One of the keys to acting flexibly and quickly to customer expectations? Knowing the ‘available-to-promise’ quantity: the portion of your inventory and planned production that is ‘uncommitted’ and, consequently, available to promise to customers. aATP, the advanced ATP functionality in SAP S/4HANA, provides accurate and reliable order promise dates, taking into account the relevant supply and inventory in real time.

SAP landscape: aATP in SAP S/4HANA is the successor of gATP (Global ATP) which is part of APO. The difference?

more functionalities, while maintaining an easier setup and maintenance
fully embedded in S/4 and more user friendly, thanks to the Fiori interface
no integration between systems is required
faster performance, thanks to the HANA in-memory database.

Prioritise sales orders, look for alternatives and boost profitability

As order promising is complex, the aATP software provides a host of truly advanced features. More than checking product availability and providing order promise dates, it allows you to move away from the first-come-first-serve principle by helping you

ensure that the right stock ends up with the right customer
differentiate between your customers according to profitability, strategic importance or other factors, so you can prioritise sales orders for your most important customers or customer segments;
allocate materials in short supply to, for example, specific regions and customers for a specific time period;
consider extra confirmation constraints (e.g., limited shipping capacity);
run a mass recalculation of confirmations based on customisable priority rules;
look for alternative supply in case of shortages, such as availability of the product in another plant or warehouse or even checking for similar products.
determine accurate delivery dates considering transport, load, pick, pack time including transportation and shipment scheduling.

Since recently, it's also possible to check the production capacity and component availability to verify whether a product can be promised although not available on stock (e.g. MTO items). To enable this functionality an implementation of embedded production planning and detailed scheduling (PP/DS) in your S/4HANA system is required.

Want to know more about ePP/DS? Check out the business benefits of ePP/DS for your organization.

aATP: your benefits

Reliable order promises based on real-time data
Fast response time to orders
Intuitive and fast reassignment of stocks
Easy management of business priorities and profitability
Inventory optimisation
Improved customer service levels

Integrated business planning best practices

Flexso: your supply chain experts

Flexso features teams of experts in both SAP S/4HANA and Digital supply chain solutions. We know the gATP and aATP technology, we know SAP S/4HANA and we know what it takes to help your business retain an edge over your competitors. Our experts can help you discover and deploy aATP in S/4HANA, ensuring you get the most out of the solution by adjusting it to your specific business needs. Need to see it before you believe it? Request a proof of concept to discover how the aATP solution can help you take order fulfilment to the next level.

Find out more about S/4 Advanced ATP, SAP’s next-generation order fulfilment solution.
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