ATP in SD on batch level

[Private_Member_123232]

Hi there,

Just to anticipate the popular reply 'Use search...' , I did my research and in fact keep stumbling across this question over and over at different clients. I also posted this question in various forums, Sapfans etc. but nobody was ever able to give me a cristal clear answer. SAP help is silent about this as well.

Is there a clean-cut availability check on batch level in SD or not? Is it always on material level, hard-coded? There is a standard checking group CH for batches in material master field MARC-MTVFP but it does not seem to have any concrete function as it does not differ from 02 for instance.

I have the following scenario:

Material 100 with batch AA and 50 pieces of this batch in available stock

Material 100 with batch BB and zero stock

Several reservations of a total of 60 pieces for material 100 in the same plant (at material level).

When I try to deliver 10 pieces of batch AA of material 100, SAP refuses the item because of lacking availability.

The user will say that he DOES have in fact 50 pieces of batch AA. Why can't he deliver?

It seems like the reservations for material 100 'eats up' all availabilty, irrespective of individual batch availability. Also what is the checking group CH good for then?

Any (hopefully clear) answer how this is designed in SD standard is highly appreciated.

Thanks much

[Former Member]

I guess I am experiencing it too. Here is what I have found so far.

1. SAP carries out batch determination before trigerring ATP.

2. ATP takes the quantity of the batch into consideration to carry out checks against this batch.

3. Unfortunately, since the split of the batch is limited to 001 by SAP at sales order, it does NOT consider any other batch if the 1st batch will not satisfy the requirement.

If you were to re-run ATP again without going through the Item batch determination, the ATP will now take all inventory at the Material / Sloc level and change the confirmed quantity. This statement holds true only if you are running batch determination at Sales order but not assigning a batch.

Is this something which is a normal behaviour, or I see a deviation from what standard SAP does ?

[Former Member]

hello, anne.

i will not claim to have all the answers, but i will share some of my experiences with the CH type of availability check.

let us say that your material comes in batches that are not replenished. that is, if you received 1,000 units of material A202 with batch YY1001, this batch will not be replenished with additional quantities. 1,000 is all there is.

your orders and deliveries will now consume this quantity. if your stock level is down to 50, and an order with quantity of 100 comes in, the following could happen:

1. if availability check CH is entered in the material master, the system will properly see that there can be only 50 units of this batch available, and will look at another batch for the balance of 50.

2. if availability check 01 or 02 is entered in the material master, the system could assume that replenishment is infinite. you will observe in the batch split page that quantity availability would be 99,999,999, leading the user to falsely assume that stocks are still available.

hope this helps.

regards.

[Private_Member_123232]

Thanks for the reply Jonathan.

I was actually hoping that SD standard works this way. In our case it does not seem to though.

First of all I'm still struggling with a mystery around the checking group CH. I couldn't find any parametre that clearly determines ATP on batch vs on material level. Is CH hard-coded? Hard to imagine that SAP would do such a thing as you can define your own checking groups. So where is the checkbox 'batch ATP'? Otherwise how does the system know it must check the batch availability when it's entered in the customer order?

Secondly, in our case we do in fact still have sufficient unrestricted stock on the batch to be sold. The problem is that reservations on other batches for the same material 'consume' the total ATP quantity on material level. No matter if I still have stock left on one particular batch, I can't get my item confirmed or delivered.

Example:

material A100 / batch B100 - stock 0 / reservations 1

material A100 / batch B200 - stock 1 / no reservations

Even with checking group CH, a sales order item for batch B200 will not be confirmed as total ATP on material level is zero. As soon as I add 1 unit to batch B100 via a 561 movement, my delivery for for batch B200 goes through.

I hope you see my confusion. The ATP situation of one batch should not influence another batch which is in fact available.

Thanks much in advance for any further hints.

[Former Member]

hello again, anne.

hhmmm... i see your point, which was made clearer in the later example.

are you using automatic batch determination? if so, please check the sales order and/or delivery if the system chooses a batch other than the one originally expected.

regards.

[Private_Member_123232]

No, we don't do automatic batch creation. The batch in the sales order has to remain the same throughout the process. The customers of this client require a clearly specified quality of the product aka batch number.

I suppose I will team up with a developer for a thorough debug. I'll get back with the results. It's a shame really that such an important and complex functionality is so poorly documented.

Thanks much again