How Accurate Was SAP on Shelf Life Planning Working in APO?

Table of Contents: Select a Link to be Taken to That Section

Executive Summary

For years SAP has stated that shelf life planning works in SNP.
In this article, we review the accuracy of this claim.

What SAP Said About Shelf Life Planning Working in APO

For years SAP proposed that its shelf life functionality in SNP within APO worked perfectly fine. They told many customers during the sales phase that shelf life planning was included in standard SNP.

See our references for this article and related articles at this link.

The Truth About Shelf Life Planning Working in APO?

This story changed for customers after they implemented SNP. We explained this in the following article, Shelf Life Planning in SNP Does Not Work and Likely Will Not Work In the Future.

“SAP admits that shelf life does not work for CTM or heuristics at all. However, it 1/2 proposes that shelf life works “in a limited way” when the optimizer is used if the steps above are followed. When you read the fine print, you find that shelf life only works by “setting penalty costs” and does not stop the material from being used in planning. However, this is a mismatch with the requirements. Expired products cannot be sold in most cases, and actual shelf life functionality would prevent the accumulation or movement of expired product.”

Conclusion and Calculation

SAP receives a 0% accuracy rating for shelf life functionality working in APO.

Link to the Parent Article

This is one of many research articles on a specific topic that support a larger research calculation. For the overview of the research calculation for all of the SAP topics that were part of the study, see the following primary research A Study into SAP’s Accuracy.