Note
Explain the business use of a variant configurable product - a product sold with one product code, the material master number. Customers can order a range of options for these products. Common examples of such products are automobiles, computers, and motorcycles.
The most common queries about these products relate to their costing and standards. You cannot create a cost estimate that contains all possible options for a product. It should not calculate the cost of a car that includes all available options, such as leather seats, cloth seats, two doors, four doors, manual transmission, and automatic transmission. To facilitate this, a standard variation of the product can be created that includes a selection of common variants. For this product, a new product master is created and this is considered as a configured product. It is linked to the configurable product through the material master record.
Variant Configuration: Options
The exact combination of the product options is not determined until the sales order is placed.
The figure shows an example of a product with multiple variants and the characteristics that affect the composition of the product.
A product with many variants often has dependencies between its characteristic values.
The complexity of a product is reflected in the configuration tasks that have to be carried out for it in sales and production. Companies that sell or produce products with variants must perform these configuration tasks as efficiently and quickly as possible.
Variant Configuration: Concepts I
In the material master for T-FC00, go to Basic Data 2 to see the setting: 
Material is Configurable.
Note
It is also possible to stock configurable items.
Note
If you try to create a cost estimate for T-FC00, you will get an error (as expected).
Products with multiple variants are represented by configurable materials. A configured material is assigned to one or more classes for which the SAP classification system is used. A class contains characteristics, which may have a range of characteristic values. You can describe the attributes of a configurable product using user-specific characteristics and characteristic values. The material is configured from the selection of characteristics and values.
Variant Configuration: Concept II
The system uses object dependencies to connect the selected characteristic values to the components required to produce the variant. The necessary BOM can be created from the entries for the PC equipment.
You can also insert object dependencies that enable only valid combinations of characteristics to be selected. This enables you to display the dependencies between characteristics and characteristic values.
Costing of Configured Materials
When the sales order is booked, a cost estimate is created. When the 1st goods movement occurs, the estimate is marked and released.
Components are entered in a super BOM rather than creating a separate BOM for each product characteristic.
To manufacture variants of the configurable product, a super routing is required. For example, with the BOM, operations are selected through a concrete characteristic value, such as Engine 1600.
You can cost and save each characteristic of the configurable material by creating your own configured materials that specify the configurable product. Enter the configuration in the configured product and use it to explode the super BOM and task list.