How to do mix packing in one handling unit (carton) in delivery order?

[moazzam_ali]

Dear All

I am using packing functionality in outbound delivery order. This is my first experience with packing so I am not sure how to do this. I have searched forum but couldn't get some beneficial link.

Scenario is that I have two materials, material A and material B. If I create delivery with both materials and pack them in separate cartons, it is working fine. Issue is where I have to pack mix materials.

Suppose delivery quantity is 100 each and I have to make cartons by using 1 each which means 1 Material A + 1 Material B = 1 Carton. With this system will make 50 cartons.

Currently I have to make each carton manually. System is not making mix packing cartons automatically like it is done for single material with partial quantity packing.

2nd requirement is Handling unit numbers. Client is asking for carton numbers to start from 1 for each item in delivery and for every delivery. It means whenever user creates delivery and pack materials system should start carton number from 1 every time.

I am sure this is not unique requirement from my client and consultants must have some solution for it. If someone knows and can share, I'll highly appreciate.

Thank$

[VeselinaPeykova · Accepted solution]

Hello,

regarding the first requirement - it is very common, indeed. In case the two materials should be always packed together (or at least for some locations/some customers etc.) you can use a packing instruction with the carton as 'P' item and the two materials with their corresponding quantities as 'M' items. In case each of these materials should be packed separately in some kind of container and then placed in another container you can use nested packing instructions: the big container is a 'P' item, then you will have 2 'I' items where the component is the packing instruction number for each material. Then you can create determination according to the business requirement (e.g. shipping point/customer number).

Please have a look at automatic packing (under HU management in SPRO). 

The second requirement however... this is the first time I encounter it.

My understanding so far is that the main idea of using HU, SSCC etc. is to achieve traceability of a given set of products. What is the idea behind to have the same numbers (1-40)?

I am not sure whether it is possible to achieve this with standard functionality if you use HU management. If you do not use HU management at all in the client it might be possible to disable the unique assignment and use external number range for the packaging material type.You will probably need some minor development to automate the numbering though.

Disclaimer: so far I have not used SAP standard packing functionality and standard HU management (sometimes the addons are a better option) - so I may be completely wrong regarding how often clients request the functionality in requirement 2.

[moazzam_ali · Accepted solution]

Hi Veselina Peykova

Thank you for responding and sharing this valuable input.

For requirement 1 I got your idea and I'll check it and study it. It looks like this will be fixed with material, customer, shipping point or store etc but in my case this is always variable. Material A could be packed mixed in one delivery and can be packed separately in same or some other delivery.

This is basically textile industry and there are lot of variations in it. I'll check the functionality of automatic packing and suggest the best possible solution to user. Thank you.

For 2nd requirement client doesn't want to trace handling units. They are using packing function just to pack materials for printing export packing list. Handling unit management is not required. Handling unit numbers are basically cartons or roll numbers in which textile products or fabric will be packed. This is customer's requirement to mark cartons with numbers starting from 1 to n number for each delivery.

Currently I have unmarked that unique identification number and system assigns number internally. I have asked users to over write these numbers and copy paste number from 1 to n number from an excel file. Here they have another concern that they can only copy 6 numbers at a time and they want to copy for lets say 200 numbers for 200 cartons so they have to copy 200/6= 34 times.

Let me know if I am on right direction or not.

It is bit tricky but I hope I have cleared my views.

Thank$

[VeselinaPeykova · Accepted solution]

Is the business capable of providing the exact rules for combining different materials onto the same package (such as: you can combine material A and B in the same package as they have the same dimentions and weights, just the product code is different)? If this is the case, you can use reference material for packaging, create packing instruction for material A, set in material B that material A is reference material and create packing instruction determinetion for reference material. For some 'special' group of customers that require the products to be packed separately or packed in different containers, you can determine another packing instruction.

If the variations in product dimentions and weights are quite big for combining in a single container, I am afraid that you will not be able to achieve full automatic packing easily. Probably the client can share such information from their leagcy system (I assume that they currently keep some records-even if it is just in excel, because manual packaging is time-consuming, so they have to consider it and probably use it as a basis for payment for the pickers). If there are a lot of exceptions, they might still use the manual packing as a solution. Unfortunately external warehouse systems or LEO (that have mechanisms to  generate packing proposals) do not make a lot of sense from cost-efficiency perspective in textile industry.

Another possibility for numbering - since you explained that the idea is just for getting printouts. You can keep internal HU numbering and just modify the printform. It should be fairly easy for to renumber the packages based on sorting the HU numbers assigned as they will be sequential. In this case at least you will save some time for the end users, because they will not need to enter EXIDV.

[moazzam_ali]

Dear Both

Thank you for sharing your views. I have studied, tested and configured automatic packing. My first requirement is met with automatic packing by creating packing instructions in POP1 and packing instructions determination record in POF1.

For 2nd requirement I have asked users to over write handling unit number by copying values from some excel file to packing screen manually.  I have also asked them to create some upload in future if they require. This can be done through upload as well.

Now I have one more concern which is not raised by user. This is my own observation which may be raised by user in future. Here on this client as I have already shared we pack textile items in handling units. 1500 to 2000 handling units (Cartons or Rolls) are normal case in export shipments. Now when I create 2000 handling units it is showing in document flow. I don't want to show 2000 handling units in document flow. This disturbs the whole document flow of order.

I know the system logic behind showing handling unit in document flow but in some cases where client or user doesnt want to show handling unit in document flow due to huge number of handling units, Is there a way to stop this?

Thank$

[jpfriends079]

Hi Moazzam,

As I understand, we don't have any std solution to counter this requirement. For enhancement, try with user exit LV05CFZZ. FYI, std FM RV_ORDER_FLOW_INFORMATION use for determination of document flow.

Thanks, JP

[moazzam_ali]

Thank you Jyoti Prakash for sharing this information. I was also thinking in same way that there could be some solution in ABAP because I didn't find anything in standard for this. I think there must be something in standard to control this.

Let me keep this function and user exit with me and share with user when and if they raise this concern

Thank$

[Former Member]

Hi,

for requirement 1, check help explanations in column MixMatAllowd in tcode POP1 / 2 / 3 by pressing F1 in tab Components.

Regards,

JM