Objectives
Here's a sketch that explains the idea of variant configuration and the corresponding modeling.
Of course, there are still many points on the subject of variant configuration, and modeling involves even more steps. But that's too much for such a small sketch!
The following figure shows a configurable forklift with all characteristics and values.
Products with a large number of features and options have a large range of possible variants. Without additional restrictions, the example shown could produce 17,010 variants.
In practice, there are restrictions in the form of rules that reduce the number of possible options. These rules must be defined and applied during the configuration process.
Complex products are reflected in complex configuration tasks for sales and production. However, a company that sells or produces products with variants needs to perform these tasks quickly and accurately. As the development cycles and life cycles of products become shorter and shorter, this is becoming increasingly difficult.
How many data records had to be created and maintained without variant configuration in the SAP system? In the example before this, up to 17,010 material masters, BOMs, task lists, costing records, pricing records, and so on.
Configurable Product is the general term for a product that has a large number of variants. The features that are used to create complex products are stored in the SAP system as characteristics and values.
A configurable material needs a material master record to do the following:
Store important planning and control data
Link the product to other objects in the variant configuration data model by assigning it to a variant class
In variant configuration, a variant class groups together the set of characteristics that describe a configurable material.
You can only use variant classes or class nodes to group together characteristics for this purpose. The class type of a class determines whether the class is a variant class or class node. In the standard system, only classes of class type 300 are variant classes. Classes of class type 200 are class items (class nodes). In Customizing for classification, you can define further class types – including class types for variant classes.
The following video explains the context of a configurable product with a class, their characteristics, and a list of permitted values.
If you're working with a normal material, you use a normal material BOM. However, if you work with a configurable material, you use a super BOM. The header material is configurable, and the components can also be configurable.
Watch the following video, which shows the structure of a super BOM for a forklift.
Watch the following video, which shows possible super BOM components with their individual characteristics and values. The object dependencies are realized by preconditions and selection conditions.
In addition to the configurable material, the super BOM, there's a suitable routing that can also be used for variants in production.
The following video shows a possible structure of a routing for a configurable material.
The following image shows you the dependencies between master data of variant configuration.
In addition to the previously known objects, more are now available.
There are four configurable object types:
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