Additional background
CBV (SAP ECC) is manually “firming” planned orders to hold the Customer Requested Date (CRD) despite material shortages, because standard ECC MRP does not natively reconcile order dates with component availability. CBV also runs Full Confirmation Logic active at the MRP group level, meaning firming is currently serving two distinct, entangled purposes: (1) freezing the date at CRD, and (2) protecting reserved quantities on well-stocked components from being reallocated by the next MRP run. A path forward requires someone who can evaluate both the technical fix and the behavioral risk of changing how firming is used.
Expected Deliverables
Current-state planning flow assessment
Root-cause analysis of shortages
Quantification of shortages attributable to:
Supply lateness
Planning logic
Inventory accuracy
Master data quality
Tactical short term operating method to minimize material shortages
Operation recommendations
Configuration recommendations
Custom development recommendations
Effort/cost estimate for remediation options
• Deep, hands-on SAP ECC Production Planning (PP). ATP and MRP configuration — MRP groups, MRP1–4 views, lead-time scheduling, and MRP group–level confirmation settings (OPPR/OPPJ)
• Working fluency with Full vs. Partial Confirmation Logic and its interaction with component availability checks (MDVP), evaluated as a business trade-off, not just a config toggle
• Practical experience with planned order firming behavior — what it freezes, what it doesn’t, and how it can silently serve two unrelated purposes at the same site
• Ability to evaluate configuration, process, and custom-development alternatives, including BAPI-based automation where justified.
• Ability to audit an existing shortage report and confirm whether its logic reflects the same committed-quantity calculation as the confirmation logic setting
ADJACENT SKILLS THAT MATTER
• MD04/MD11/MD12 exception-message literacy — distinguishing a real signal from a silently wrong one
• Change-management instinct: able to interview planners and separate habitual firming from deliberate, reservation-protecting firming
Senior SAP PP functional consultant or architect — not a generalist SAP administrator. Ideally someone who has designed or corrected constraint-aware scheduling logic before, with prior exposure to a factory that outgrew standard ECC MRP and had to choose between custom BAPI automation.
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