• Holt-Winters Models

To assess if you are getting the mileage out of your million-dollar SAP implementation, you ask the following questions:

1. Am I using a Pareto process in my forecasting activity?
2. Are there products and customers that are better left to APO's automated modeling strategy?
3. Am I using a segmented modeling approach?
4. How many customer/product segmentations are being reviewed by my demand planners each month?
5. Has APO helped improve our forecast accuracy?
6. How is APO helping us simplify and improve the promotional planning process? Is it integrated into the CRM system?
7. Have I created the correct customer grouping for leveraging correlations across customer forecast errors?
8. Has the system simplified and improved forecast reporting process?
9. Are we using the system defined error metrics in APO? Why are they different from the classic MAPE calculations defined in this website?

Contact Us to schedule a complementary initial consultation to discuss how we can bring value to your SAP APO process.