Engineering Change Management and Revision Levels

[Former Member]

Hi,

I have earlier read a thread by Vivek and Janev on a forum question on Revision levels. However, I am still confused by it. Do we need to use Revision Level together with Engineering Change Management (ECM) ? I understand that one allows to you to keep track of how many revisions you have made (Revision Level), while ECM allows you to know why you made the change and when it is valid. Is there further details on why they are used?

Thanks so much.

Rgds,

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

To cover your question on why its used, there are a couple of reasons:

1. Group associated changes. I.e. if there is an incident on site, you can use a single change number to change a number of documents (procedure, drawing, MSDS etc) and group the change with the change master so that anyone viewing the document can see why the change happened, and what other objects were effected by the change (you can obviously include other SAP objects, not just documents). The relationship of these associated changes can be viewed in CC04 (Product Structure Browser)

2. To manage change. I.e. forcing a user to request a change number from a superior before commencing with a change will ensure that documents aren't random created in the system, particularly in a drawing environment where you don't want draughtsman randomly creating new versions of drawings without the required permissions.

3. Logging change. I.e. why change happens using the reason in the change master

There are various other reasons, but those are the primary ones.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I now understand the need for both revision levels and ECM. However, I am still unsure about whether both are needed together? Can you use one without the other? Seems that from the explaination, both are needed.

Thank you so much.

Cheers,

Sue

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Yes and No.

You can use ECM without revisions but you cannot use revisions without ECM if that makes sense so if you want to use ECM's as a means to group changes, you can do it without revisions being allocated (i.e. only versions) but SAP will not allocate a revision to a document (manual or automatic) unless you use a change master.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Thanks for the very helpful answer. One last thing though, you said that ECMs can be used without revisions being allocated by using versions? What are versions? Are they the change numbers allocated by the change master?

Thanks again.

Cheers,

Sue

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Sue

Versions and revisions are used in Document Management (Tcode CV01n). Not sure if you are using ECM for Document Management at all, but if you aren't this would explain your confusion. For every document in the system there are 4 key fields, Doc number, part, version and type.

If you use change masters in DMS you can also have a revision as well. This would generally be used in the engineering field where they have 5 different versions of the same document/drawing from different vendors and the final design they choose is released and is allocated a revision.

The change number is the number of the change master, it can be internally or externally generated.

Let me know if there are any other questions.

regards,

Athol

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Athol,

Thanks. I understand a bit better now. Yes, you are right, I have not used Document management. Btw, I am new at SAP.

Can I use one change number created to change both the Material Master and BOM? I tried doing that but it doesn't work. I assume that it should work since I selected both Material and BOM under object type of the change master. I still haven't grasp the use of the object type and also terms like management record and object management record. I am confused between the management record and object management record. What are they used for?

Another problem I have is I need to use parameter effectivity as I need to activate change only when stock = 0 but am not sure how to do that. I know I can define the effectivity parameters in config, however, how do I know which data element to use? How are these activated? Are data elements field names? If I do all these settings using parameter effectivity, will these change be populated across (once stock = 0) to the planned order, purchase order, purchase requisition & production orders or it needs to be carried out manually? I hope you can give me some pointers on how to do this or recommend some website that might have these info for ECM.

Thank you very very much.

Cheers,

Sue

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

You should be able to change both material and BOM using one change request.It works for us.Make sure you have made the change request # mandatory to change these objects.What error message are you getting when you put these objects on one change request?

Object management record is used in engineering change management to record changes to an object in the change master.You can have object management records for objects such as documents, boms, routings.

I will have a look at the data element for stock and get back to you if i am successful.

Cheers,

Pavana

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I am able to use the change request now. However, revision levels appear in the BOM only after I created a change request and revision at material master record. Only revision levels exist at material master? How does it relate back with BOM of the material if I use the change number first to change the BOM?

I understand what you meant by object management record. Thanks. What about management records? From the object type screen, there are Object and MgtRec (I think you are explaining the MgtRec if I am not mistaken), I don't understand how are they connected or different even with the help file?

I have tried setting up the data element. However, I got the error message "Objects can only be created in SAP development class". This error happen when i went to Config->Logistics-General->Engineering Change Management-> Parameter Effectivity-> Define Parameters -> Create New Entries.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Sue

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

The ECR process for changing BOMS,routings should work like this:

You want to change an existing bom/routing.Firstly, you create the ECR and put the bom/routings as objects.Then you get the ECR approved by the approver and then the ecr gets converted to ECO.Now the system will enable you to go and change that bom/routing.For this to work,you should have made ecr # mandatory for changing bom/routings.This can be done using transaction variants; t-code SHD0.

When you display bom(t code cs03), in the general item over view screen you will be able to see the ecr # as well.Same applies for routings as well (t code ca03).

I am not too sure about the data element.I feel there should be one existing for stock.You don't have to create a new one.

By definition, object management and management records are the same.It controls change to an object in the change master.You can either create this record manually or allow the system to generate automatically when an object is processed.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Pavana

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Pavana,

I have a small doubt in your explanation. Which object i should add if i want to change the Material master alone not BoM. If i see the Objects list i found all the objects, but there are no check boxes against them. In that case what should i do ? Other wise let me know how to change the material master using a change number.

Thanks,

Rajesh.

[Former Member]

Hi,

The revision level indicates a released processing status of a document. Later on, you can change documents that have a revision level with reference to either the change number or the revision level.

Revision level assignment is automatic for documents when a version is released with reference to a change number for the first time. You receive a default value according to the predefined number sequence (Customizing).

The revision level uniquely identifies a processing status of a document. You can only process a document version with reference to one change number, so you can only have one revision level per version.

• Once you have entered a change number for a document info record and saved the document, you can no longer change the number.

If you want to process the document at a later date with reference to a different change number, you must create a new version.

Enjoy SAP….

Don’t forget to give points if its useful ans.

Namskar,

Ketan Dave