The error message indicates the fields that are not filled in and that are mandatory to create a new inventory profile.
The mandatory fields are the following ones:
- Profile name
- Planning area
- Planning horizon
- Optimisation horizon
- Interval period type
- Maximum time interval
To create your inventory profile, complete all required information and correct any invalid entries.
Simplified scenario naming in Inventory Analysis app
With the latest release, there has been a change to simplify how scenarios are identified in the Inventory Analysis app. In fact, previously, it was possible to name scenarios with the same name. This has led to confusion and the risk of picking someone else’s scenario if the names were the same. The Inventory Analysis app now requires you to use a unique name for each inventory analysis that you create.
If you duplicate a name that is already in use, an error message displays when you create your analysis. To finish creating, you must use a different name. You cannot edit or change this name after you have created your analysis.
It is important to mention that this update applies to analyses created after release 2302. You are not required to retroactively change the names of scenarios that you have already created.
New multi-stage network operator
SAP Integrated Business Planning for inventory offers inventory optimisation and inventory component planning operators. You can now use the multi-stage network operator to visualise multi-stage networks that are subject to optimisation before you run inventory optimisation and apply attribute-based filters.
You use the multi-stage network operator to generate the IO Network ID and Network Echelon Level master data type attributes as outputs, which allows you to determine the individual network to which your location products belong and the echelon (or stage) of each location product in its respective network.
Let’s take a closer look to see which operations the algorithm performs. It:
- Segments your supply chain into individual networks of interdependent location products, such as those that share a geographical location.
Assigns an echelon level (or stage) to each location product in those networks. An echelon level equal to 1 denotes a downstream, customer-facing location, while an echelon level greater than 1 denotes an upstream location, such as a vendor-facing location.
Reviewing the network and echelon level for each of your location products prior to running the global (multi-stage) inventory optimisation operator facilitates the attribute-based filtering process for scenario runs in the SAP Integrated Business Planning, add-in for Microsoft Excel.
The multi-stage network operator supports batch jobs only. You cannot use it to simulate inventory optimisation scenarios. You can run the operator using the SAP Integrated Business Planning, add-in for Microsoft Excel, and the Application Jobs app, but you cannot run it using the Inventory Analysis app.
Minimum and maximum safety stock inputs added to Inventory Analysis app
The Inventory Analysis app allows you to uncover the impact of certain scenarios compared to either their corresponding baseline planning scenario or other scenarios, learn which inventory input variables have an impact on inventory plans and determine the sensitivity of input variables to baseline planning outputs.
With the new release, you can now consider the IO Minimum Safety Stock and IO Maximum Safety Stock key figures as inputs when you create an inventory policy analysis in the Inventory Analysis app.
The IO Minimum Safety Stock and IO Maximum Safety Stock key figures enable you to consider the minimum and maximum amounts of safety stock that can be stored at a location in your inventory analysis. To use these key figures as inputs, create an analysis with an inventory policy analysis type. Under Inputs, the IO Minimum Safety Stock and IO Maximum Safety Stock key figures are automatically selected from the Input Key Figures list.
After creating your analysis, the minimum and maximum safety stock key figures are displayed in the Input View. You can modify these inputs and, after saving, use them to run a new scenario analysis.
3. Enhancements to demand sensing with gradient boosting.
With the new release of SAP IBP, the demand sensing algorithm using the gradient boosting method has been improved. The updates to the demand sensing algorithm are implemented as the algorithm is now able to calculate more correctly. The changes to the demand sensing covers both the algorithm itself and the user interface, which have been changed to make it easier as a user to make use of demand sensing.
If we start by considering the user interface, SAP has enabled a more logical grouping of the settings that can be made in demand sensing. This has gathered and grouped the available options for the demand sensing inputs more logically. Furthermore, the old “Signals” and “Extra Signals” have been renamed “Internal Signals” and “External Signals”. At last, the option of running the time series analysis for demand sensing has been renamed “Constrain Demand Based on Time Series Properties” and is now chosen as a default.