SNP Interview Preparation

Objective:

This document compiles major topics of SNP in which brief

explanation of subtopics along with related tickets and how to resolve it.
This document contain 10 to 12 pages for interview, everyone of us will
memorize it properly and explain in front of us as it will not contain detail
explanations.

Topics:

1. Master Data Settings

2. Heuristics
3. VMI customer planning
4. Subcontracting
5. Capacity leveling
6. Deployment
7. TLB
8. Optimizer
9. CIF
10. Project preparation – Business flow of ITC
11. ASAP Methodology
12. Job monitoring

Process Flow in ITC

STEPS

1. Release Demand to SNP in (000) Active Version and inactive (001)

Version.
2. Copy Version from active to inactive version.( Version Copy
-/n/sapapo/tscopy)
3. Material flow

Plant------------------------DC-----------------------------Customer
 Demand Flow
4. By Coping to inactive version to date stocks will be copied at plant and
Dc level.
5. Now Running heuristic at Customer level, demand propagate to DC,
again running heuristic at DC demand goes to Plant.
For example:
Demand At plant Level is :
After heuristic Run--- 500 qty.
Now optimizer will be run at DC it will propogate demand to
Plants( PL1 and PL2)
Demand at PL1 is 400 and PL2 is 100.
(Note: Running optimizer after Heuristic is to determine inbound quota
at DC, how demand propogate when source are more than one?. In
Heuristic Run demand propogate at source which one has less TIT, so
it will create demand to one plant)

6. Purpose of running optimizer at DC is to calculate Quota % from

different source location or to determine inbound quota at DC Level.
7. For Example optimizer determine 400 qty from PL1 and 100 Qty from
PL2. Means 80 % demand will be fulfilled by PL1 and 20% by PL2.
8. Now optimizer result is used in Active version(000) means here
onwards no use of inactive version.
9. Now Optimizer will be run at Plant level it will calculate which resource
to be utilized more considering minimum production cost. For example
plant 1 has three resources A,B & C.
System find one which incur minimum cost.
10. Bom will be exploded and demand generated at component level
11. Now what ever demand of finished goods goes to plant will be
sent to Business People (production Mgr) they will confirm it or make
some changes. For example Demand is 120 of finished good business
people make it 130.
12. Having some changes it will again come to Consultant he will
Upload data under production Confirmed key figure in planning book.
13. Approved data uploaded in planning book by using T Code-RRP3.
This production confirm will not be deleted if Fixed production order
category is cheked, means this order will not be deleted.
14. Fixed order can be deleted if specify in RRP3 screen. Option
given
15. Now these production orders are fixed to meet respective
demand which has to be fulfilled.If heuristic will be run in this period
,planned order will be created which is not required. To control this,
 production horizon will be set in SNP2 tab of matloc.(Need to maintain
production Horizon same as production confirmed period).

CIF (Core Interface)

These master and transaction data need to cif to APO system for
planning purpose. In APO system these information can be upgraded
or enhance so that it can be used for planning.

For Cifing data from R/3 system to APO system IM ( Integration

Model) is Required.
T Code: CFM1 ………Create Integration Model
T Code: CFM2 …………………To activate Integration Model
 There are two more activities are controlled on this screen 1..
Delta Transfer
2. Initial transfer
Initial Transfer: This transfer done for any master data or
transactional data in first time after word any changes is done in
this existing data , Delta transfer is needed.
For Example :
New Material created in R/3 System by MM people, it will cif
through IM Initial transfer.
Now this material is available in APO System, if in future any
changes is required in this material it will change in R/3 and cif
to APO for this change Delta transfer will be done in CFM2.
CFG1 to see logs in R/3 SLG1 is T Codes to see logs in APO.
If sending PR from APO to R/3 it can be seen through CFG1 in
R/3.

