TPVS is the planning tool for transportation that comes with the advanced planning system developed by SAP. For automated and optimal planning TPVS provides a state of the art optimizer algorithm. It is a cost based based optimizer and thus requires good modeling of the transportation problem in order to get good results. But because good robust models often difficult to find in industry the possibility to automate planning using heuristics is as an interesting alternative to the optimizer.
TPVS does not come with heuristics, but the SAP developers prepared the application for easy integration of heuristics. There is a option in the standard configuration that enables the heuristics BADI extension. When this extension is activated a new button will show up in the screen to do the planning by running the heuristic. Our AddOn provides implementation of several heuristic algorithms to be used in the TPVS heuristics framework.
TPVS heuristics is a simple solution for new projects doing TPVS and a good next step for those that are using TPVS doing manual planning. And the main added value of this solution is the possibility to extend the algorithm by enhancement of the ABAP code. This allows industry specific rules to be coded and this is something that planners usually desire and it is not possible to do with the optimizer.
Developed in ABAP as an AddOn for SAP APO TP/VS