Creating Material Assignments and Component Allocations

Materials can be linked to routings for the following scenarios:

• You can use the same routing to produce several different materials. Each product has its own unique BOM but is manufactured by a common set of activities with the same standard times. For example, both red and green chairs can be produced using the same routing.
• The material and routing can belong to different plants. For example, the planning plant and production plant may not be the same.

Material assignment can be carried out in the following ways:

• Create the routing for a specific material.

  If you create a routing for a specific material, the system automatically performs the material assignment. No further settings are necessary, and for every order created the system identifies this routing assignment and uses the appropriate routing to create the order.

• Use the material assignment function in the routing header.

  If you create a non-material-specific routing or a group routing, you can use the material assignment function. When you choose the Material Assignment button in the header of the routing, you can view a list of all the materials that are assigned to use this routing in order to produce them. Using this function allows you to assign more materials to the list. This also applies to using a routing created for one material to produce a different material. The assignment can be for a material in a different plant, which allows you to plan production in one plant and produce in another.

• Use a production version.

  A production version specifies the production technique that can be used to produce a material. It specifies the BOM and routing used for production with date and lot size validities.

You can assign and display material components for separate operations in the material component overview. For a clearer overview, you can use different criteria to filter or sort the material component list.

You perform the following actions for allocating components and assigning materials:

• Assign a new component.
• Delete and reassign material assignments.
• Navigate between multiple operations.

The system automatically assigns (default) material components in a BOM (that are not assigned to an operation in the routing) to the first operation when you create a production order.

You can assign each item on the BOM to only one operation. Items that have quantities of more than one and need to be assigned to more than one operation must be adjusted in the BOM to allow this type of allocation. For example, BOM item 10 has two pieces; one is used in operation 20 and the other in operation 40. This will require BOM item 10 to be split into two BOM items, each with a quantity of one, for example, item 10 and item 15. You can then allocate item 10 to operation 20 and item 15 to operation 40.

According to the item category of the assigned components, you can make further decisions about how they are to be processed, for example, backflushing of stock items or cutting the size of variable-size items.

By repeating this process, you can assign material components from several BOMs or alternative BOMs to the same routing. In this case, when you create a production order, you select the BOM and, therefore, the material components that need to be assigned in the production order. The system can do this automatically depending on the system settings.