SAP PP Long Term Planning

What is Long-Term Planning in SAP PP?

Long Term Planning is a simulative planning tool in SAP PP that lets you forecast future demand and simulate production & procurement scenarios — without affecting live data or ongoing operations.

It allows planners to check “What will happen if we get bigger demand in the future?” or “Do we have enough machines and materials for next year’s production?”

The best part is - LTP runs completely in simulation mode, so it does not create real purchase requisitions or production orders.

Why use LTP?

LTP gives several advantages:

  • You can spot capacity bottlenecks early (e.g. work-centers overloaded, staffing shortages, machine constraints) before actual production begins. That helps you take corrective actions (e.g. add work-centers, outsource, shift schedules).
  • You get a forecast of future material requirements and procurement needs, so your purchasing team can negotiate with vendors, plan deliveries, and avoid sudden shortages.
  • It allows “what-if” scenario planning: you can run multiple demand forecasts (e.g. new customer orders, seasonal spikes) to see their impact on production capacity and material needs — all without disturbing current operations.
  • If the simulation results are favourable (i.e. capacity & materials are available), you can transfer the simulated plan to real (operative) planning, thus converting forecast into actionable plan.

What you must have before using LTP

Before you can run LTP effectively, make sure of the following in your SAP PP system:

  • Master data must be maintained and correct — things like material master records (finished goods, components), Bill of Materials (BOM), and routing/work-center data must exist and be valid. LTP uses the same data as actual production planning.
  • You should have a forecasted demand defined — in SAP this is done via MD61 (or equivalent) creating a “Planned Independent Requirement (PIR)” in inactive version, so it doesn’t interfere with the live planning.
  • A planning scenario needs to be created — using MS31 (or scenario creation screens) to set up the simulation, include or exclude certain data (e.g. planned receipts, existing stock), set the time horizon, and define parameters.

When to Use LTP — Use-Cases / Scenarios

You’d typically use LTP when:

  • You have long-term forecasts (e.g. seasonal demand, big upcoming orders, year-end targets) and want to check if you can meet them.
  • You want to evaluate capacity/ resources — maybe you're considering adding a new product line or increasing production volume, and you want to see if existing work-centers will handle it.
  • You want to plan procurement well ahead — for raw materials, subcontractor parts, or components that have long lead times or vendor constraints.
  • You want to analyse “what-if” scenarios — e.g. what happens if demand doubles, or vendor supply delays by 2 months, or there's a capacity shortfall.