1. Using Supply Planning
  2. How You Compare Supply Plans and Orders

How You Compare Supply Plans and Orders

You can compare a plan with another plan, or an archive of the same plan, and show the difference between them by selecting a metric.

You compare plans at two different levels:

  • Compare aggregate plan metrics: You can compare two plans and understand what changed at an aggregate level. For example, you can compare metrics such as Revenue, Demand at Risk, and Exception Count.

  • Compare plans at detail level: You can query the supplies and demands when something is different between two plans using the Order Comparison screen. For example, you can compare the baseline plan with the simulation plan and filter to show only those orders where the suggested due date has changed by more than a specified number of days.

    Comparing orders in the Order Comparison report is unrelated to the Compare Plan functionality for aggregate plan metrics.

Plan Comparison

The comparison of plans in a table displays the data for each plan side-by-side. To see the differences between the plans, you can select the metrics in the Comparison Options tab when creating or editing the table. The Show Difference icon in the table or graph toolbar redraws the table or graph with the selected difference metrics.

The comparison metric options are the following:

  • Difference

  • Percent Difference

  • Absolute Percent Difference

To compare a plan:

  1. In a Supply Chain Planning work area, open a plan.

  2. From the Actions menu, select Compare, and then click Plan.

  3. In the Search and Select: Plan dialog box, search for and select the plan that you want to compare with the current plan. Only plans that use the same supply planning calendar are displayed. After you select a plan, click OK.

    You can view the table with both plans displayed.

    Tip: Click the Graph icon on the toolbar of the table to view the results in a graph.

  4. Click Show Difference to view the difference between the current plan and the comparison plan.

The compare functionality isn’t supported for these graph types: bubble, funnel, gauge (status meter and LED), pie, sunburst, and treemap. When comparing plans, if one of these graph types is displayed, the results will show data only from the base plan.

To stop comparing the plans, select Cancel Compare from the Actions menu.

Order Comparison

Use Order Comparison to identify the orders that have changed between two plans. You can compare the following order types:
  • Sales orders
  • Planned orders
  • Purchase orders
  • Purchase requisitions
  • Transfer orders
  • Work orders

The Order Comparison page displays the demands and supplies whose key values (such as order quantity, late quantity, or suggested due date) have changed between plans. Use Order Comparison to view values of key fields from each of the two plans. Also, you can filter based on how much the values differ between plans. For example, you can filter to show only orders whose suggested due date differs by more than 5 days.

Open the Order Comparison page using the Open action from the page-level toolbar.

After you open the Order Comparison page, the first thing you must do is select the plan you want to compare. The underlying plan that's already opened is the current plan.

Note: Order comparison works independently from the Compare Plan action that's available in the page-level toolbar reviewed in the previous section. The Compare Plan action has no impact on the Order Comparison page.

After you select the comparison plan, the Changed Demands and Changed Supplies tabs appear. If you perform a search without providing any search criteria, the application displays all changed demands (or changed supplies depending on the tab where you perform the search). Any demands or supplies that are the same between plans aren't displayed.

The following lists what constitutes a change:
  • The demand or supply exists in the current plan but doesn’t exist in the compared plan.
  • The demand or supply exists in both plans, but the count of exceptions associated with the demand or supply is different.
  • The demand or supply exists in both plans, but one or more of the Columns to Compare fields have a different value between the plans.

The values displayed in the table come from the current plan. The current plan is the plan that you opened first.

The default layout displays only a subset of the available fields for the tab. The fields available are relevant to the tab. For example, the Changed Demands tab has demand fields; the Changed Supplies tab has supply fields.

To display values from both plans, use the Columns to Compare action from the View menu. For example, by selecting the Order Quantity field, the table redraws and Order Quantity has a column for the current plan and the compared plan. The same functionality is available on the Changed Supplies tab.

The orders of the current plan are the driver of the table's content. This shows the following:

  • Orders that are in both plans

  • Orders that are in the current plan and don't exist in the compared plan

Orders that are in the compared plan but not in the current plan aren't shown.

In the redrawn table, the Order Quantity has a column for the current plan and the compared plan. The same functionality is available on the Changed Supplies tab.