SAP Advanced Planning & Optimization (APO) provides a suite of Supply Chain Planning applications with a range of tools for forecasting, planning, and optimization. It helps customers to implement industry best practices, respond to ever-changing market conditions, and stay ahead of their competitors. It primarily has four modules namely - DP (Demand Planning), SNP (Supply Network Planning), PP/DS (Production Planning and Detail Scheduling), and GATP (Global Available to Promise).
It is tightly integrated/coupled with SAP ECC through CIF (Core Interface) that allows the order cycle (Production, Procurement, Stock, Distribution, etc.) to complete from all aspects. It provides the option to constantly perform optimization and evaluation of supply chain processes and monitor them in all stages from receiving an order, monitoring stock, and shipping goods. It comes with a BI component to support reporting functions on top of Infocubes & data marts.
Top-Down, Bottoms-Up and Middle-Out Consensus Demand Planning
Optimization of Supply Chain Resources: Production, Procurement and Transportation
Robust Order Fulfillment
Detailed Scheduling of production resources