Executive Summary
- This page describes the issues with SAP PPDS support and how our SAP support offerings help.
- We offer support coverage that exceeds what is available from SAP.
Introduction
This is the SAP PPDS Support page of LaunchPad SAP Support.
On this page, we cover the specifics of our PPDS support. For explanations of the broader package related to our PPDS support, which explains many essential topics about SAP support, see our main SAP Support Page.
Issues With PPDS and PPDS Support
After years of working in PPDS improvement, we know very well that PPDS is a high overhead application that usually overwhelms the ability of companies that have implemented PPDS to maintain PPDS appropriately. And SAP only provides minimal support but is extremely expensive, which consumes the resources from SAP customers to properly maintain PPDS.
Most companies that have PPDS cannot understand or tune the PPDS optimizer; train users on the Detailed Scheduling Planning Board to do more than the basics, nor can they make the adjustments they need to use PPDS properly.
The list of shortcomings is a long one.
And this is not only mid-sized companies, but even the largest companies have problems maintaining PPDS.
What This Means for Outcomes at PPDS Customers
This places a significant emphasis on manual overrides to account for what PPDS is not doing, which also undermines the credibility of PPDS with users. SAP tries to make it seem that these shortcomings are only specific to each customer, when, in fact, they are universal issues for companies that implemented PPDS.
Improving PPDS typically means bringing in a consultant or utilizing SAP’s exorbitantly priced Max Attention. Max Attention is really just a renamed type of consulting.
Right now, SAP customers around the world are sitting with the worst of both worlds. This means
- Consumed IT budgets by yearly PPDS support costs, which provide close to no value to SAP customers.
- PPDS will be part of S/4HANA, but most companies are not upgrading to S/4HANA for some time, and its effectiveness is not well known.
Getting Something Better
Imagine if you could radically improve PPDS and cut costs at the same time. You can. But to do so, you will need to reject the advice from SAP and SAP consulting firms.
- APO is at the end of life, and there are zero reasons to continue to pay SAP support money for their evaporated support.
- Even if companies want to purchase S/4HANA, many won’t, and SAP will sell S/4HANA to PPDS customers at any time in the future.
- Overall, there is no reason to accept a pivot from SAP sales reps to PPDS with S/4HANA and a complete diminution of the customer’s decade or more investment in PPDS.
What Do We Cover for PPDS Support?
We cover the following for PPDS in our support.
- Production Planning Optimizer or Heuristics, Detailed Scheduling
- Heuristics and Optimizers, All Product, Planning and Service Heuristics
- All Upgrades (DS, LC, OS, Kernel, Security, Patches, Ehp)
- User Security Self Help Templates
- APO Security Patches
- APO Database Refresh
- Management Summaries of Production Planning
- Block Planning
- Detailed Scheduling
- Model-Mix Planning
- Product, Process and Service Heuristics
- Custom Heuristics Development
- PP&DS with Variant Configuration
Notice that many of these items are not covered by SAP. However, we cover all of these and more.
We also offer planning improvement Boosters like MRP Ninja, which allows for extremely fast and customized MRP that can replace the backend of PPDS.
This presentation illustrates the problems with SAP support and how LaunchPad SAP Support addresses these shortcomings.
What Kind of Support is This?
If this does not sound like standard support, you are right. And that is the point.
We designed our support to help our customers get the most out of SAP, not to maximize our margin or to try to protect previous sales inaccuracies. We know how to get your SAP applications working better.
To see the broader information about our SAP support see our main SAP Support Page.