Managing Material BOM Changes with a Change Record

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to use a Change Record to maintain a Material BOM.

Material BOM Changes: Change Record Method

When and Why to Use Change Records

The SAP Change Record offers comprehensive advantages for managing engineering and product changes in a structured, controlled way. Here are the key benefits:

  • Structured Change Process: Change Records provide a formal framework for requesting, checking, and releasing changes with defined business processes
  • Status Network Administration: Built-in status management ensures changes progress through proper approval stages before implementation
  • Workflow Coordination: Automated workflow management coordinates information flow through different activities, ensuring the right task reaches the right person at the right time

The following video shows a typical process, including the role of each user, for changing a material BOM with a Change Record.

Applicable Process Steps

As you just saw, the process steps for a change record include:

  • Development Manager: Creates Change Record
  • BOM Engineer: Reviews change request
  • BOM Engineer: Assigns Material BOMs and Products
  • Development Manager: Assigns Documents and attachments
  • Development Manager: Approves or rejects Change Record
  • BOM Engineer: Performs product master changes
  • BOM Engineer: Releases Material BOM changes in Change Record
  • Development Manager: Releases Change Record

Benefits

Product Change Management with Change Records enables you to:

  • Handle various object types with and without change numbers and model workflows flexibly
  • Gain transparency with visual workflow capability combined with a status-driven change control
  • Improve efficiency with all change information in one easy-to-navigate place
  • Get a single source of truth of all the data involved in a change
  • Drive the change process efficiently through best practices and workflow templates
  • Allow ad-hoc communication with stakeholders
  • Leverage insights from engineering cockpit

Note

This process flow is covered in scope Item 64E- Product Change Management with Change Records - Discrete Industries.

How to Manage Material BOMs with a Change Record

Introduction: Material BOM Changes with a Change Record

Product Change Management with Change Records flexibly coordinates the management of changes. It can process several types of objects that are affected by changes, for example: Materials, BOMs, Routings and Documents. The Change Record keeps all information in one place. The progress of the change is controlled by a dedicated status management and the change process is supported by workflow capabilities. Comments during the change process enable effective communication with all involved parties.

Task 1: Create a Change Record

Development Manager John creates a Change Record. BOM Engineer Samar adds a material BOM.

The change process comes with a status scenario. Statuses are defined for both change record and Material BOM.

Task 2: Maintain Material BOM Changes

Samar makes necessary Material BOM changes. The changes are not made with the Change Record, but with a normal Change Number. This number was created automatically inside the Change Record.

Finally, John releases the Change Record.

Summary

After completing this lesson, you are able to:

  • name the benefits of using a Change Record
  • define a Change Record inside a SAP system
  • perform material BOM changes with a Change Record

Learning

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