Engineering change management is a central logistics function that can be used to document changes to master data.
By using a valid-from date for the change master record, the changes become valid on a predefined date. You can also use additional effectivity parameters.
You can use engineering change management to store SAP objects (for example, BOMs, routings) more than once. This means that the objects can be stored in all relevant change statuses.
The changes take effect automatically at the predefined time in all areas of the logistics process chain (for example, sales orders, material requirements planning, and shop floor and production control).
You can use engineering change management to group changes to different SAP objects that are affected by one change.
The time of the changes can be the same for all objects. However, you can define different validity dates for individual objects using alternative dates.
You can create general documentation for the change and also special documentation for each specific object change.
You can use engineering change management to fulfill your legal obligations to document changes.
The following video answers the question: What is the difference between changes without and with Engineering Change Management?
The change header contains a short description of the change, the valid-from date, and the change status.
You determine which objects can be changed with the change master record by selecting the object types.
One of the functions of the object management records is to enable you to document changes to a specific object, for example, material BOM for forklift T-FC99 1010 1.
Alternative dates allow you to control the valid-from date of individual objects more precisely.
You can allocate accompanying documents to the change master record.
You can use classification to search for change master records.
Linked Object Types
The following video explains the objects which can be changed with Engineering Change Management.
When you would like to change objects with a change number, you have to define which objects are to be changed and in what way. Watch the following video for a detailed information.
The object management record is an independent master record in the SAP system. However, you can create a record only in connection with a change master record. This means that it's change number-specific.
When you enter an object in the object overview of the change master record, an object management record is created in the background. You can create any number of object management records for a change master record.
You can currently create object management records only for materials, BOMs, routings, and documents.
Use the object management record to document and control changes to a specific object. You can also define an object-related valid-from date.
The valid-from date in the change header determines when the changes made with reference to the change number become effective. If you want to override this for an object, then you must create alternative dates. The alternative date only exists within the change master record. You then assign these alternative dates to one or more object management records as soon as an alternative date is assigned to at least one object management.
You can maintain both a single dependency and a dependency net with reference to a change number. When you change the basic data or the source code with reference to a change number, the system saves both the old and the new object statuses.
You define how the configuration profile for a material or a standard network is processed in Customizing for Variant Configuration. Under Maintain status, you determine for each configurable object (material and standard network) whether changes to configuration profiles with a certain status (for example, released) are stored with history.
Several views exist for the configuration object material. For other configuration objects, there's only one view.
The table contents of a variant table can be changed with history, but the table structure cannot.
There's a history requirement for all variant configuration objects that you have processed with reference to a change number.