News

• Saving 30 million EUR in  forecasting and replenishment by Automating Inventory Management - do  you want to know how?
  Check out this story from COOP Norway 

• What are the specifics of forecasting in retail - interested in the academic background of UDF? Then listen to SAP's forecasting mastermind Dr. Stephan Kolassa's entertaining video

• Latest release for SAP Customer Activity Repository 5.0 FPS04  is available since Dec 2022  and includes many new features for both Unified Demand Forecast as well as SAP Replenishment Planning
• New SAP Retail Industry Cloud solutions available: Sep 2022: SAP Predictive Replenishment released, July 2022 SAP Order and Delivery Scheduling
• Best forecasting and replenishment practices  in grocery  - read this blog!
• Trainings: Training for SAP Replenishment Planning W26RPL SAP Replenishment Planning Workshop  are planned for Feb, June and Nov 2023, SAP F&R for March and Oct 2023
• Many retailers are still struggling with forecasting and demand planning  as customer demands have dramatically changed. How can automated forecasting help in these difficult times? Read what experiences COOP Switzerland made with SAP Unified Demand Forecast in this pandemic and see recently updated  Note 2909006: Forecast Configuration Guidelines to Cope With Hoarding and Out-of-Stocks in the Retail Supply Chain. This note includes forecast configuration guidelines for F&R and UDF about possible short term correction measures as well as stabilizing settings once the situation improves. We hope to give  practical advice  for our SAP customers to better adapt to this unprecedented situation
• Do you want to get more insight into UDF, for example discover its benefits before implementing it? The SAP Retail Data Science CoE can help.

Are you interested in a new replenishment approach? Then go for SAP Replenishment Planning, add-on to SAP Customer Activity Repository for store replenishment and SAP Predictive Replenishment for DC!

These new solutions address automated  and sophisticated retail replenishment 

SAP Replenishment Planning covers store replenishment scenarios with cost-optimized ordering and simulation with a focus on replenishment of fresh products considering spoilage and intraday planning. For the calculation of  future consumer demand, the Unified Demand Forecast, a solution component of SAP CAR is used natively. For further information read the  press release  or get much more detail on our help portal or read this one pager.

Interested how it looks? Watch in these short videos how SAP Replenishment Planning calculates optimal store orders  or helps to reduce food waste with better planning

SAP Predictive Replenishment is new Industry Cloud solution from SAP and it is part of the topic Predictive Planning and Inventory Orchestration. Its initial release was in September 2022 and it is continuously  updated.  At this stage, it focuses on DC replenishment, and integrates with SAP Order and Delivery Scheduling (ODS), which is also part of Predictive Planning and Inventory Optimization suite. Further enhancements regarding functionality and integration options are planned, please refer to the  official roadmap of the product at the SAP Road Map Explorer.
More Information on SAP Predictive Replenishment can be found on the SAP Help Portal.

Curious? See for yourself in this demo and read the one pager

SAP Forecasting & Replenishment (SAP F&R) is a proven solution which drives efficient inventories in stores and DC of retailers. It is used by many retail companies on a global basis. With its advanced multilevel replenishment capabilities it allows streamlining inventories along the supply chain and lower overall inventory levels and cost while optimizing fulfillment rates.

Watch these short videos to learn more about SAP F&R

SAP F&R Overview

Customers

Proof of Value

SAP F&R provides the following capabilities:

• • Sophisticated demand forecast: The forecasting calculations include automated consideration of trends, seasonality and demand influencing factors such as promotions or specific holidays with significant impact on the sales curve.
  • Automated replenishment with flexible safety stock policy and optimization features for orders, such as Truck Load Building or Economic Order Quantity.
  • Efficient DC replenishment driven by rolling store order forecasts up to the DC level for a most precise consideration of future demand.
  • Alert-driven manual interventions to support the high degree of automation throughout all of the processes.
  • Add-on for fresh products requirements
  • Standard analytics content within SAP Business Warehouse to monitor the quality of the processes and of the solution implementation.
  • Scalability and management of high data volumes.

SAP F&R automatically provides the purchasing system (e.g. SAP Retail) with optimized order proposals.  

