SAP Service Order Scheduling

This instruction will give a brief overview of the most common, standard SAP settings for work order scheduling.

Within the SAP work order scheduling (backend) it has to be differentiated between the order header and the order operations.

In standard SAP an order can consist of several operations. Each operation will be scheduled “individually”. There is a relationship between each operation, but each operation can have individual settings regarding duration, capacity and restrictions. Based on these settings each operation will be scheduled. The sequence of the operations is given by the relationship (finish-finish, finish-start, start-finish or start-start). The duration of all operations determines the duration of the order.

Within this standard model, the scheduling of the operation reflects the duration that is needed to perform a particular task. The “basic start date” and the basic end date” of the order header will reflect the time range that is needed to perform all tasks that belong together. This is quite a reasonable handling for all kind of product driven scheduling in the industrial environment.

Especially in terms of “customer service”, the “basic start”, “basic end” and “duration” might be used differently. The “duration” is quite similar and is reflecting the time that is needed to perform a particular task. But “start” and “end” of the order can be used are reflecting the earliest start and the latest end date, that is determined by a legal restriction (e.g. a contract, a service level agreement or a law).

In order to meet these different requirements, there are some settings in Customizing and in the connector, that allow you to decuple the link between the operation scheduling and the order scheduling. In the following, the effects of these settings will be explained in more detail.

Part 1: Service order Scheduling

Part 2: “Standard Settings” (Scheduled Dates Allocation)