Optimizer

1. Optimizer Profile: Methods- Linear & Discrete ,

Linear
 General constraints:production capcity,trast capacity, storage and
handling Capacity.
Lot Size: Max ppm lot size, Max T lane.
Safety Stock: Ignore safety stock, take absolute & relative deviation in
acct.
Quota Arrangement:
Model parameters: Bucket offset during production/shipment.
Solution Methods: Stop Criteria- Max runtime, Max No of
improvement.
Decomposition—Time decomposition,product decomposition,
Resource Decomposition. Priority Decomposition—Cost based
and Strict prioritization.
LP Solution procedure-1. Primal simplex 2. Dual Simplex.
Optimization Objective: 1. Cost Minimization, 2. Profit Maximization.
Integration: Horizon- SNP prod horizon, Stk traf horizon, Forcast
Horizon.
Discrete: Discrete increase of production Capacity
To run the Optimizer in back ground T-code is :-/N/SAPAPO/SNPOP
2. Optimizer profile will be taken into account while running optimizer,
result will be based on Optimizer profile and cost profile.
3. Discrete Optimizer start from to date always
4. T Code- /n/sapapo/snpoplog---for seeing and analyzing optimizer
logs. Logs or two kinds one is input logs and other one is output logs.
5. There is separate server required to run optimizer.
6. Runtime 1: Runtime 1 is for master data reading time. Means while
running optimizer system will take time which is reflect in runtime 1.
7. Runtime2: This runtime is for calculating value, means background
calculation .
8. Runtime 3: Loading into PA is consider by runtime 3.
9. Total time = runtime1+runtime2+runtime3
10. STATUS:
Input log,Result log,Server,Optimizer Profile,Planning Version,Total
Cost,Runtime 1,Runtime 2,Runtime 3,Expiry Date
11. Input parameter: Planning Book, Data View, Cost
Profile,Optimizer profile,
12. Location product – Location product Combination.
13. Input logs-
Bucket Definition,Location product,Product Group,Quota
Arrangement,Production resource,Material Attributes,Production
process model
14. Results Logs:
 Handling resource,Location product,Storage Resource,Production
Resource(Important),Stock Transfer
Planned orders,Purchase Requisition – is important information in
result logs it show there is no source available.Full filled demand –
How much demand be fulfilled,Unfulfilled demand – if some figure is
their means – issues –need to be checked this part carefully and need
to find solution to avoid unfulfilled demand.,Generated production
cost.
15. Production Resource:
 Production Capacity usage
 Prod usage ( need to be checked)

Various reason for production resource output logs:

 No demand for product
 Production capacity is more maintained
 No transportation lane for specific product
 If many T Lane maintained for product location combination,
need to be checked its utilization
 PPM Cost is more maintained
 Storage cost is less maintained at plant
 Storage cost is high at DC
16. Optimizer Issues :
 Purchase requisition—if it is their means some
problem
 T lane not maintained
 Production cost is too high
 Storage cost is not maintained
 Real time issue at ITC-----PPM is created on
2nd of the month but valid from 1st of the
month and bucket offset maintained “1” means
start of the bucket.
--But no planned order is created because of
mismatch of validity and creation date.

17. Soft Constraints: Safety Stock and Due dates

Heuristic
1. If you perform SNP planning run using the SNP heuristic you obtained
medium term procurement, production and distribution plan. The
output of heuristic are purchase requisition, stock transfers and
planned orders. Heuristic is a quantity based rapid cross location
planning.
2. In heuristic run system selects source of supply based on the following
criteria.
 Quota Arrangements
 Priority ( highest pr—0)
 Cost
 Lead time ( TIT)
3. Back Ground Calculation during heuristics run:
Net Requirement = Total demand + Safety Stock(Target stock level) –
Stock on Hand
If forecast horizon is maintained, system will not consider while
calculating the total demand.
If more than one ppm is valid the system chooses highest priority or
lowest fixed cost.
4. Heuristic process;
 Data read from live cache
 Net requirement calculation
 Lot sizing is consider
 Source is determined
 Procurement type checked
5. Source determination:
 T lane and ppm and pds must be valid
 The order is must lies within lot size parameters defined in t lane
or ppm/pds
 Aggregate must be activated in MOT
6. Heuristics create orders without below situations
 No valid t lane
 No valid ppm
 No product Available @ source

7. Types of heuristcs:
 Location: plans the selected location product
 Network: plans the selected product for all locations
 Multilevel: Plans the selected product with all components for all
locations
8. Fields are required to be filled for heuristic run in background,
 Planningbook, Dataview, Global setting profile, planning version,
product, location, Application log.
 Deployment

The deployment function in snp plans the short-term distribution of the

produced or procured products to the distribution centers. It determine
when and in what quantity, inventory and planned receipts can be
deployed to DC and VMI customer.

