Material Determination use stock of discontinued material

[Former Member]

I am trying to determine if there is a way in R/3 to have a material replace an older material but as sales orders are entered take into consideration any inventory that might still remain of the discontinued material. Here is an example.

1.) We have 15 EA of Material A in inventory in Plant 123

2.) We are going to discontinue Material A and replace with Material B in this plant

3.) VB11 Condition Records are setup for the A to B substitution for order entries

4.) Order for 20 EA for Material A comes in

I would like to see a requirement tp use the 15 from A that are still inventory and then place an order for the remaining 5 on the new Matl B (from Mfg or whomever provides).

Is this possible using the condition records for material determination and the follow-up material options on MRP4 view?

[kishorp · Accepted solution]

Hi Bill,

This is possible using standard SAP functionalities.

Now considrer a situation where you are creating VB11 record for material A(to be discontiniued) which is to be substituted by material B. And the need is to deplete the available stock of material A first and then start substituting it with material B.

In order to achieve this, while creating a record in VB11 firstly create a record for replacing mat A by mat A , then double click the record line that you have created, which will pop up a small window giving you options to enter mutiple alternatives apart from mat A. where you can you can enter material B as the second alternative/replacement after mat A.

The sequence of material is important to decide which material is considered as the replacement by the system.

In our case system will first replace mat A by mat A and search for stock availability, if sufficient stock or no stock available it will replace the original mat A with the alternative material entered in the VB11 record i.e. Mat B.

Another important thing to note while creating VB11 record is a check box available as "MRP Indiciator" now this indicator plays an important role while transferring requirement to MRP.

In our case we have Mat A which is being disontinued so we dont want the requirement for mat A to be transferred to MRP incase of shortage, instead we want the requirement for material B to be transferred for MRP.

In this case you need to check the MRP indicator box for Material B. if not checked the requirement for Mat A would be transferred to MRP.

Hope this clarifies your questions.

Thanks,

Kishor

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks, Kishor. I appreciate the answer. I just setup my VB11 cond rec as you state and I do see both being shown as options when I enter my sales order but I am still not seeing it take the stock for Matl A (I have 15 in stock in test) and then put the remaining 7 onto Matl B. That is what I was hoping it would do. Use up A and then put demand onto B for the remainder.

[kishorp · Accepted solution]

Hi Bill,

Can you please share a screenshot of how is the quantity being distributed ?

Another thing to note here is the substitution reason which is responsible for how the material is being replaced. Request you to also share the configuration of the substitution reason used.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Kishor,

  Hopefully this will help. The screen below shows my VB11 setup and also our reason code config setup. The condition record does works in that it will show me both option for the materials but it is not seeing or showing that I have 15 EA of inventory for the material that is being replaced. I appreciate the help and input.

This shows that I do have 15 EA of inventory for the 30009ss7 material

[kishorp · Accepted solution]

Hi Bill,

For substitution reason -- 008 which you have used in your case, please change the field Strategy from A to Blank.

Please check if this works.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Kishor,

    I changed to a different reason code (I can't change the 0008) to the 0001 which doesn't have the A for strategy. The only difference is that the 0008 displayed the condition record for me to chose the material and the 0001 just warns me and goes ahead but in both cases it didn't take into consideration that I already had 15 EA in inventory for 30009SS7. To recap what I was hoping it would do (either auto or showing me the screen) was to utilize the 15 EA from 30009SS7 and then tell me or allow a substitution for the remaining 8 EA to go on the replacement material for a total of 23 to this sales order.

[kishorp · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Sorry for replying late. I had no connectivity for the past few days.

Can you please try setting up the field X-plant material status to 02(blocked for planning/production) (Basic Data View) or Plant specific material status (MRP1 view) for the material master and try using VB11 record that you had created earlier?

[aravindrawat · Accepted solution]

I want to substitute Material A with Material B only when if there is no stock available for Material A. I have done the configuration for Standard Material Determination but it's now working as expected also I tried with MRP Indicator (VB11). Is it even possible through standard material determination or not??

Original Material A

Result Expecting--

If the stock is available for Material A-- No need to substitute

If stock is not available for Material A--- Substitute Material B

image.png

[krishna_mantravadi]

Bill,

Have you looked at the discontinued parts functionality in the MRP4 view of the material master? We have not implemented this ourselves (we just researched it for the same reason as you) so I don't know exactly how it behaves but reading up on the topic, this may be exactly what you're looking for. Link to more information.

The concept maybe relevant for sub components than the actual finished goods/ items sold to customer but the concept should work in either case.

Krishna

[Former Member]

Krishna,

    THanks for your answer. Yes, I have tried the discontinued options on MRP4 with a follow-up material defined. That doesn't seem to work. The description and what I have seen seem to be that this is only for sub components and not for use in Sale Order substitutions.