Structured Articles

Structured articles are made up of several different articles. You have to enter the components as well as the quantities in which they appear in the bill of material of the respective structured article, which serves as a (dummy) header article for the components.

The Display is a quantity of single articles or variants of one or more generic articles. A display is purchased as an individual article. Therefore, it has its own article number, a purchase price and purchase price conditions. Displays are made up by the manufacturer or vendor, and often come with packaging that can be used to present the merchandise on the sales floor.

The Sales set is a quantity of single articles or variants of one or more generic articles. It is sold as an individual article. Therefore, it has its own article number, a sales price and sales price conditions.

Purchasing sets are already in the form of a set when the articles are purchased, are either managed as a set right through the supply chain, or managed on component level in inventory management. They can be sold as a set or as single articles. This means, for example, a wheelbarrow is ordered and posted, components (trough, frame and wheel) are delivered, which can be sold in the store as a wheelbarrow (set) or as individual articles. If all processes (purchasing, logistics, and sales) always only take place at the set level, then this combination of articles could be maintained as a single article as well.

A Prepack is a quantity of variants of one or more generic articles. A prepack is purchased as an individual article. Therefore, it has its own article number, a purchase price and purchase price conditions. Unlike displays, the components in prepacks must belong to the same merchandise category as the prepack itself.

Further settings for structured articles can be found under the following menu path in Customizing Logistics - General→Material Master→Retail-Specific Settings→Settings for Structured Materials.

When you use bills of material for empties for a full product, the system checks whether the BOM Usage indicator has been set in the basic data of the full product (in other words, whether there is a bill of material or whether one can be created).

As a rule, a sales set is a combination of separate articles for the purpose of defining a total sales price. The sales set components can often be sold as separate articles at the same time.

From the purchasing point of view, sales sets are usually not ordered as such, but the component articles are. They could even be procured from different vendors. From a sales point of view, the sales set is to be considered as a header article that has a sales price and a tax code.

Sales set components can be considered as individual articles. They may belong to different merchandise categories and have different tax codes. The set itself, however, can only have one tax rate

Inventory is managed at component level, if the components can be sold separately. It can also be carried out at set level. In Customizing, you can define the Inventory Management level, that is define Inventory management on component or header level.

Another form is the price set: The set is only created for the purpose of assigning a common sales price. This price is generally lower than the total of the components' sales prices which can basically all be sold individually. The components are not physically combined by means of packaging.

If sets and the articles contained in them are sold individually in the store (for example, cases and a set of three cases), then you should carry the stock on the individual article level (components). The component stock decreases as the sets are sold. Any profit losses incurred by the sale of the set are posted to a separate account (POS inbound).

A display is a grouping of articles, normally defined by the manufacturer or vendor. The display usually has a common purchasing price and is purchased as a display. As a rule, the display is shipped in a certain packaging, which can be used to present the merchandise on the sales floor.

It is not until the display reaches the stores that it is split up into its individual components for sale to the consumer. Displays are often used in promotions. Usually, they are not ordered directly by the stores, but are allocated to the stores centrally.

As a rule, inventory is managed in the stores at individual component level, as they sell the individual components to consumers. In the distribution centers, it is managed on header level (display), as they ship complete displays to stores or wholesale customers. You can determine in Customizing at which level the system should do the inventory split of the display.

A prepack can be composed by the retailer, the manufacturer or the vendor. Prepacks are mostly used in the fashion line of business. In retail, prepacks are only sold in their individual components, whereas in wholesale, they are sold as complete prepacks.

Inventory is usually managed in the store on individual component level, and in the distribution center, it is managed on prepack level. The splitting type can be set in Customizing and the system then automatically carries out the inventory posting at the defined level (that is, at component- or header level).

Prepacks are created in the Material Create transaction (MM41) with the article category Prepack. Bills of material are used to assign generic articles with their variants. You call the bills of material maintenance by selecting the Components button in the Basic Data view. Then enter a generic article. Choose Continue. The system automatically sets the variants of this generic article. You now only have to enter the required quantities.

If you have maintained a distribution curve for the generic article (transaction FSH_DC_MAINTAIN), you can use the distribution curve to have the system automatically determine the quantities of the prepack´s components. Therefore, you call the bills of material maintenance by selecting the Components button in the Basic Data view (transaction MM41). Then enter a generic article, a total quantity and select the available distribution curve. The system automatically distributes the total quantity according to the ratio as maintained in the distribution curve to the variants of this generic article.

Further details about the prepacks will be provided in the next lesson.

In this Customizing view, you can determine the system behavior for the structured article categories and site categories in purchase orders, and for inventory management (goods receipt).

Transaction key 100, Purchase Order: On article category/site category level, you determine if the bill of material components should be displayed in the purchase order (split type 1), or if only the header article (structured article) should be shown (split type 0). In purchase orders, displaying the bill of material components is purely informative.

Transaction key 200, Goods Receipt: These settings determine the inventory management level. Split type 1 means that the inventory is managed on component level, split type 0 means it is managed on the structured article (header) level. Based on these settings, the system either assigns the stock to the structured article, or to the component articles during the goods receipt posting.

Additionally to the control by article and site category, you can determine the split / no split behavior at the following levels: distribution chain, individual sites, individual structured articles.

Sets, displays, prepacks and empties are structured articles that consist of several components. In the bill of material, you not only specify the components, but also the quantities in which the components are contained in the structured article.