• SAP F&R Solution Brief - Want a general overview of SAP F&R? Then this is the document for you
• Quantifying the Benefits of Deploying SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
  Discover how retailers can use an innovative analytics service from SAP to quantify the potential value of using SAP Forecasting and Replenishment – before deploying the software
• Beyond SAP F&R: How can you find out the root causes for over and out of stocks? Inventory Diagnostics for Retail is the answer for this!
• SAP F&R, Add-on for fresh products  is available with a new version including intraday replenishment since Nov 2016 - Fresh_20_Fact Sheet Customer.pdf

• SAP Retail Trainings include also Training for SAP F&R: check the dates for the upcoming F&R trainings:  
  The SAP for Retail Education program is available on the on the SAP Community Network: https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/Retail/Worldwide+Retail+training+curriculum
  SAP F&R Trainings - Now online possible - Virtual classrooms in January and May 2021 - half day units for different time zones

• There are many services available around SAP F&R such as training, implementation guidance and parameter optimization. If you are interested in fine-tuning your forecast with regards to demand influencing factors, you can find more Information here:  Analysis of Product related DIF as well as Optimization of Location DIF
• How to find  in an efficient way the best reference when forecasting a new product in F&R? Automated Reference Product Detection is the answer .Check this new Engineered Service and optimize your forecasting!
• Do you want to get more insight into UDF, for example discover its benefits before implementing it? The SAP Retail Data Science CoE can help!

• Important: Check for small improvements this new collective note which will be updated on a regular basis
  'F&R improvements and recommendations'  note  2335048
• Add-on for SAP F&R fresh products support pack 5  was released Q4 2021-see the new features here and check out the online help
• SAP extends Maintenance for Business Suite 7 - also SAP F&R 5.2  general maintenance is extended until 31.12.2027, see PAM , note 2240592 and note 1648480 for extended maintenance options until 2030
• SAP F&R power users watch out- do you want to see the calculation details of the order proposal line item in one screen? Then implement this new note  2862224 which provides you with a new subscreen called 'Quick Overview' for reviewing the quantity of an item at one screen only 
• F&R powered by UDF. Check out note 2367172 that contains a detailed integration guide. UDF combines the strengths of various forecasting methods to supply demand forecasts to many Retail applications such as Promotion Planning for Retail, Assortment Planning and now also SAP F&R. SAP HANA gives the appropriate technology to consider data on an extremely granular level as well as to fill in gaps with Bayesian technology. Along with other features such as what-if forecasting capabilities and SAP Fiori based analysis app it offers a breakthrough in predictive analytics and demand integration for Retail.
• How beautiful and easy is SAP F&R store order review in conjunction with SAP In-store Merchandising?
  Look at the newly enhanced SAP Fiori Order Products App and find more information in note 2393342 and the Fiori Reference Library 
• Do you want to use main and supplementary order and delivery days in order to achieve for example a better workload distribution over the week? Note 2468391 explains this feature and how to install it.
• S/4 OP1610 and SAP F&R work together - details see note 2352544
• SAP F&R is available on SAP HANA- for more information see note 1927627
• Online Help: SAP F&R 5.2 Online Help , Fresh
• Configuration Guide  Updated version  now in note 2393815
• Connectivity: SAP F&R 5.2 / API Documentation : Read note 1657947  if you want to use SAP F&R integrated with any other ERP than SAP Retail
• Connectivity: Mapping Documentation for SAP ERP 6.0 EhP 6 for Retail / SAP F&R 5.2: Note 1658548  contains information for the data transformation and transmission between SAP ERP 6.0 EhP 6 for Retail and SAP F&R 5.2
• Check reports operation guide Check Report Guide This guide (note 1387699) documents how the check reports work and how they have to be operated.  
• SCM 7 EhP2 information area in the Help Portal containing links to security guides and more
• Support Package Schedule: Check out the support package stack schedule of the different releases.
• SAP SMP Sizing - Helps you find sizing estimations for SAP F&R 5.2 (including update for SAP HANA and Fresh Add-on)
  Click on “Sizing Guidelines”
  Click on “Industries” Select “SAP Forecast & Replenishment”

Selected Articles & Blogs, Webinars

• Blog: How to reduce food waste with better planning
• How to assess the value of SAP Forecasting & Replenishment for your company?
• UDF - Sophisticated, automated and precise forecasting in Retail - from Fresh to Fashion
• Development update - recent innovations for SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
• What’s the recipe for retailers to have fresher food and less waste?
• Food Waste – a global topic and how to address it as a retailer

Highlighted Notes for SAP F&R Consultants for SAP F&R 5.0 - SAP F&R 5.2  

• • Please click here for a selection of highlighted notes for solution consultants. Access to the notes requires SMP credentials.

Scientific Corner

• • Need scientific input? Read this paper from  Dr. Stephan Kolassa - SAP’s UDF Data Scientist   and find out why there is no best forecast…
    Why the “best” point forecast depends on the error or accuracy measure
  • April 5 in London - Free Workshop Retail Demand Forecasting and Data Science  -  Dr. Stephan Kolassa - SAP’s UDF Data Scientist – spoke about ‘Forecasting the Future of Retail Forecasting’ -  Recap needed?

 Further SAP F&R  Information  - please contact mailto:sylvia.ludwig@sap.com 

See further Retail news on the SAP Retail Community page: https://community.sap.com/topics/retail

Q&A SAP Community  https://answers.sap.com/index.html