Alternative-Based Confirmation – Activation

Alternative Base confirmation comes into place when 2 plants of the company code and materials
are dealt with those plants from business perspective then this ABC comes into picture when they do
not have stock in A plant then B plant will deliver the stock to the customer. In Simple terms ABC
helps how to deliver the stock to customer

Why ABC: We have multiple plants BMAP, BMTG, BMKL, BMBG these all plants are Producing Same
product and selling ABC Material.

For ex: BMTG is a sales org where user create sales order and stock for material ICMATNRBMW1 = 0;
Then if BMTG has no material then BMTG Has to procure material then it has to trigger MRP RUN-
Planning Order- Production Order; If there is no stock then PR- PO-Vendor Should supply Raw
material then Manufacture then Production order Complete – MIGO stock is in Plant now.

But we have stock in BMAP plant then why cannot we sell from BMAP plant then customer is High
priority Customer and valuable customer it is better to supply from BMAP. If we do not change the
plants, then we must procure and we must manufacture. So, to avoid this entire flow and avoid the
system automatically will change the plants. But manually we can change the plants and finish the
sales orders but when we have more sales orders then it will become difficult to go to each sales
order and change plant manually and it is tedious activity so in GATP the below substation was in
Place and now in S4 HANA has brought up new technology called as ABC (Alternative based
confirmation)

In GATP We have rule-based work; Location Substitution was in Place in APO we can do this
Substitution. But in ECC it is not possible.

But in S4 HANA ABC Functionality is given as standard Functionality as 2-way steps and the system
itself check the all the plants and it will suggest the best plants where the stock is available and
confirm the stock availability in sales order.

User will be entering the actual plant but after the below configuration system automatically will
suggest the plant where the stock is available, and it will be assigned automatically, and order will be
confirmed with schedule lines with requested qty = confirmed Qty.

Configuration:

First step: OVZ2

 Activate your checking group with new AATP functionality as active in S4 HANA
configuration.
The Enhanced Check Methods SSCUI is available in the Manage Your Solution app.
Configure Your Solution – Enhanced Check Methods

 Activate Configure Enhanced Check Methods by Document Purpose

Configure Alternative Control

To be able to access the second activation level, you require the Order Fulfilment Manager business
role. Alternative control setup involves two steps:

Note for me:

ATP - Characteristic CatLog Configuration

ATP - Characteristic Catalogs

ATP - Characteristic Combination

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Configure Alternative Control

To be able to access the second activation level, you require the Order Fulfillment Manager business
role. Alternative control setup involves two steps:
Step 1: Manage Characteristic Combinations
In this step, you define group of characteristics whose document values can be used to identify if, for
a given document, ABC requires activation.
This is defined in the Manage Characteristics Combination app:

Manage Characteristic Combination

1. Indicates the name and description of characteristics combination.

2. Usage indicates the application/process for which the characteristic combination is being
defined.
3. CatLog Type indicates the business document for which the characteristic combinations is
being defined.
4. The Characteristics section will contain all the characteristics that belong to this
characteristic combination. The Ordinal Number defines the sequence in which the
characteristic value combinations are maintained.
Step 2: Configure Alternative Control

In this step, you define an access for the characteristic combination created in step 1. Accesses are
used to define the characteristic value combination which are then compared against the values in
the business document to determine if ABC is active: if ABC is active, the correct strategy is retrieved:

Configure Alternative Control

1. Indicates the combination against which the access is created.

2. Sequence Number indicates the sequence in which accesses are processed in the business
document to determine the matching characteristic value combination.
3. The Status field indicates if the characteristic value combination is considered during the
determination of alternatives.
4. Execute ABC indicates if ABC is to be executed if the characteristic value combination is matched:
if the flag is not set, ABC is deactivated for the value combination.
5. Substitution Strategy defines how ABC is to be executed.
Example

Let us use a real-life example scenario for milk products to understand how ABC can be activated:

Milk products are sold to consumers using different distribution channels with the help of
independent distributors, retailers, and wholesalers who belong to different customers groups and
who have differing delivery priorities.

Let us consider the following scenarios to activate ABC for sales organization KANI:

 For order placed in wholesale channel (WH):

->For items with delivery priority 01, both product and plant substitution must be enabled.
->For items with delivery priority 02, only plant substitutions must be enabled.
->For other items, ABC is not relevant.

For order placed in retail channel (RT):

For items with delivery priority 01, only plant substitution must be enabled. For orders placed by
customers belonging to customer group (LO), both product and plant substitution must be enabled.
For items with other delivery priority in the channel, ABC is not relevant. For orders placed by
customers belonging to customer group (LO) with delivery priority 02, plant substitution must be
enabled.
To enable the scenarios detailed above, you use the Configure Alternative Control app as follows:
As a first step, you use the Manage Characteristic Combination app to create two characteristic
combinations, as shown below.
Combination 1
Combination of Sales Organization, Distribution Channel, Division, Delivery Priority and Customer
Group:

Combination of Sales Organization, Distribution Channel, Division, Delivery Priority and Customer
Group
Combination 2
Combination of Sales Organization, Distribution Channel, Division and Delivery Priority:

Combination of Sales Organization, Distribution Channel, Division and Delivery Priority

Next, use the Configure Alternative Control app to create accesses for each of the combinations
created above. For each of the accesses, you also maintain the characteristic value combinations and
enable ABC based on the requirements above.
Access 1
This access contains the characteristic value combinations for all special customers for distribution
channel ‘Retail’ and assigns the appropriate substitution strategy to provide maximum confirmation
for the requirements using ABC:
Access 1: Characteristic Value Combinations with Substitution Strategy
Access 2
This access contains the characteristic value combinations for Distribution Channel and Delivery
Priority and assigns the appropriate substitution strategy to provide maximum confirmation for the
requirements using ABC:

Access 2: Characteristic Value Combinations with Substitution Strategy

Saving this last access completes the activation of ABC. The substitution strategy defines how ABC is
executed. This will be described in our next blog post about ABC. Stay tuned!
To summarize –
To enable ABC during availability check,
The ABC needs to be activated for the ATP checking group.
The Alternative control needs to be defined using ‘Configure Alternative Control ‘application.

