Demand Management, MRP, Capacity and Advanced Planning

Lessons in this topic

• Process and Architecture Map: From Demand Signal to Capacity-Checked Supply PlanA cross-cutting process and system architecture map showing how demand, MRP, capacity, and advanced planning components interact end-to-end, including integration points and where each child topic fits.
• Orientation: Why Demand Management, MRP and Capacity Planning MatterA foundational tour of why demand-driven planning, MRP, and capacity checks exist, what business problems they solve, and how this topic fits into the broader PP learning path.

Interview questions covered

• How would you design MRP type and controller assignments to support finite scheduling in an environment where EWM manages warehouse execution, and what integration checkpoints matter?
• A plant integrated with SAP IBP for supply planning reports that capacity requirements calculated in ECC/S4 capacity evaluation (CM01) do not match the capacity view aggregated in IBP. What are the likely root causes and how would you troubleshoot this cross-system discrepancy?
• During product heuristic runs in PP/DS, planners notice that lot sizes generated are far larger than expected despite the material master specifying exact lot-for-lot sizing, and CO reports show inflated WIP valuation. What is the likely root cause and how would you troubleshoot it?
• What are the main lot-sizing procedure categories available in material master MRP views, and how does the choice affect the number and size of planned orders generated by MRP?
• A plant integrated with EWM is piloting a Forecast-to-Plan process where the MRP controller expects the planning time fence (PTF) to prevent automatic changes to planned orders once production has started staging materials in EWM, but firmed orders inside the fence are still being shifted after a forecast update. How would you troubleshoot and correct this?
• A make-to-stock plant uses lot-for-lot (EX) lot sizing combined with backward and forward consumption periods for PIR-to-sales-order consumption. Finance is escalating recurring CO production variance driven by wildly inconsistent planned order quantities from period to period, even though aggregate demand is stable. As the architect, how would you determine whether the consumption mode configuration is the root cause, and what corrective design would you propose?
• A planner runs MRP for a make-to-stock component that feeds a PPDS-scheduled finished good, and the resulting procurement proposals are all created as planned orders scheduled using backward scheduling from the requirement date, ignoring the detailed capacity constraints already established by PPDS on the parent's routing. What is happening and how should scheduling be corrected?
• When configuring MRP Live (transaction MD01N) in S/4HANA, what key differences must be addressed compared to classic MRP (MD01/MD02) regarding performance and exception handling?
• A make-to-stock plant uses MRP type PD with reorder point fallback, and warehouse operations run in EWM. Stock transfers are delayed, causing MRP to generate excess planned orders. How would you investigate and resolve this?
• After go-live, a plant running MRP Live reports that materials with planning strategy 40 show capacity requirements ballooning by 300% on a bottleneck work center within the planning time fence, even though MM stock levels and BOM structures are unchanged from the prior week. As the architect, how would you diagnose the root cause?
• In a Forecast-to-Plan process, a plant plans its finished good with MRP type PD while a critical raw material uses reorder-point MRP type VB, and the material's storage location is managed by decentralized EWM. Planners report that EWM replenishment tasks for the raw material are inconsistently triggered against MRP-generated purchase requisitions, sometimes firing early, sometimes not at all. What MRP type and controller configuration areas would you review to correct this integration?
• In a make-to-order environment integrated with PPDS, how do you configure scheduling so that sales-order-driven planned orders respect both production lead time and detailed scheduling constraints?
• A plant runs classic MRP with backward scheduling but is now piloting PPDS for a subset of finished products. Capacity evaluation shows conflicting work center loads between CM01 and the PPDS planning board for the same production orders. What integration factors would you check?
• You are architecting a global template where multiple plants use MRP Areas for storage-location-specific planning, and capacity plans must be reconciled with an SAP IBP-driven supply plan across plants. How would you design the MRP Area structure and capacity data flow to avoid conflicting production commitments between local MRP and IBP?
• A plant uses statistical forecasting (MP30) to generate PIRs, and production is scheduled using capacity leveling in PPDS. The planner reports that finite capacity results diverge significantly from forecast-driven infinite planning results. How would you investigate and resolve this?
• What are Planned Independent Requirements (PIRs) in SAP Demand Management, and how do they support a Forecast-to-Plan business process?
• When integrating capacity requirements planning with EWM-managed warehouses, how do MRP controllers and MRP type settings influence resource scheduling visibility between production and warehouse execution?
• During go-live, planners report that MRP is generating purchase requisitions instead of planned orders for a semi-finished material that should be produced in-house, disrupting the demand-to-supply flow. How would you diagnose and resolve this?
• A make-to-order finished product using planning strategy 20 is scheduled through PPDS, but planners report that sales-order-driven planned orders are being backward scheduled beyond the requested delivery date, causing PPDS to flag lateness even though lead time seems adequate. How would you diagnose and correct this scheduling issue?
• Explain the process of determining and validating dynamic safety stock via a range-of-coverage profile, and describe how misalignment between this safety stock calculation and lot-sizing settings can distort CO product cost variance analysis.

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