ATD Calculation:
Available-to-Deploy = Available to receipt- Available to issue
In available to receipt ATP categories are grouped, these categories
are stock (CC), production orders (), Planned Orders (AI).
In Available to issues ATP categories are grouped, these categorize are
Sales orders, Independent requirements, Dependent requirements.
 The category groups maintained in product location master in
SNP2 tab.

Deployment horizons:

 Push Horizon
 Pull Horizon
 Deployment Horizon

Deployment Strategy:

 Push Rule( pull, pull/push, push by demand, push by quota,

push ss, user define).
 Faire share rule( prop dist demand, prop full target level, prop
quota, prop priority, X user).

1. Fields are required for deployment run in background.

 Planning book, Data view, Global snp settings
profile,version,location,product, application logs.

TLB
1. The primary purpose of TLB is to group the confirmed stock transfers
from the deployment run for individual products into one TLB stock
transfer.
2. Stock transfers are grouped together if it is possible to go below the
minimum capacity.
 3. If minimum capacity is not reached, the stock transfer must be
processed manually.
4. The TLB is used to convert the results of the deployment run into SAP
ECC stock transport orders or VMI sales orders.
5. TLB Profile: In TLB profile volume, weight and pallets are defined.
6. The TLB uses the lot Size profile to determine how to build transport
loads.
7. Fields are required for TLB run in background.
 Planning book, Data view, Global snp setting profile, Data
selection period( From—To), start of planning period, Planning
Horizon,
Version, Source location, Destination location, Application log,
Simulate TLB run.

VMI Process

1. VMI( Vendor Managed Inventory):

Vendor managed inventory means inventory of Respective vendor is

managed by main organization, In other word outside customers are
included in your planning,

Now supply network look like.

Plant……………………………………..DC……………………………………………VMI
Customer

While sitting at plant or Dc, customer inventory can be managed and

known like what is it safety stock, future demand and other demand
elements.

2. For VMI customer some important data is mandatory to maintain in

APO system like.
Partner function. In location master VMI customer tab Sold -to –party
has to maintain to process VMI transaction. Actually VMI is not our
own property so any transaction includes finance.
3. When we create VMI customer we have to create T Lane and product
location so that vmi customer can be included in your planning.
4. When we run TLB there is VMI sales orders will be generated which go
to R/3 and find sales document type to create order.
5. Sales document type is defined in R/3 system , system will read from
the table as per setting made, if setting is such VMI sales order first
 generate quotation document and it will changed to sales order , so
sales document type setting in mentioned table need to be defined.
6. Table KNVP is to view partner functions.
7. To convert APO VMI sales order to R/3 quotation/sales order need
document type in R/3 system.
8. For VMI customer Purchase Order Document type and Sales Order
Document Type is mandatory.

SUBCONTRACTING

Note: (Heuristic run at plant will generate demand at subcontractor location

and same time ppm/pds will be exploded for BOM components.)

1. T Code: C223 to create production version.

2. For subcontracting process subcontracting info record is important.
3. Subcontracting process always done from DC, as Dc has shipping point
and plant does not have.
4. Prerequisite of Subcontracting are:
 Production Version to be created (T code- C223)
 Assign production version to the sub contracting info record (T
code- ME11) .
 Production version can be seen at MRP IV and Tcode-C223.
 Create plant as vendor.
 Above steps created in R/3 system.
 Ciffing of subcontracting info record will create T lane between
subcontractors to plant for finished goods. In TLane Source
subcontractor shown as a Vendor.
 Manual T Lane will be created for component between plant to
Subcontractor.
 PPM/PDS created at vendor location by assigning production
version in MRP-iv Tab of Material Master.

Subcontracting Cycle:

1. Company manufacture soap and packaging is done outside company

(Subcontractor).
Steps:
 Company manufacture soap and cut it in desired pieces.
 Send soap bar and packaging material to subcontractor.
  Subcontractor will packed it and send it back to main
company.

Steps on System:

 Main plant having net requirement of 100 pc Soap it will run

heuristic demand (Sub Contractor) will be generated at
subcontract location for 100 pc and same time ppm/pds will be
exploded and dependent demand will be created(100 soap bar
and 100 package material)
 Now need to get semi finished goods from main plant, heuristic
will be run at subcontractor location it will created demand at
main plant for semi finished goods as Stock Transfer Requisition
which convert into STO to send Semi finished goods to
Subcontractor location.
 Then Subcontractor will send finished goods back to main plant.

(Routine Work for SNP Support Consultant)

1. Checking CPP entries analyze how many orders are stuck in

APO(Outbound) or R/3 (Inbound).