Testing:
1909 Version enabled ABC.

1809 Its only Enabled for Creation of ABC sales order.

From 1909 till now SAP has Provided a Provision for both Create and Change of ABC sales order (I
mean ABC functionality will work).

Strategies:

Full confirmation: Full confirmation would be doing selecting plant from where full Qty will be
confirmed. (Here Shipping Cost will be reduced where we are fulfilling from Single plant)

Max Earlier confirmation: That system go for check where system is checking for Maximum Qty and
earliest delivery concept.

Plant 1 partial selected & Plant 2 partial confirmation & Plant 3 Partial confirmation will be done.

On-time confirmation: In Strategy 3 system is checking on delivery date which plant can provide the
maximum qty on delivery date and confirm the sales order.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Tie-breaker logic: In Alternative-based-confirmation (ABC) of Advanced ATP (AATP) in S/4HANA 1909

release is Introduced.

Tiebreaker is used in games to decide the winner if both teams have the same points. Similar Tie-
breaker logic has also been introduced in S/4HANA to decide the sales order plant if two (or
multiple) plants can fulfil the individual sales order requirements. The concept with substituting the
original sales plant with Alternative based confirmation (ABC) functionality has been described in my
earlier blogs as in below links.
This blog is to discuss the new ‘Tie-breaker’ logic in Alternative based confirmation (ABC) in
Advanced ATP (AATP) of S/4HANA 1909 release.

The ‘Decision tree’ with ‘Tie-breaker’ logic is depicted in below image.

Let us consider the use case for US. Suppose,a manufacturing company has several plants in US and
also in Mexico for supplies to customers in North America.  If the multiple plants can confirm the full
quantity on the requested date or have the same delivery proposal (i.e same quantity with the same
schedule line date), then the alternative plant will be selected based on the following sequences:

 Same country as of Ship-to-party: If the Ship to party is located in US and if the alternative
plants are situated in US and Mexico, then the plant/s located in US will be selected
 Same region as of Ship-to-party: If the Ship to party is located in Texas and the alternative
plants are located in two states (say in Texas and Arizona), then the plant/s of Texas will be
selected
 Shorter transit time: If the alternative plants also happen to be in the same region / state
(say in Texas), the transit time from the corresponding plant to the ship to party will be
considered and the plant with shorter transit time will be selected
 Shorter delivery time (with Transportation planning and Pick & pack time etc): If the
alternative plants are in same country and state and also have the same transit time, then
the duration for transportation planning and pick & pack activity will be considered and the
plant with less overall delivery time will be selected

If the alternative plant can not still be decided, then the originally requested sales order plant is
considered for the confirmation of the sales order.

A simple scenario in the context of EU is depicted in below image. A manufacturing company

produces a particular product in four plants in EU (three in Germany and one in Denmark) . A
customer of Germany orders for a material (FG220) with requested quantity as 31 Pc.  ATP (Available-
to-promise) quantity is nil in plant 1010, 10 Pc in plant 1011, 30 Pc in plant 1020 of Germany and
40Pc in plant 1040 of Denmark. As there is no available quantity for the material in originally
requested sales order plant 1010, then the functionality of Alternative-based-confirmation (ABC) of
Advanced ATP (AATP) will be used to determine the best alternative plant to confirm the sale order.

In the above scenario with requested order quantity as 31 Pc, plant 1040 is the only plant that can
confirm the sales order as shown in the below image. Alternative plant situated in Denmark has been
selected though the original requested plant is in Walldorf in Germany. Note , there is no need for a
tie-breaker in this scenario as plant 1040 is the only plant which can confirm the full quantity of sales
order.
Now, let us consider that the customer (of Germany) has ordered for quantity of 30 Pc. In this
situation, 2 plants – 1040 of Denmark and 1020 of Germany can fulfill the requested order quantity
and now SAP ABC’s Tie breaker logic will be applied to determine the best alternative plant 1020
situated in Frankfurt in Germany as shown in below image. Note that the Ship-to-party (customer) is
also in Germany in this case.
Now. Let us consider another scenario with sales order requested quantity as 10 Pc from a customer
(Ship to party) within Germany as depicted in below image.
Both plants (1011 and 1020) situated in Germany can now fulfill the requested order quantity.
However, the transit time from the plant 1011 is shorter than the transit time from plant 1020 to the
Ship-to-party as determined in the corresponding ‘Route’. Tie-breaker logic will now be applied in
this scenario and the system determines the alternative plant 1011 due to shorter transit time as
shown in below image.
If the requested order quantity would have been 11 Pc, then alternative plant 1020 will be
considered as that is the only plant (within Germany) can fulfill the order as the other plant which
can confirm the order is plant situated in Denmark.

I will conclude this blog highlighting that the settings (configurations) required for this Alternative-
based-confirmation (ABC) of Advanced ATP (AATP) is much less and very simple compared to the
configuration of ‘Location substitution’ of Global ATP (GATP) of APO. Also, the rational for selection of
alternative plant is more business oriented using KPI like same country, shorter transit time etc etc.