Analyzing Manufacturing Master Data

Material master records must be created for the materials that are produced and procured in a company.

For example, for the bicycle production in our bicycle company, material master records are created for the finished bicycles, for the required assemblies that are produced in-house, such as frames or wheels, and for raw materials to be procured via purchasing, such as chains or metal tubes.

For example, for the paint production, material master records are created for the product "bike paint in cans," for the required semifinished materials that are produced in-house, such as basic paint, and for raw materials to be procured via purchasing, such as pigments or cans.

In the material master record of each item, planning data, procurement data, execution-relevant data, and so on, are maintained.

The material components required for finished products and semifinished materials are to be defined via bills of materials (BOMs).

The BOM for a bicycle manufactured in our bicycle company can, for example, consist of the material components frame, wheel, chain, and further components. Semifinished materials, such as the frame of a bicycle or the basic paint, themselves have a BOM, which results in multilevel BOM structures.

The BOM for the bike paint manufactured in our bicycle company consists, for example, of the material components basic paint, pigment, and can. Semifinished materials, such as the basic paint, themselves have a BOM, which results in multilevel BOM structures.

You furthermore define in a BOM how many components or what component quantities are required to assemble or produce a product. For example, one bike requires the assembly of two wheels, front and rear wheel, respectively, or, as another example, the production of 1000 cans of bike paint requires 1000 l of basic paint, 100-kg pigment, and 1000 cans.

Routings in discrete manufacturing or repetitive manufacturing define in detail the operations to be carried out to manufacture a finished product or an assembly. For example, a routing for the production of a bicycle can consist of the operations pre-assembly, assembly, and quality inspection.

A work center is assigned to each operation to define the physical location where this operation is to be processed. By assigning a work center, you also specify costing-relevant and planning-relevant parameters for the individual operations since the master record of a work center contains essential information that is used for capacity planning, scheduling, and costing. In our example, the pre-assembly of the bike is executed at work center Assembly I and the operation Assembly is executed at work center Assembly II.

Furthermore, production resources/tools (PRTs) can be assigned to an operation. A production resource/tool assigned in the operation Assembly can, for example, be a detailed Assembly Instruction illustrating the main assembly steps to the worker.

The previous figure shows the structure of a master recipe in process manufacturing.

The master recipe header contains data that is valid for the whole recipe. Operations describe the different steps required during the production process. For a more detailed description of these steps, phases are assigned to the operations. For example, a master recipe for the production of bike paint can have two operations with the three phases each. The phases’ processing sequence in time is defined in relationships.

A resource is assigned to each operation to define the machine, the plant section, or the physical location where this operation is to be processed. Exactly one resource is assigned to an operation. This assignment of the resource is also valid for all phases that belong to the operation. By assigning a resource, you also specify costing-relevant and planning-relevant parameters for the individual phases since the master record of a resource contains essential information that is used for capacity planning, scheduling, and costing of process orders.

The material list is made up of components representing the materials entering and leaving the production process and their planned quantities. The components in the material list correspond to the components of the BOM assigned to the recipe via the production version. The material list also defines the assignment of these material components to the phases of the recipe according to their planned appearance in the process. During order scheduling, the system calculates the start and end date of each phase in the process order. The date to which a material must be staged on the shop floor corresponds to the start date of the phase where the respective material is assigned to. Following this approach, you can ensure that materials are only staged on the shop floor once they are required by the production process.

A production order in discrete manufacturing, a process order in process manufacturing, or a planned order in repetitive manufacturing is always created with reference to a production version of the corresponding finished product or semifinished material.

In discrete or repetitive manufacturing, a production version defines which routing with which BOM is to be used for the production order or the planned order.

In process manufacturing, a production version defines which master recipe in combination with which BOM is to be used for the process order.

In each case, a suitable production version is automatically selected when the order is created according to criteria such as production quantity and production time.

In SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, the use of production versions is mandatory and there must exist at least one production version for a manufactured product. As displayed in the figure, it is possible to assign one or more production versions to the same manufactured material. However, the same routing, master recipe, or BOM can be reused in multiple production versions.