Material
Every good you manufacture, sell, or purchase requires a matching digital master record within the SAP system. Therefore, you create a material master.
The material master contains all information about a good that a company designs, purchases, manufactures, stores, and sells. For each good of a company, a material master record is created, which is identified by a material number, a material type, and industry sector.
The material contains information about materials that a company:
- Designs
- Purchases
- Produces
- Stores
- Sells
The material has a hierarchical structure that covers the following engineering organizational levels:
- Client
- Plant
- Storage location
General engineering data that is valid for the entire enterprise is stored at client level. It includes the base unit of measure, material descriptions, basic material, or general technical data.
Data for a plant is stored at plant level. It includes, for example, material requirements planning (MRP) data and forecast data.
At storage location level, you store all the data that is valid for a specific storage location.
The material can be a finished product (product or article), a semifinished product (subassembly), a raw material (purchased part), or something else.
Product Master
Within an SAP S/4HANA environment, you can process the material master using two different apps. On the one hand, you can use the material master app, which is also available in an ECC system, or you work with the Product Master app, which is only available in SAP S/4HANA and in the SAP Fiori launchpad.
Watch the following video to get a better understanding of how material master data is viewed within a company.
The product master is split into a main working area and an additional data level. The data in the main working area includes data like dimensions, descriptions, or base units of measure.
Data that is valid enterprise-wide is also stored at this data level.
The following are some of the Material/Product types that are delivered:
Finished Product (FERT)
Finished products are produced in-house. Since they cannot be ordered by purchasing, a material master record of this material type does not contain purchasing data.
Semifinished Products (HALB)
Semifinished products can be procured externally and manufactured in-house. They are then processed by the company. A material master record of this material type can contain both purchasing and work scheduling data.
Configurable Materials (KMAT)
Configurable materials are materials that can have different variants. For example, an automobile can have different types of paintwork, trims, and engines. The material is configurable, so the indicator is already set for this material type in Customizing.
Raw Materials (ROH)
Raw materials are always procured externally and then processed. A material master record of this type contains purchasing data, but not sales data since they cannot be sold.
Trading Goods (HAWA)
Trading goods are always procured externally and then sold. A material master record of this material type can contain purchasing data and sales data.
Material Status
The material status enables the use of a material in downstream logistics applications to be controlled precisely. The material status determines whether a material is locked for specific business transactions or it can be used with a warning message. In this way, materials can be allowed for use as a BOM header material, and prohibited for use as an item material.
A cross-plant material status can be defined at the basic data level, and a plant-specific status can be defined at the work scheduling level. A cross-plant status is valid across the entire company for all plants, while the plant-specific status is only valid for the use of the material in one particular plant.
Statuses are hierarchical. The error message overrides the warning message and the warning message overrides "No Message".