Explaining Personal and Functional Material

SAP uses the term personal and functional equipment to describe the materials that are issued to defense personnel during their service in the defense organization. This can be uniforms and other pieces of clothing and more technical materials such as weapons, compasses, shovels, knives, etc.

Personal EQ - The following explanation it is not 100% correct but good enough: The personal EQ is what a person carries and moves with also f.e. to a new unit. Functional EQ is equipment belonging to the unit. When the person arrives to the new unit he receives the Functional Equipment but when he leaves, he needs to also leave the Functional Equipment at the unit's warehouse.

Authorizations are used here to enable the logistics processes. One needs to have an overview of how many shirts are needed at a certain unit.

The process and technology for issuing and returning personal and Functional Equipment is the same for both personal and Functional Equipment.

The (main) difference between the two are the following:

• Personal Equipment is not part of the authorized actual comparison that is carried out for Force Elements. (We do not track how many shirts or socks we have given out to a soldier, since we probably will not get it back to our Force Element since it is a Personal Equipment). Moreover, it is typical that the personal equipment is not issued from the unit in which the soldier serves, but rather by a central storage delaying with the clothing of all the units around it.
• Functional equipment is however part of the authorized actual comparison. (We really want to track how many radios or rifles we have given out to soldiers since they belong to our Unit)

In the AAC, the authorized quantity describes a Force Elements' entitlements that is what the Force Element (including persons assigned to the respective force elements) should have in terms of number of materials to be able to fulfill its mission. The actuals are the quantity of materials that Force Elements currently have physically available; this includes functional equipment issued to persons. The authorized/actual comparison describes the force element's readiness relative to the availability of authorized material.

Equipment Entitlements are assigned to Force Elements or Positions.

The Equipment is issued to a Person as a loaned item

• It is recorded on their personal equipment card.
• The person is held accountable for the issue material.

The authorized and actual part of position and personnel assignment was already discussed in an earlier part. We are now building on this foundation the personal and functional equipment concept.

Flexible Material Planning Objects (FMPOs) are assigned to positions to represent material entitlements of individual positions;

The assignment of FMPOs to positions and/or Force Element represents the authorized quantities of the equipment; these quantities are inherited by the persons holding the respective positions.

The Actual materials are the materials that a Force Element or person holds, i.e. which are kept in stock with the Force Element in question or have been issued to persons.

FMPOs can be assigned to a Force Element or a positions. Grouped FMPOs assigned to positions are recommended to reduce maintenance and management overhead

The armoury typically issue rifles, pistols and others.

The Quartermasters store typically issue all other functional equipment such as tents, sleeping bags, combat vests and so on.

• The list of the materials to be issued can be filled in the following ways:
  • Manually (entering or scanning material number and quantity)
  • Automatically (based on the entitlement definition)
  • BADIs are available for customer specific implementation
  • Transferring items from the inventory overview into the list
• The issued equipment is loaned to the individual to perform his/her role, the equipment is expected to be returned by the planned return date.

Equipment can be issued to persons irrespective of whether they are assigned to a position or force element.

The list of materials can be pre-populated with reference to authorized quantities of a persons which can be customized via a available BAdIs; the user also the option to transfer equipment from a built-in stock overview as well as manually select items for issue.

When the equipment / materials are issued to a person they are actually transfer-posted from unrestricted-use stock to project stock. Thus the material in question cannot be used / considered for other purposes such as MRP runs or maintenance orders.

• In the identification screen the following fields are mandatory:
  • Force Element or Personnel number (BADI available for barcode)
  • Position Start / End Date
  • Issuing Plant
  • Issuing Storage Location
  • WBS Element
  • Issue Date
  • Return Date
• The positions start/end date selection enable to evaluate equipment authorizations for a future position posting, such as issuing rank slides for a promotion in advance.
• It is possible to evaluate authorizations for specific usage type such as Operations or Exercises.

In addition the user can limit his selection either by entering Personnel Number or Force Elements. Both of which can be entered as a from and to range.

The user must also specify the following:

• Issuing Plant. The plant form which the functional equipment will be issued.
• Issuing Storage Location. The storage location from where the functional equipment will be issued.
• WBS Element. The WBS element to which the stock of the functional equipments will be posted.
• Issue Date. The date of the goods issue. This would normally be todays date.
• Return Date. The date we expect to receive the functional equipment back from the person.

Additional data that can be specified:

• Authorized Equipment. By selecting this check box the user will get a list of the Functional Equipments that the user is authorized to have.
• Delivery. Selecting the Delivery check box will result in the creation of a Delivery note. The goods issue must be carried out through the processing of the delivery note.

• The Material Selection screens allows the user to enter the Functional Equipment to be issued or to select from the Authorized Functional Equipment. In this example we see Authorized quantities.
  • Serialized materials are displayed on a separate line so that the serial number can be selected
  • The system calculates the quantity for each material based on:
    • Authorized Equipment for the identified person
    • Equipment already issued to the identified person
    • Equipment available in the Storage Location
• Quantity = Minimum (

The user can remove materials to be issued or adjust the quantities.

Before completing the goods issue the user can check if the entered data is correct by clicking the Check List button. Furthermore by clicking the Check Posting the system will verify that the actual material document posting and/or Delivery note posting will be allowed.

A BADI is available to support barcode scanning of materials into this screen.

• Two applications for Return are available
  • Equipment Return for one selected Person
  • Equipment Return for multiple selected Persons - The identical materials are returned from all Persons
• The Return Process is posting dependent on the selected Return Code
  • Return - A transfer from project stock to unrestricted stock
  • Lost / Damaged - The best practice for scrapping of lost or unrepairable damaged items is to have a follow-on business process after the item is transferred from project stock to stock and not directly
  • Consumption - A movement from project stock into consumption
• The data of the Equipment Return is updating the corresponding Issue record of a person in the PA0800 infotype.

There is one webdynpro application for return of Personal Equipment and one for return of Functional Equipment. These webdynpros are used for returning materials from a single person. There are also 2 webdynpros available for mass return.

Another type of "Return" is a transfer to another soldier, for example, when one finishes an assignment and has a successor nominated for his position.

• The identification screen of the return application works in a similar way to the issue application. The personnel selection is carried out by personnel number or force element.
• The materials to be returned can be determined automatically or by manual input. The automatic determination is based on the content of info type PA0800. Only materials with status ISSD – Issued will be selected.