VC & CDP

[Former Member]

Hello friends,

I am not clear on the differences between a VC (Varient Config) & CDP (Characteristic dep Planning), hence can anyone kindly ellaborate on this and explain with a scenario on both the uses.

Thank you,

Nouman.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Nouman,

1) CDP

You can use characteristics-dependent planning (CDP) to plan in-house production for products

using characteristics. The products are configurable in the ERP system. You can configure

planned orders and production orders for these products in SAP APO. The system includes the

configuration when planning and consume requirements with the matching receipts (production

orders, purchase orders, purchase requisitions, batch stock).

There is an incoming sales order from the R/3 system for the product Pipe that has the value red

for the characteristic Color and the value 100 for the characteristic Length. In SAP APO, you have

already created a production order for this material with the same valuation. If the sales order is

now planned in SAP APO, the sales order is consumed with the production order.

CDP supports both make-to-order production and make-to-stock production

2) VC

Variant configuration is for manufacturing complex products. The manufacturer is always having to

offer new variants of its products. Often, new variants are created by modifying existing product

designs as you process the order. The important thing is to react quickly to customers' requirements.

The customer determines the features of the product. A customer buying a car, for example, can

choose the features of the car and combine these features as required.

The product configurator improves information exchange between sales, engineering, and production.

Variant configuration helps the customer or salesperson to put together specifications for the product

and ensure that the product can be produced from these specifications. It also ensures that production

costs do not overstep the mark.

Hope it is clear now

Regards

R. Senthil Mareeswaran.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Senthil,

It was a great explanation, and was very very clear on the usage of both CDP & VC. Thank you for your expert views.

regards,

Nouman.

[Former Member]

thanks all , it was helpful

Regards,

Nouman

[frank_horlacher]

Hello,

the most important difference of CDP and VC is in the way how configuraton objects are treated in APO.

If you set your client to VC the configuration of an object is in the root and all other objects reference to the root configuration. It is basically the same behavior as in the ERP system.

Example: You have MTO multilevel production. The sales order configuration is the root object. All planned orders and components reference to the sales order configuration. If you change to MTS for a component this component loses its reference to the sales order. It can only have the configuration values of the material master.

CDP has much more possibilities. Every object can have a configaration of its own. In the multilevel example the characteristic values from the sales order are propagated to the planned orders and components. The propagation also works in MTS scenarios if you have defined object dependencies in your BOM and routing which are transferred to the APO PDS.

[galkoon01]

Hello Frank, Very interesting explanation. Could you please advise your insights how is this treated in S4Hana with ePPDS?

As example sawmill industry, with unlimited variant possibilities. Mill Products with Variant Configuration is considered as key feature to support this business model.

What are the S4Hana with embedded PPDS possibilities/capabilities to support this business model? I was thinking using Make to stock strategy with Variant Config”, Characteristic Dependent Planning, Block Planning and MOP orders. However when browsing the SAP community blogs and SAP notes, I am little confused if CDP with VC is even technically possible. For MOP found the BADi /SAPAPO/EOG_ADDIN1 would fit to create MOP orders without PPM.

Many thanks,

Ondrej