Sometimes it is best to have a simple chart to understand connections between different parts. Therefore, I will be sharing my chart on flow of SOP & production planning chart with related transaction codes.  Also, I will be adding links of SAP blog post to provide details of topics.

Production planning may require to flow from SOP to LTP, LTP to Demand Management and Demand Management to MRP. And if we need to summarize each of them;

SOP – Some industries have exact amount and date of requirements from customers, as it happens in Automotive industry and some other industries may need to create their own production plan, such as an ice cream producer. If you need to create your own plans for product groups or product hierarchies, then you may use SOP.

There are two kinds of SOP, one with standard information structure and standard macros, that is Standard SOP. You can check this blog post for standard SOP.

And there is Flexible SOP, if you need to create your own information structure and macros. Once you understand Standard SOP, that is similar to it with more customization option. And you can have a look at this blog post for steps of Flexible SOP.

With SOP you can create many production plans according your scenarios and each of them are distinguished by a version number. By using version number and material filters, you can transfer that plan to Demand Management.

Demand management is used to enter forecast or exact production requirement amounts for periods. You can work on active version or inactive versions. If you active a version, than this plan is considered in MRP. Otherwise MRP does not see inactive versions.

And in some cases you may prefer to work on inactive version, so you can create scenarios by using Long Term Planning. It is called LTP, but MRP simulation probably would be a better describing name for it’s functionality. LTP looks like exactly same as MRP, only difference is it is a simulation and each LTP run is done for a version you have chosen. And it will not effect your MRP. You can have a look at that blog post for LTP.

By Using LTP, you can assign inactive demand version to scenario and work on it. You can run as much as simulations you need, till you get the most suitable planning. And finally you can transfer it active demand version. And in that way chosen simulation can be transferred to MRP.

I hope, that quick summary will help you to understand the link between different planning modules. And also chart will be a quick reminder and helper in case if you need to remember transaction codes.

Thanks for reading.

Kind regards.