Processing Material Requirements

You can manage material components in networks in various stocks.

Based on the network and settings entered in the material master, you can use the following types of stock:

• Plant stock: managed in general stock. This material is not assigned to any sales order or project. It is available for use by general plant requirements.

• Project stock: viewed from material requirements planning, projects can have their own stock. Individual stock segments are assigned to WBS elements. You can procure the stock for exclusive use by the project, and it is not available for other projects.

• Sales order stock: viewed from material requirements planning, sales orders can have their own stock. Individual stock segments are assigned to sales order items. You can issue this stock only for a specific sales order item.

Material components managed as collective stock are characterized by synchronous quantity and value flows. Each quantity posting, such as a goods receipt, material withdrawal from the warehouse, and delivery, leads to a matching posting in FI/CO.

Projects are affected only by the costs and availability of components directly assigned to them. In the previous figure, component P-FL300 is taken from stock at the inventory value. Production control is responsible for production. The production order handling production of P-FL300 and its costs is not displayed in the project information system, but the reservation and subsequent issue of component P-FL300 to the network are displayed.

Characteristics of valuated project/sales order stock include the following:

• For each goods movement (MM), there is a matching value posting in financial accounting (FI document) and cost accounting (CO document). The planned costs, commitment values, and actual costs for components managed as project or sales order stock display in the order or network.

• Values display at each production level (unlike non-valuated stock, where values from the various levels simply display as costs in the WBS element).

• G/L account determination for project stock is controlled differently from collective stock using specific valuation classes for sales order stock and project stock in the material master.

• In orders, WIP forms in a way similar to collective stock. You do not use results analysis to calculate it (as in non-valuated stock).

  Note

  The results analysis function to display cost of sales by period remains in place.

You can determine if a material can be managed in an individual stock in the Individual/coll. field, which is located in the material master of the MRP detail screen. If you want to manage a material in project stock or sales order stock, you must set this field to Individual requirements only (1) or Individual and collective requirements (blank for both).

• To use sales order stock in a network, enter the sales order item that manages the stock in the network header.

• To use project stock in an activity, assign the activity to the WBS element that manages the stock.

Determine if project stock is permitted for a project in the Control tab of the project definition. The options for project stock include the following:

• No project stock

• Valuated project stock

• Non-valuated project stock

The system copies the default value from the project profile. You can change this value when you create the project. After saving the project, you cannot change this setting for project stock. The setting applies to all WBS elements created for this project definition.

If you work with project stock, the WBS structure needs to resemble the BOM structure of the product to be produced or the assembly BOM of the asset. If the WBS structure does not meet these criteria, the assignment of components to WBS elements often differs from the assignment of network activities to WBS elements.

When you assign a material component, the system determines stock management and settlement. Stock management and settlement depend on the assignment of the network and the settings in the material master. If various stocks are permitted, a dialog box prompts you to determine the stock type that needs to be used. The stock type that you select determines the account assignment category of the component.

Items that are procured directly (non-stock) are not assigned to a stock segment. They do not pass through a warehouse. You settle the costs to the consuming object, which is either the network activity (activity-assigned networks) or the network header (header-assigned networks) in the Project System. If the material is procured in a production order, you settle the costs to the production order.

You cannot use an individual stock if the dependent requirements indicator for the material is set to Collective requirements only. The same applies if the network or activity is not assigned to an object that manages an individual stock (a sales order item or WBS element with individual stock). The account assignment category that you entered in Customizing for the Project System, under Material→Procurement→Check Acct Asst Types and Document Types for Purchase Reqs in the acct. assgnmt gen. field, is used.

These account assignment categories and item categories are examples from the SAP standard system. You can use various values with the same settings.

The component detail screen reflects the processing parameters that you have assigned to the requirement.

• The item category determines the procurement process. Stock processes use item category L.

• The Indiv./coll. requirements indicator from the material master displays. For this example, the individual requirements indicator <blank> is assigned, requiring the use of either project or sales order stock or plant stock.

• Account assignment category Q is selected based on the requirement to use project stock management for this component. This account assignment category is determined through a configuration table, which determines the account assignment category to assign to the component when project stock management is determined.

• The project definition determines that values stock is to be used, which is reflected with an M for valuation.

The component detail screen for purchasing reflects data about the planned cost for the component.

• You see the planned price of the component.

• You see The G/L account for the consumption of the component selected by account determination for movement type 281.

• You see that theCost relevancy indicator is selected by the system. This indicator determines that the component cost is included in the planned costs of the network. It has no bearing on the actual cost postings.

Tables for MM Integration

You can keep materials allocated to activities in a network in various stocks. Depending on your project, you can access different types of stock for materials planning.

Sales order stock and project stock are important for controlling purposes (for monitoring the stock value in a sales order or project). They are also important for MRP (the stocks are reserved for the sales order item or WBS element; other stock cannot access them).

You manage the various stock types for each material component using the account assignment category. You define the account assignment category when you assign the material to the network activity (the dialog box in manual assignment, strategies in the BOM-PS interface, and the standard network).

The possible account assignment categories depend on the assignment of the network activity to a stock object (WBS element or sales order item), the item category for the assignment (direct procurement for non-stock items), and the material master for which you can exclude collective or individual stock management.

As of SAP R/3 4.5A, you can use MRP elements (grouping) to manage a joint project stock for an entire project or for several projects. This is a rougher method than managing stock for individual WBS elements.

Maintain the possible account assignment categories for network purchase requisitions in Customizing.