Explaining Master Data in Supply Chain Planning

Next, you want to familiarize yourself with the necessary master data for planning with PP/DS in SAP S/4HANA.

The locations used in supply chain planning are created in SAP S/4HANA: plants, distribution centers (DCs), vendors, customers. Supply chain planning deals with materials, which are defined in the form of material masters. For the plants used for production, you must also create work centers, BOMs and task lists in addition to the materials for planning.

You can use special procurement types to define transportation lanes between the individual locations (that is, the plants, vendors, and so on) in the supply chain. These transportation lanes define the flow of materials along the supply chain.

The supply relationship between a vendor and a plant is created in SAP S/4HANA in the form of a purchasing info record or an outline agreement.

A plant is an organizational unit that subdivides an enterprise according to production, procurement, keeping stock, or planning materials. A plant can produce materials or provide goods and services. For a plant, you must specify an address, a language, a country assignment and a plant calendar.

In former releases (for example, SAP/ECC), it was possible to distinguish plants and distribution center based on the node type assigned using customizing. This assignment did not have any impact of the usage of these elements. It was only in indicator of the icon type the plant was displayed in a graphical front-end. This opportunity does not exist any longer - it was simplified in SAP S/4HANA.

You can define one or more storage locations within a plant. A storage location specifies where a material is stored. Storage locations therefore allow you to differentiate between the material stocks in a plant.

The master data objects for customers and vendors are stored in the SAP S/4HANA system as business partners. They allow you to control various processes in sales and distribution or purchasing. These locations do not generally affect the individual functions of supply chain planning, but are nevertheless important when the plans are converted.

The sources for external procurement can be determined during material requirements planning.

You plan your material flow along the supply chain at material level. Materials are defined in corresponding material master records.

A material master contains global data, which is valid across all locations (for example, data that is the same for this material in all production plants), and location-specific data, which contains settings for the relevant location (for example, a specific production plant). General data such as the measurements or the weight of a material is set globally, whereas settings for planning are usually predefined locally. This data may therefore differ, depending on the location.

The most important settings for Supply Chain Planning are contained in material requirements planning views 1 to 4 of the SAP S/4HANA material master.

The MRP type specifies how a material is to be planned (MRP, consumption-based planning, or no planning).

The lot-sizing procedure determines the lot size of each of the procurement proposals. The procurement type is used to determine whether a material is to be produced in-house or procured externally. The in-house production time or planned delivery time specifies how long procurement will last.

You can also set a safety stock.

The BOM header contains the settings that apply for the whole BOM. BOM usage determines the business applications for which a BOM can be used. The status of the BOM controls whether the BOM is active for particular applications (MRP, for example).

Multiple BOMs consisting of several alternative BOMs can exist in addition to simple BOMs. Each of the different alternative BOMs can then be valid for one of the different lot-size areas, for example.

The components required to produce the finished product are entered as items in the BOM. The item category specifies the kind of item you are dealing with. Stock items are managed in the warehouse and used in production. In contrast, non-stock items are directly assigned to a manufacturing order (and not via the warehouse). Variable-size items contain variable-size data (a steel sheet with a particular surface area, for example) and finally, document items contain a supplementary document that describes production (a kind of design and construction diagram).

The individual items can also contain many other settings that only refer to that particular item.

A work center is where an operation or an activity is carried out in a plant. Therefore, it specifies where production ultimately takes place. Work centers are used in routings and can also be used in networks, inspection plans (Quality Management) or in maintenance routings.

A work center is generally a specific geographical location in the plant, for example, a specific machine or department.

The data of the work center is assigned according to thematic views. In particular, the available capacity of the particular work center and the data needed to calculate the costing of work completed are stored in the work center. The default values define data that has to be transferred into the operation of the routing or used as a reference.

A routing contains the work steps required to carry out production. These include the relevant operations, the sequence in which they occur, and the work centers at which these operations are to be performed.

An SAP S/4HANA routing can be defined using the routing group and the group counter. Moreover, the routing contains the reference to the material whose production it describes. A routing can contain parallel or alternative sequences in addition to the standard sequence.

Alongside the standard values, the routing also contains the time elements that are relevant for scheduling operations. Note that each operation in the routing can have its own base quantity to which these time elements refer.

A work center is assigned to an SAP S/4HANA operation. The work center uses its standard value key to specify the time elements (standard values) that can be taken into consideration during the planning process (for example, setup time, machine time, labor time). The scheduling formulas stored in the work center determine the duration from the time elements specified in the routings.

The setup, processing, and teardown of an SAP S/4HANA operation are all described using a corresponding formula. The steps for which a formula is defined are executed (for example, teardown may not be necessary).

If a number of capacities are stored in a work center, the scheduling basis is used to determine which of these capacities is relevant for the scheduling process.

Production is described by a routing and a bill of material. In this case, the BOM components can be assigned to a specific operation. The procurement of these components is then planned at the beginning of the particular operation.

The component is assigned in the routing. BOM components that are not explicitly assigned are regarded as being assigned to the first operation.

Along with the BOM components, you can also assign production resources / tools in the routing. Production resources / tools are operating facilities that are not bound to a location, but are necessary for production, such as a measuring instrument or a support.