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What is the difference between interchangeability and RBA?

Piyush
Participant
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Dear All,

I had hardly worked on interchangeability. I had mainly worked on RBA based Product and / or Location substituion.

I am having few queries about interchangeability.

1. What is the difference between these two?
2. Any rule or algorithm of situations, when these functionalities are used?
3. Which one is more preferred?
4. Can both be applied simultaneously or they are mutually exclusive?
Thanks & Regards
Piyush Ranpura

Accepted Solutions (0)

Answers (3)

Answers (3)

sourabh_jain66
Active Contributor
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Hi Piyush,

Interchangeability v/s RBATP.

1. What is the difference between these two?

Interchangeability is a very closely integrated function with different areas of Supply Chain Planning and Execution, with some restrictions for each of the application. Purpose of this is nothing but substitution of one from another (Location / Product), with a lot of flexibility .

SAP has provided in total 9 different group types i.e. FFF, Supersession Chain etc. to support this.

Different functions available under interchangeability for different applications are;

Interchangeability master data can be used in various functions including GATP (rule based availability check)

RBA rule can only be used in GATP and CTM, RBA rule also make use of interchangeability master data (you don't need to set location / product substitution procedures in that case)  further i am not sure if we can set PPM / Characteristics substitution using interchangeability master data.

One visible benefit of using this is same master data can be used across applications.

2. Any rule or algorithm of situations, when these functionalities are used?

SAP suggested rules of using interchangeability are mentioned in below link;

Interchangeability Scenarios in the Applications - Product Interchangeability - SAP Library

RBA rule you will have to set for doing rule based availability check in GATP, you can make use of Interchangeability master data for same.

3. Which one is more preferred?

I believe answer for this is already been given above

Please read through below link for more information.

Interchangeability Scenarios in the Applications - Product Interchangeability - SAP Library

Rgds

Sourabh

babu_kilari4
Active Contributor
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Hi Piyush,

Interchangeability is more of an SNP term however, it can still be used along with RBA rules in GATP as RBA rules can either take Supersession Chain ( through Interchangeability group ) or Substitution Procedures ( be it location or product ). To the best of my knowledge, we use Interchangeability attached to RBA rules to allow the same product to work as both active and inactive substitution scenario in different rules whereas if you're using the Substitution procedure ( apart from controlling the validity ), you would not be able to have more control.

Hope this helps.

Babu Kilari

Former Member
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Hi Piyush,

Interchangeability means it can used for substitution. Product A can be replaced by Product B.

We define LDPs (Location Determination Procedure) for location substitutions.

Both are preferred scenarios.

When a Product is not available in a particular location then RBATP will search for alternate product and then search for alternate location/ location substitute.

Both can be used sysmultaniously and there is a good document for RBATP by Satish and you can find some more links in RBATP.

http://scn.sap.com/community/scm/apo/production-planning-interfaces-and-global-atp/blog/2014/01/25/r...

Thanks,

Bala.