Hi Almas,
There can be three type of planners in APO (/sapapo/planner)
PP/DS planner is a person who is responsible for a finite production plan based on capacity and material constraints. This planner would see if there is any capacity shortage or production date is as per the requirement i.e if the PPDS planned orders are available to early or they are too late, etc..
SNP planner is a person who is responsible for a finite plan for a material/s in a network. SNP planner ensures that all the demand is met i.e. there are sufficient planned orders to meet the demand on the required date. Also the planner will look into alerts for possible issues such as drop in demand, excess planning, later orders etc.
DP planner is a person who is responsible for ensure that the forecast is accurate i.e. it corresponds to the demand pattern. Because if the forecast is on the higher than the demand there would surplus inventory. If forecast is on the lower side of the demand, then there would be shortage of inventory.
Depending upon the organization one person can play the role for DP/SNP/PPDS planner or there could be different people for different roles.
These planners are then assigned in the respective views in the product master.
Since each planner is responsible for a set of materials, planner codes comes in handy when setting up variants for the background jobs. They are very effective filters. Instead of maintaining entire set of products in the variants for a planner we can simply maintain the planner code. Another advantage of using this approach is that whenever you have a new material for a planner you don't need to the new material to the variant. It will be automatically picked.
Do give the points if the reply helped you in any way.
Thanks,
Asim