Performance issue in CIF integration models

Hi Gurus,

We are implementing SAP SCM GATP with SAP IS Retail. The typical characteristics of retail industry like

a.     No Manufacturing activity
b.     Very high no. of SKUs
c.     Very high no. of Plants [DC and Stores]
d.     More no. of MARC table entries
e.     More no. of sales orders as well as purchase orders cycles

Currently we are doing performance testing. So applying the full data load in the system

[Nearly 30000 SKUs and 126 Plants; DCs + Stores]

During Integration Models creation, I had observed that system is taking too much time. In some cases it is taking more than 40000 seconds [More than 10 hours] for CFM1 transaction. I had scheduled the backorder jobs for the same as it is giving dump in the foreground. Whereas CMF2 is not taking much time and completes within few seconds to few minutes.

1. Customization                                - No performance issue

2. Plant                                               - No performance issue

3. Plant - Product                                - No performance issue

4. Plant - Product - ATP                      - No performance issue

5. Customer                                        - No performance issue

6. Plant - Product - Stock                    - Performance issue

7. Plant - Product - Sales order           - Performance issue

8. Plant - Product - Purchase Order    - Performance issue

In this process I had deactivated and deleted some these integration models. Then I had recreated these IMs. During recreation I had noticed that some of the IMs had taken only couple of seconds. Initially these IMs had taken > 10000 seconds in the background processing. While remaining IMs had taken the similar time for recreations.

I am unable to predict the behaviour of the system. I am having couple of questions -

1. Is SAP SCM APO is capable enough to handle such a large volume of data?

2. Why there is abrupt change in the processing time for CFM1 for same integration models?

3. Once the initial load is performed via CFM1 and CFM2, do I need to repeat the same process? In other words, what

    should be ideal frequency to run CFM1 and CMF2? I have read somewhere these IMs are to be recreated everyday.

4. What about the new article creation?

5. How the performance could be improved further?

6. If any one has experience of GATP implementation with IS retail then requesting you to please share your experiences

    as well as issues.

Thanks to you all in advance.

Piyush