Optimizer not picking preferred vendor out of multiple contracts

[Former Member]

We need to use outline agreements in APO. We are doing the following:

1. CIFing the outline agreement(s) to APO
2. T-lane(s) created from Vendor to destination location
3. Running Optimizer
4. Purchase requisitions created with suitable source of supply.

Problem:

If there are more than single vendors for a material , there is a preferred vendor that needs to be picked by the system. We set the t-lane priorities acc. to preferred vendor and it works fine with heuristic. But for optimizer, we are not able to determine a method for the system to determine the preferred vendor and pick it during optimizer run.

Could you please share your thoughts or best practices regarding above.

Thanks.

[Former Member]

Hi Shweta,

Following article should help you out :

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_ewm70/helpdata/en/3b/726b3c7a64e76ce10000000a11402f/content.htm

Regards,

Mukesh Pandey

[former_member190993]

Hi Shweta,

You can maintain transportation costs in the t-lanes e.g. maintain a lower transportation cost on the t-lane from the preferred vendor and check the results.

Regards,

Umesh

[Former Member]

Thanks Umesh..

I tried with transportation cost and it is working fine... but then how do we be sure that optimizer would work as expected because it tries to find an optimal solution with minimum
overall cost (that includes all the costs).

Plz advise.

Regards,

Shweta

[former_member190993]

Hi Shweta,

In addition to the transportation cost, the optimizer will consider the storage and production costs also to arrive at most cost effective proposal. In your scenario, since you are procuring from external vendor, I do not think you will be maintaining the storage and production costs, so by maintaining the transportation costs, you should be able to get proposals from the preferred vendor.

Regards,

Umesh