Need to find errors, reason of errors could be:

A. Integration Model is not active
B. Setting in Master Data is not maintained or wrongly maintain.
2. Queues Management : If any sort of problem come in queues, mail will
be sent to respective team member during jobs.
3. Tickets Resolve in regular basis tickets will be assign to the team
member by team Leader.
4. Team Size in normal project are 7-8 in SNP and same in DP.
5. Types of Tickets:
 Incident Tickets:-Incident Tickets are those tickets when system
throw some unexpected results.
 Enhancement Tickets: If some new programme need to be
developed to resolve some issue it called enhancement tickets.
 Change Tickets—When some programme need to be changed to
solve issues.
  New Functionality—If new master data is required to maintain
like new plant need to add in existing organization is required
lots of work , like create one plant in R/3 cif it to APO , make
some enhancement , take it to quality server to test and then
send to Production Server.

6. First Response Time:

First response time is time which is taken to
respond to client once receive ticket. Some of
the team member will inform to client that how
much time will be taken to resolve and who
will do it.
Tickets

1. Various types of tickets are generated in snp few of them are very
common issues like Ques got stuck. For Example sending material
Plant to DC, you need to maintain documents in batches and release
through background jobs. All this activity done in batches like 50 stock
transports order, 50 purchase requisition. This jobs will be followed in
one sequence if one get some problem all the ques will be stop and
need monitoring team to look into mater and resolve it.

Some time problem happens like system shows material get released
from Apo system but not reaches to R/3 system or vice versa. These
are the common issues support team will check it.
T CODE -SMQ1 for inbound and SMQ 2 for outbound queue.

2. CIF Post processing :( T Code-CPP)

While sending orders from APO to R/3, some orders get stuck
somewhere in the system those orders sit in CPP, which has to be
pushed manually.
3. CCR (CIF Comparison/reconciliation) APO&R/3 new t code- TRLCCHK:
To check Inconsistency of orders in both systems CCR need to be run,
it will make both systems consistent.
4. Integration Model: CFM1 for creation CFM2 for Generation.
5. Some tickets are raised because no source is available in T Lane but
purchase requisition or stock transfer requisition can be generated. So
in that case we have to check weather source is available or not in T
Lane.
 6. Some time problems occur like TLB confirmed is not showing because
of no T Lane is available.
7. Issues in Heuristics, deployment and TLB runs not showing stocks or
less quantity or more quantity. In that case we will see jobs and
problems at which steps and run the other step in the job manually. In
case orders are not generated we will do it manually by T code- SE 38.

Project information of ITC

Company- ITD( Indian tobacco Division)

1. ITD 2. FBD 3. ABD 4. MBD
Customers—
 Hy1234- Hyderabad, CH-2859,DE-4685

Plant—( 5 company owned & 3 OCM)

MMGR( Manufacturing Munger), MKDP( Manufacturing Kidarpur),MPUN-

Pune, MBLR- Banglore, MSRE- Saharanpur.

OCM(Outside Contract Manufactur):

Hyderabad,

Distribution Center (DC) or (Hub & WSP)- 62 nos

Customers or WD—1500 Nos

Supply Chain Network:

Vendor1011—Plant1001—Hub1002—WSP1002—WD1010

WSP(Warehouse service providers), WD(Wholesale Dealers)

