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Planning Materials with Networks

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

Assign material components manually
Transfer a Bill of Materials (BOM)

Assignment of Material Components to Network Activities

James and Manuel Discuss the Procurement of Materials

James is a project planner at Hybrid Machinery. Manuel is responsible for project procurement. They discuss the procurement of materials.

Note

This is their conversation:

Assignment of Material Components to Network Activities

Material components establish the link between a network activity and the areas of PP and MM (production order and purchase order).

Material components establish the link between the SAP Project System (PS) and Sales and Distribution (SD), Materials Management (MM), and Production Planning and Control (PP). A suitable material in a sales document item can be used to generate project structures automatically. Material requirements in projects form the basis for procurement, whether the material is produced in-house (production) or procured externally (purchasing).

Integration with MM and PP

There is an item category available for a stock item (L) and also one for a non-stock item (N).

By assigning materials to activities, you plan the necessary material requirements for a project. In the SAP system, you must distinguish between stock items and non-stock items.

The stock item item category is used for materials that are kept in stock, such as warehouse stock, project stock, or sales order stock. Independent requirements, such as requirements for finished products, salable assemblies, trading goods, and spare parts trigger requirements planning.

In requirement planning, a reservation is created for stocks. To cover the shortage requirements further, order quantities are determined and dates are derived from scheduling functions. The consequent procurement element from the requirements planning is a planned order and, for external procurement, a purchase requisition.

In addition, the dependent requirements for materials produced in-house (in other words, the quantity of components required to manufacture a finished product or assembly) are determined by exploding the BOM. The system explores the BOM - item by item, level by level - and planned procurement elements are created at each BOM level to cover requirements when a material shortage occurs.

Once quantities and dates have been planned in requirements planning, these planned procurement elements are converted to exact procurement elements. This is the production order for production and the purchase order for external procurement.

The non-stock item category is used for components that are not procured via warehouse stock, project stock, or sales order stock, but are procured directly by means of a network activity. Purchase requisitions for purchasing are created for these components directly from the activities. When the goods are received, they are posted (consumed) to an activity rather than being placed into stock. Non-stock items cannot be managed as project stock or sales order stock.

How to Manually Assign Material Components to Network Activities

Transfer of a BOM

Instead of a manual assignment of components, you can transfer a material with a BOM to an activity.

In projects with low material requirements, you can assign individual material components to the network activities. However, in large engineering projects, it is not feasible to handle material components manually. Instead of manual assignment of components, you can transfer a material with a BOM to an activity.

The BOM transfer function makes it easier for you to assign material components in one or more BOMs to network activities. When you assign material components using the BOM transfer function, the system uses the reference point field in the BOM items and activities to establish a logical connection between the individual BOM items and the network activities. In contrast to when you assign individual components manually, you can update consequent changes to the BOM automatically in the network activity.

The BOM transfer function is particularly useful for engineering projects involving BOMs that are created during the course of the project or changed frequently. When the BOM is transferred, assignments are made on a project-specific basis. The project can contain various networks.

You can assign individual components, individual BOM assemblies, or a multilevel BOM. You can also manually assign components without reference points when transferring BOMs.

Assign Materials to Network Activities

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