The SAP S/4HANA Production Planning Consultant designs, configures, implements, and supports production planning and manufacturing execution processes in SAP S/4HANA. The role enables efficient material planning, production scheduling, capacity utilization, shop-floor control, and integration across supply chain and finance functions.

Key Responsibilities

• Gather manufacturing and planning requirements and translate them into SAP S/4HANA PP solutions.
• Design and configure end-to-end production planning processes, including:
• Demand management and planned independent requirements
• Material Requirements Planning (MRP)
• Planned orders, purchase requisitions, and production orders
• Master production scheduling (MPS)
• Capacity planning and leveling
• Production order processing and shop-floor control
• Order release, printing, confirmation, goods issue, goods receipt, and settlement
• Rework, scrap, yield, co-products, and by-products
• Make-to-stock, make-to-order, engineer-to-order, and repetitive manufacturing scenarios
• Configure production master data, including:
• Material master settings relevant to planning and production
• Bills of materials (BOMs)
• Work centers and capacities
• Routings, rate routings, and production versions
• Production resources/tools
• MRP groups, planning strategies, lot-sizing procedures, and scheduling parameters
• Configure and support MRP Live and planning processes in S/4HANA.
• Support production-order lifecycle management, including availability checks, component staging, confirmations, backflushing, goods movements, and order settlement.
• Configure capacity requirements planning, work center formulas, shift definitions, and scheduling parameters.
• Integrate PP with:
• MM for procurement, inventory, component availability, and goods movements
• SD for demand, sales orders, ATP, and make-to-order production
• QM for in-process inspections, inspection lots, and quality-related stock postings
• EWM/WM for material staging, consumption, and finished-goods receipt
• FI/CO for product costing, work-in-process, variance calculation, and settlement
• PM/Asset Management for production asset availability and maintenance coordination
• PP-PI for process manufacturing where relevant
• MES and shop-floor systems through interfaces, confirmations, and production reporting
• Facilitate fit-gap workshops and define future-state planning and production processes.
• Create functional specifications for reports, forms, interfaces, data conversions, enhancements, and workflows.
• Support master data cleansing, migration, validation, and governance during implementation or S/4HANA conversion projects.
• Execute unit testing, integration testing, UAT, cutover, go-live, and hypercare support.
• Analyze production-planning issues, resolve incidents, and identify opportunities for process improvement.
• Prepare process documentation, training materials, and end-user support guides.

Required Skills and Experience

• Strong hands-on SAP PP configuration experience in SAP S/4HANA.
• Good knowledge of discrete manufacturing processes and planning-to-production workflows.
• Experience with MRP, demand management, production orders, capacity planning, scheduling, and shop-floor execution.
• Strong understanding of production master data: BOMs, routings, work centers, production versions, and material master planning views.
• Experience with planning strategies, consumption modes, lot sizing, safety stock, reorder point planning, and procurement types.
• Knowledge of production-order costing concepts, confirmations, backflushing, variances, WIP, and settlement.
• Solid integration knowledge across MM, SD, QM, EWM/WM, FI/CO, PM, and MES systems.
• Familiarity with SAP Fiori manufacturing apps, embedded analytics, and MRP Live is preferred.
• Experience with PP/DS, embedded PP/DS, advanced planning, or SAP Digital Manufacturing is advantageous.
• Participation in at least one full SAP implementation lifecycle or S/4HANA conversion, including design, configuration, testing, deployment, and support.
• Ability to prepare functional specifications and work effectively with ABAP, integration, data migration, and technical teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Supply Chain, Operations Management, Information Technology, or a related discipline.
• SAP S/4HANA Production Planning certification is preferred.
• Typically 4–8+ years of SAP PP consulting, implementation, or support experience, depending on seniority.
• Experience in manufacturing sectors such as automotive, industrial equipment, consumer products, electronics, chemicals, or life sciences is beneficial.

Key Competencies

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Practical understanding of manufacturing planning, scheduling, and shop-floor operations.
• Ability to balance business requirements with standard SAP capabilities.
• Effective communication with production planners, supervisors, procurement teams, warehouse teams, finance, and IT stakeholders.
• Attention to detail in master data, process controls, testing, and documentation.
• Ability to manage priorities in both project-delivery and production-support environments.

Typical Deliverables

• Current-state and future-state production process maps
• Business requirements and solution design documents
• PP configuration workbooks
• Production master-data templates and migration validation reports
• Functional specifications for enhancements, reports, forms, and interfaces
• Integration design documents
• Test plans, test scripts, and test evidence
• Training manuals and end-user work instructions
• Cutover, go-live, and hypercare support plans
• MRP, capacity, production-performance, and continuous-improvement recommendations