Maintaining Only Reference Plants for Generic Materials

[Former Member]

Hello,

My company is a wholesaler running IS-Retail. We do not have our own stores, and to date have run one company code (A003), one plant (0300), one purchasing org, and one sales area. We have been running IS-Retail for 7 years now.

We now need to add a new company code. I have made all the config: created the company and code (U003), plant (0300), purchasing org, sales area, etc and made all the assignments.

Now, when attempting to create a new generic article for company U003, plant 0300, I get message MH139: u201CYou can maintain only reference plants for generic materialsu201D.

In WSS1, the u201CReference plant for DCsu201D is 0100. Plant 0100 uses plant profile 0100, and in that profile 0100 is also set as the reference plant. So, it appears that in our implementation, 0100 was set to be the reference plant, and that is also where we have our inventory (which is not recommended, according to the u201CDeep Diveu201D document posted at the top of this forum).

First off, can you guys confirm that my understanding is correct that you can only have one reference plant per client?

Next, assuming that there can only be one reference plant per client, is it possible to create articles for plant 0100 and simultaneously extend them to plant 0300? Again, going by the u201CDeep Diveu201D document, this is possible, but I am not clear on how to do it. Is this done via Listing, user exit, etc? My understanding is that listing is used to extend articles to sites/stores. As mentioned above, we do not have sites/stores, just plants/DCu2019s.

I would appreciate whatever help you can offer as we need to get the new company up and running immediately.

Thanks!

[Former Member]

Hi Len,

Q1: "you can only have one reference plant per client?"

A: Yes, you're right. Concercing DC you can only have one Reference Plant per Client.

Q2: "Next, assuming that there can only be one reference plant per client, is it possible to create articles for plant 0100 and simultaneously extend them to plant 0300"

A: Yes, you can. First off, when you are listing the articel for the new DC, the system copies the entries of the reference plant on MARC to the new DC. You can maintain these entries via MM42 or WRFMASSMAT.

[Former Member]

Thank you for the reply.

As far as extending the articles to non-reference plant, I would appreciate a clarification, since we have not ever used the Listing view, and I am correct in my understanding that it would be the vehicle to achieve the extensions?

If that is so...

-Is the listing view processed only in MM42, or can it be processed at article creation with MM41?

-If listing is only used to extend the articles to plants, not stores/sites, what parameters need to be established, if any (e.g. assortment, modules, listing procedure, etc).

Pardon these naive questions, but we have no experience with listing at all.

And...

-I do not see any trasaction, program or function that goes by WRFMASSMAT.

Thank you for your help!

[Former Member]

Hi Len,

first off, I'm sure about the difference you make between plants/sites/stores.

In my experience (as IS Retail - only consultant) every store and every DC is a site. Every site consists of a "plant" and of a customer and vendor master (if necessary).

So, listing procedure is necessary for every site in Retail (which means stores as well as DC) - if you're working with listing conditions (which is in general the case).

To answer you're questions:

- You can proceed listing also in MM41. The listing conditions are saved when you're saving the article.

- There are different ways of listing. Basically, you need a listing procedure. Every site has a local assortment which you could use. If you want to work with global assortments you have to create them as well. You do not need modules necessarily, but you can use them as well...

Please see http://help.sap.com/erp2005_ehp_03/helpdata/en/12/084ddf470311d1894a0000e8323352/content.htm

for further information, because listing possibilities in SAP Retail cannot be explained in a few sentences.

- WRFMASSMAT is a transaction available since SAP ECC 6.0. Maybe you are working on another release?

Regards

Tobias

[Former Member]

Sorry, about the confusing labels. As I mentioned originally, we do not have any stores, so we tend to use u201CPlantu201D to refer to the DC, and u201CSiteu201D has always been used when talking about stores. My bad, especially in this forum.

In any event, I managed to get the articles extended by using assortment by Mechandise Category using WSAO2.

When I save the article there are three records in MARC. One for our DC, one for the u201Creference plant for DCu2019su201D and one for the u201Creference plant for storesu201D (the two references that are specified in WSS1).

Is it possible to prevent the listing for to reference plant for stores so we only have the two records for each article in MARC?

Thank you very much for your help, and again, I apologize if the terms I am using are throwing you off.

[Former Member]

Hi Len,

nevermind the "confusion", I just wanted to make sure that we have the same understanding using the terms.

I guess you could only prevent the listing of the reference plant for stores if there would be no reference site defined in WSS1. Once defined, I don't know any possibily to delete the entry for the reference site in WSS1. Maybe you could use a user exit in the listing procedure to avoid it.