The bill of material usage key defines the enterprise areas, in which a bill of material can be used (for example production, sales). It controls the processing in the downstream work areas.

The item category controls the classification of the item in a bill of material according to set criteria, such as the object reference (article master record) or the inventory management. This enables item-relevant data to be processed for the bill of material. You can for example control field selection, default values in bill of material maintenance or special system activities with the item category that you select.

For example, for an item category such as a stock item, you can maintain article data which enables inventory management.

The settings for structured articles maintenance can be defined in customizing.

An empties article is a form of returnable transport packaging or sales packaging that is usually subject to a deposit. The empties article is assigned to a full product per unit of measure.

You can flag a full product by setting the With bill of material for empties indicator in the article master record when you are creating the basic data screen. The bill of material for empties shows the relationship between a full product and an empties article:

When assigning the empties articles to the full product, the full product and the unit of measure together make up the BOM header. The empties articles that you have assigned form the components. In the following example, the mineral water (full product) is maintained in units of measure each (single bottle), and crate (crate containing 6 bottles). So, two empties bills of material are created: one for unit of measure each, with one empties bottle, and another one for unit of measure crate, with one empties crate, and 6 empties bottles.

The individual BOM components and the full product itself all have their own article master record.

In the standard SAP Retail system, you create an empties article as a single article with the article type Empties and a full product as a single article too, or variant of a generic article, with the article type Full products.

If you are listing a full product that is assigned an empties article, then the empties article will also automatically be listed.

You can only move goods with tied empties when you have activated empties processing in Customizing. Inventory management distinguishes between tied stock (empties stock containing the relevant full product), and untied stock (empties stock which for example can be returned to the supplier for re-fill).

When you activate the empties processing, stock fields that are necessary for updating the tied empties stock are initialized.

It is possible to create structured articles with components that are full products with an empties bill of materials. So this is a 2–level bill of material considering the empties requirement. Typical examples are a display of different flavors of yogurts (full product), with the yogurt glasses as the empties articles, or a mixed pallet (display) of various beverages such as sodas in different flavors (full products) with their empties (bottles, crates). In addition, for example, a sales set containing beverages (as full products) with empties and a drinking glass can be created. These articles are fully supported in the retail processes.

A prerequisite for using the 2–level bill of material in SD processes is that in the sales view of the structured article, the item category group ERLB is assigned.

The unit of measure specific bill of material of a structured article with full products and empties is always displayed with all components in a purchase order, irrespective of the customizing settings in Structured Material in Logistics Process for transaction key 100 — Purchase order. However, the customizing settings for transaction key 200 — Goods receipt, that is, for inventory management on the structured article or on the component level (value 0 or 1), are considered.

Articles are typically traded in different units of measure. Each article must have a so-called base unit of measure (for example, each, piece, kg) and can in addition have other unit of measures that are multiples of the base unit. If there is a need to keep inventory in a DC separated by unit of measures (for example, half-pallets and pallets of canned peas) or in case that some stores are only able to order/receive certain unit of measures (for example, store 1: cartons of 12, store 2: cartons of 24 of canned peas) – to do so the regular unit of measure concept is not sufficient. The concept of "Logistical Products" enables companies to manage articles in different unit of measures in a location. Therefore, we differentiate between Sales Product and Procurement Product (those representing logistical units of measure). The Logistical Product is the combination of Sales Product (for example, with piece as base unit) and Procurement Products (for example, procurement product 1: pallets with 4 cartons of 7 pieces, procurement product 2: half-pallets with 20 pieces).

The sales product is created via Create Article app or classic article maintenance transaction (MM41) and includes all unit of measures and GTINs. It is the sellable unit in the stores. It also can be used for procurement using the default order unit (as defined in the article master).

Procurement products are created via Create Procurement Products app and include relevant unit of measures of the sales product. Procurement products represent the order units. The GTINs of the packaging hierarchy path between order unit and issue unit are moved from the sales product to the procurement products. They are assigned to sites and vendors via Assign Logistical Products app in case they shall be used in procurement processes. Otherwise, the sales product is used as default for the procurement.

Technical information about the data model:

• The Procurement Product is modelled as Display; the component of the Display is the Sales Product.
• The units of measures of a Product are stored in table MARM.
• There is a link between the Procurement Products to the Sales Products. (Table MARA).
• The information which vendor can provide which Procurement Product is stored in the Purchasing Info Records (Tables EINA and EINE and additionally tables of the condition technique for the prices).
• The information which DC can provide which Procurement Products is stored in the Source List. (Table EORD).
• The information which Procurement Product can be ordered by which store is stored in the Source List. (Table EORD).
• The information which supplying site delivers which Product for a store is stored in the Site Maintenance (default value in table WRF3) and in the Source List.

Conceptual approach / data model:

• The Procurement Products do not require listing; the relevant MARC record is generated within Assign Logistical Products app.
• The BOM of the Procurement Product and the conversion factors of the units of the measure of the Sales Product cannot be changed after the Procurement Product has been created.
• The Sales Product itself can still be ordered; it can also act as a Procurement Product.
• It is possible to start with single articles. And once the need to create a Logistical Products arises, the Procurement Products can be created then.

Logistical products support the logistical processes material requirements planning (MRP) / rapid replenishment, purchase / stock transfer order, in- / outbound delivery, goods receipt / issue, incoming invoice, allocation table as well as collective purchase order. The usage of full products as logistical products is possible.