Master Data

1. Product Location Master:

 Administration: Base unit, prodn planner, SNP planner, Transportation
Planner.
 Properties1: self life, gross wt, volume, stacking factor.
 Unit of measurement: Denomination, Alternative unit of measure,
base unit of measure, Numerator, Gross wt, Net wt, Unit of Weight,
Unit of volume.
 ATP:
 SNP1: Delay penalty, Non Delivery Penalty(if Demand not meet), Max
delay in days.
 SNP2: Demand profile—Forecast Horizon, Pull Dep Horizon, Past
Horizon
Supply Profile—Production Horizon, Stock Trs Horzn, Ext stk trs
horzn, Push Deploy Horizon, Safety stock horzn taking into acc.
Deployment Profile—Push rule, Fair share rule, Demand at
source location—1. Consider sales order 2. Consider forecast.s
: ATD receipt, ATD issues.
 Demand : Requirement Strategy -10-make to stock,20- plang with
final assmly,30- planning without final assmly, 40- planning
product,50-VMI planning.
Consumption- Consumption mode-1-back consum only, 2- back &
forwd consum, 3- forword consum only---all this consumption is in
days.
 Lot Size: Lot Size procedure- Lot-for- lot, Fixed lot size, period—
period type- D,W,M. , Reorder point & Reorder pnt mthd.
Qty & Date Determination—Min lot size, Max lot Size, Target stock
level method, Target day’s supply, Safety day’s supply.
Period factor- (1,0.5,0)- for in house production in ppm.
Stock Data—Stock stock, Safety stock- SB,SZ,SM, MB,MZ,MM adv-
AT,AS,BT,BS.
Service level%, Demand fcst error in %, Relative forecast error of RLT.
 PP/DS- PP planning procedure, conversion rule, planning explosion.
 Procurement : Procurement type- F,E,X,P- Planned Delivery Time—in
days
Procurement cost- Cost function, Procurement cost,
Stock Cost- Prdn storage cost and safety stock penalty.
 GR/GI- GR processing Time, GI Processing time
Cost of processing- GR cost and GI Cost,
 Extra- This tab is for enhancement.

2. Location Master: Location Type-1001 pl, 1002 dc, 1010 Cust, 1011-
Vend, 1050- subcontractor.
 Addr
 Calendar- production cal, shipping cal, Warehouse cal, planning cal.
 Resource for TP/VS
 VMI General- Order processing time,
 SNP- Stock cat group, Deployment- ATR & ATI
Push not allowed during deployment if it check.
 ATP
3. Resource-

Resource name, Location, Planner, Resource Catergory- P,T,S-

warehouse,H.
Model planning version. Resource type-Single activity, multi activity,
bucket and mixed resource, for SNP only bucket and mixed resource
can be used.
Planning parameter- 30 days past and 180 future, factory calendar ,
Variants is capacity of resources,Break duration, Utilization Rat,
productive time in hours.
4. PPM-
 PPM plan number, product, location, use of plan( S-SNP,P- PP/DS),
 PPM Main Screen: Uses, Single level cost- for heuristic, multilevel cost-
heuristic in pp/ds, Cost profile- Fixed cost and variable cost,
 Operation screen: operations 0010,0020,0030,
 Activities: Activity, description, Activity type-P-produce, S-Setup, T-
Tear down, W-Queue time.
 Component : Product,I/O- for components and finished
goods,Consumption type—Start of activity, end of activity.Unit of
measurement,Vriable consumption—like one comp or 2 comp.
 Mode: Mode, primary resource- resource assigned, Location,unit of
meaure- minutes and days.
 Resource:
 PPM Screen: ppm name-, procurement priority,SNP-Descretization,
bucket offset, period factor, Lot Size-Min , Max, Validity date/time—
From, To.
5. Quota Arrangement:

Model, location, version, inbound quota, outbound quota

arrangement.
Quota headers- product, start & End dates
Inbound quota- specified which proportion of the quantity should be
procured from which sources. Inbound quota used for medium term
SNP planning.
 Outbound Quota- Specified which proportion of the quantity should be
transported to which destination locations. Outbound quota is only
used in deployment.
Outbound quota these are the important fields- partner location ,
quota arrag in %, quota type,

6. T LANE: Model, Source, Destination.

 Product specific T Lane: Product, start & end date , min
and max lot size, procurement priority, disrt priority, procr
cost, Subcontracting , purchase doc nos, T lane block.
 Means of transport: MOT, start & End date, All products,
Aggrt plng, Detailed plang, Distance, Transportation cost,
TLB profile, Bucket offset, period factor.
 Product specific MOT: MOT, Start & End date,
7. Capacity Leveling: planning book, dataview, from & To, planning
bucket profile, planning version, products, resources, app log.
JOBS: SM 36- Define background jobs
 Job Name- Name of the Jobs—Heuristic Jobs
 Job Class- A-High priority-Middle Priority, C-Low Priority
 ABAP Programme:
1. Heruistic Run-/sapapo/rsnpdrp1
2. Deployment Run-/sapapo/rmsdpdep
3. TLB run-/sapapo/rmsdptlb
4. Capcity leveling-/sapapo/rmsdpcap
5. Optimizer-/sapapo/rmsnpopt
Variant: Variant Name which has been created.
Start Condition: Immediate, Date/time, After Job, After Event.
Job Selection:

Process Chain: Multiple tasks in one shot.