SAP APO SNP Heuristics: Location, Network and Multilevel Explained
Avadhut Adake · 31 January 2025 · 3 min read
How the SNP heuristic plans a supply network: the three heuristic types, low-level codes, the steps behind each run, and where heuristics live on in S/4HANA PP/DS.
The heuristic is the planning engine most SAP APO SNP projects start with. It is fast, rule-based and easy to explain, but it plans against unlimited capacity, so it pays to know exactly what it does.
Heuristic, optimizer or CTM?
APO SNP offers three engines for supply planning:
• Heuristic (rule-based): sources by quota arrangement or procurement priority and ignores capacity; leveling comes afterwards.
• Optimizer (cost-based): weighs production, transport, storage, handling and late-delivery costs and respects all capacity constraints.
• Capable-to-Match (priority-based): matches demand priorities to supply categories and respects production capacity.
What a heuristic run does
The run plans location products in low-level code sequence. All demand for one product at one location within a time bucket becomes a single requirement. For each one it:
• Determines the target stock level from the product settings.
• Calculates the net requirement: total demand + target stock level - stock already on hand or planned.
• Picks the source of supply: quota arrangement first, procurement priorities if there is no quota.
• Applies the lot-size rules: minimum and maximum lot size, rounding value.
• Uses the procurement type to choose in-house production or external procurement.
• Checks that the source is valid: the PDS or PPM for production, the transportation lane for transfers and purchasing.
The calendar counts too. With capacity treated as unlimited, the first result can overload resources, so the planner levels capacity afterwards.
Location, network and multilevel
All three run from /SAPAPO/SNP01 , where you choose the type, and all create stock transport requisitions, planned orders and purchase requisitions. Take product A, assigned to locations L101, L102 and L103:
• Location heuristic: plans only the selected products at the selected location and passes requirements one level up to their sources. Dependent demand is not carried through the whole chain.
• Network heuristic: plans product A at all three locations, exploding dependent demand one BOM level at the first location in the planning direction.
• Multilevel heuristic: plans the selected products and all their components, down to the lowest BOM level, at every location involved. If A needs B and B is made from C, selecting A plans all three.
Low-level codes set the order
A low-level code combines a product's BOM level with its position in the network. The finished product at the last location in the chain, such as a customer location, gets code 0; the same product one step upstream, such as at the distribution center, gets 1; components get higher codes as you go down the BOM. The heuristic plans code 0 first, then 1, and so on, so a source is planned only after all demand on it is known. Determine the codes with /SAPAPO/SNPLLC , and again after network or BOM changes.
Heuristics in SAP S/4HANA
SNP is not part of S/4HANA; its successor for network supply planning, with both heuristic and optimizer, is time-series supply planning in SAP IBP. At plant level, PP/DS in S/4HANA keeps the heuristic approach: product heuristics such as SAP_PP_002 (planning of standard lots) run interactively or in the production planning run /SAPAPO/CDPSB0 , again working with net requirements, lot sizes and valid sources.
Key takeaways
• The SNP heuristic is rule-based, works in buckets and ignores capacity.
• The source comes from quota arrangements, then procurement priorities, and must be valid.
• The three heuristic types differ in how far they pass demand on.
• Low-level codes set the sequence; keep them current with /SAPAPO/SNPLLC .
• In S/4HANA, network planning sits in SAP IBP and plant-level heuristics in PP/DS.
Want to run planning heuristics hands-on with a trainer? See our SAP S/4HANA PP/DS course .