Demand Planning Apo

Demand Planning 
Purpose
Use APO Demand Planning (DP) to create a forecast of market demand for your company's products. This component allows you to take into consideration the many different causal factors that affect demand. The result of APO Demand Planning is the demand plan.
Demand Planning is a powerful and flexible tool that supports the demand planning process in your company.User-specific planning layouts and interactive planning books enable you to integrate people from different departments, and even different companies, into the forecasting process. Using the DP library of statistical forecasting and advanced macro techniques you can create forecasts based on demand history as well as any number of causal factors, carry out predefined and self-defined tests on forecastmodels and forecast results, and adopt a consensus-based approach to reconcile the demand plans of different departments. To add marketing intelligence and make management adjustments, you use promotions and forecast overrides. The seamless integration with APO Supply Network Planning supports an efficient S&OP process.
Integration
With Other APO Components
To | Do this | Other information|
Track exceptional, unexpected or critical situations in the demand planning process | Open the Alert Monitor |   |
Share plans with your supply chain planner | Use the functions for releasing data to and from Supply Network Planning | The supply chain planner can plan resources based on a full and reliable picture of demand, and the demand planner can monitor where adjustments to the demandplan have been necessary due to production, distribution and other constraints. |
Do reporting | Install a BW front end and launch queries from your APO system |   |

 With Other Systems
To | Do this | Other Information |
Load actual and/or planned data into Demand Planning from a BW, R/3, or external system or from a flat file | Use APO Administrator Workbench in Demand Planning | Thefunctions of the Administrator Workbench in APO are identical to those of the Administrator Workbench of the Business Information Warehouse (BW). |
Do reporting | Run the Business Explorer component of the SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW) |   |
Load data into BW | Use APO Administrator Workbench in Demand Planning to load the data into BW as from one data mart to another | The functionsof the Administrator Workbench in APO are identical to those of the Administrator Workbench of the Business Information Warehouse (BW). |
Manage your customers' forecasts using vendor-managed inventory (VMI) | Gather your customers' inventory and POS data via EDI | See Vendor Managed Inventory with APO and SAP R/3. |
Build a forecast together with your suppliers, customers and other businesspartners | Use Collaborative Demand Planning | Partners without an APO system plan demand through a web-based interface. |

Demand Planning Process 
Purpose
This process describes each activity in the Demand Planning (DP) cycle. In general, you can assume that the order of the processes presented here is the order in which you should proceed through the DP cycle. However, since DP is representedas a cycle, not a linear path, you may decide to repeat certain activities or to proceed in a different order.
Process Flow
The following diagram depicts the DP cycle.

 
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       1.      Carry out all the steps needed to set up your planning area. The planning area is the basis for all activities in APO Demand Planning. It is a collection of parameters that define the scope of allplanning tasks. The planning area is linked to the data mart. You load into the data mart the actual history (for example, bookings, shipments or billings) that wlíll be used to create the DP master data and generate the demand forecasts. See Planning Area Administration.
       2.      Map the structure of your company (for example, regions, divisions, brands, products and customers) for planning...