More and more consultants are getting experienced in SAP APO. Is there good future for all? Today, I see that there is no other SCM software competing with SAP APO. and even we know that if new software arrives in the market, it will take maximum 5-10 years to capture the market contribution.
Let me explain what is SAP APO/SCM module and how it is going to be useful ?
As SAP APO is abbreviated form of Advanced Planner and Optimizer which includes set of software functions from the German-based software company SAP for supply chain administration. It is a supply chain planning tool which helps the organizations in managing their supply chain. It is also recognised as APS (Advance Planning and Scheduling) tool.
The welfare of using SAP APO are Increase in credits, Progress in profit margins, Reduce purchasing charges, Reduce production and logistic costs, Improved inventory management and Improved Administration.
Now let’s discuss the important modules of SAP APO which are beneficial to the business
Demand Planning(DP): In order to run a successful business, planning and analysing market forecast are very important. So “Demand Planning” is nothing but understanding the customer’s future demands and executing them by using supply chain and business management.
Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling (PP/DS): PP/DS will help to analyse the lead time and assets required for the management. You can also reduce the supply cost, increase on-time delivery and lower the lead time of the product by using PP/DS.
Supply Network Planning(SNP): SNP will create beneficial plans for distribution, manufacturing, transportation, procurement, purchasing and implemented based on a single consistent model.
Available To Promise: The objective of “Available To Promise” is that whether the product demanded by the customer is available to him/her on given time.
Network Design: Making superior decisions on locating facilities and how to source demand across global supply networks.
Supply Chain Cockpit(SCC): APO is the SCC which provides end users in a graphical form for controlling and operating the supply chain. That’s the reason, various departments like demand planners, strategic planners and production planners are in use of SAP APO.
Transportation Planning and Vehicle Scheduling (TP/VS): Opting the short routes for transportation so that company can save time, expenditure, fuel and deliver products on time.
Supply Chain Collaboration: Need to frame a constrained Supply chain collaboration for providing a basis for procurement, production and distribution in order to make efficient communications with the customers.
Together, demand planning and supply network planning will support your organization’s continuous sales and operations planning growth.
What is the betterment of implementing SAP APO?
The betterment of implementing SAP APO, is that it provides the basis for an end-to-end supply chain management solution, consistently coupling all key processes from order generation to production planning to shipment.
Now, it is clear from our research how the modules of SAP APO are beneficial to the business. Before you implement APO, it is advisable to have expert resources who have undergone SAP APO Training to do the fit gap analysis and then implement the product
Now, let’s have a look on Future of SAP APO
As we know that SAP is at the centre of today’s technology and is a step forward in developing integrated and user-centric solution. The SAP has many modules and the one among them which is on hurdle is APO which is highly required to support operational and optimization features which are expected to merge completely with ERP or IBP side or may be something else.
Though SAP is concentrating on HANA and IBP, APO will be in quite available as it uses liveCache that itself is in-memory database, so just performance of HANA is not going to make a difference.
Now, let’s have a clear analysis on the SAP APO Demand Trend with help of the following graph:
Credit: itjobswatch
Conclusion
As the name itself indicates that it has advanced planning algorithms which had proved by using its modules in business administration and economics. SAP APO has an open architecture, which is open to future enhancement like model functionality, higher amount of parallelization and enhanced optimization algorithms. The average salary for SAP APO consultant is 10 lpa in India. As SAP has huge number of clients across the globe, the demand is outstanding for all SAP modules. So in my opinion, an aspirant can pick SAP APO as his career undoubtedly.