Variant configuration and classification

[Former Member]

Hi,

I need to understand how some materials will be created in the material master.

For example, there is a food based company which comes out with packaged ready to eat noodles.There are four varieties of ready to eat noodles it makes. The product is same but the flavours of noodles are etc are different. Likewise it produces jams. There are four different flavours of jams too

my questions are :-

1) We need to know whether we need to define eight different material master for the Noodles product and jam or two material masters needs to be created(one for jam and other for noodles) and then we use variant/classification system to define the varieties of noodles/jams.

2) will there be eight different batch masters to be created ( four for noodles and four for jams )

3) Under which business scenarios do we use variant config and classification system.

Basically I need to understand how material master and batches and variant config and classification connect with each other

regards

[Former Member]

There is not one answer to your questions. It depends on your needs. You can maintain one material master and configure it during the sales order. Or you can maintain one basic and then other 4 for the variants (total 5 mat masters), and then in the system, you put the basic one and after configuration, system can substitute the variant with the corresponding material. I guess the choice that you'll make has to do with the nature of the business. For instance

Reporting in sales and stock will be much easier if you maintain 4 material masters, even if you can report on characteristics.

If configuration and pricing involves dimensions (not your case) then is practically impossible to maintain material masters. You can configure pricing according to characteristics as well as per material variant.

In your case, i would maintain 5 material masters and define 4 as variants of one basic. And then allocate the corresponding batches if different. However, if in your stock, pricing, reporting and batch management all materials are considered as the same you can have only one material master and configure it accordignly.

Get back if you have a more specific question.

Hope this helps

Agis

Edited by: Agis Katsafouros on Mar 15, 2010 1:46 PM