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How to manage 2 different quality of raw materials without creating 2 SAP material codes?

Former Member
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Hi SAP experts,

Maybe you can help.

In our raw material master data, we have some raw materials created under same SAP material code, but with 2 different qualities or country of origin.

How can we handle such situation without duplicating the number of material codes in SAP? Is there a SAP standard that can be used?

Thank you.

Sandra.

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Former Member
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Hi all,

Thanks for your feedback. This is really appreciated.

The goal all of my initial question  is to be able to provide any requested material certification to our customers without multiplying the material codes in our ECC.

With the changes of the market conditions, we should be more agile and able to provide material certifications when customers request them. We can have multiple certifications for the material used in a production batch (ie: country of origin: Brazil and GMO free).

Do you think that batch classification can help in this case?

Have you faced same requests these last years?

Thanks.

Sandra.

busyaban7
Active Contributor
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Hi Sandra,

While going through this thread, I understand that you already have received correct answers form many experienced consultants. The main questions you had asked are -

a) How to differentiate same material based on a characteristic "Country of Origin", without introducing a new material code in system ---> This point was well explained by Kumar as this is the simplistic approach, which are followed in Agri-business, Chemical, FDA kind of industries. Though the option of 'Variant Configuration' as suggested by Suresh is also one nice way to bell the cat, but it depends on how much benefit you can generate by implementing it, Vs the cost of implementing it in short term and long term run. There are some complex requirements, for which you have to adopt "Variant Configurations", if the property is majorly driven form customer requirements and/or some other, and such cases are over the 'cost aspect' while adapting a solution. 

As your initial requirement for separately tracking materials based Country of Origin (Ex; Brazil) and GMO Free - Yes/No are not very complex to achieve [....unless otherwise there are some requirements not shared in this discussion forum explains the complete business flow...], so I believe for your case, you can safely get more value by just activating Batch Management at Material level [Class type 023]. You can just activate the two characteristics as MANDIATORY, and while you perform GR form PurOrd, inside the batch classification user can update the values, before saving. In case, even after activating the characteristic as 'Mandatory', the batch is getting created and saved without accepting the user input, then you should think of an enhancement to block the saving of the batch & GR posting to support this activity.

b) Material Certifications for incoming materials - Please can you elaborate this aspect a bit more. What I have understand here is that, you wish to copy some of the batch characteristics values for incoming materials at Goods Receipt form PurOrd. Is that Correct?

c) Provide Material certification to your end customer, when they request these values - It seems, you wish to copy characteristic values to your Production order GR related Final Produced batch. Is that Correct?

The approach for point b) and point c) is similar to the approach suggested in a). Basically if you are working with component incoming materials form PurOrd, you will have to do GR and update the Batch Characteristics, for which your Vendor is responsible. Now during GR form Production Order, you will have to use 'Batch Derivation' mechanism to pass on the component batch values. Additionally, you can track the remaining parameters at GR batch, like Thousand Seed Weight (TSW), Country of Origin, etc directly while posting GR. If there are some characteristics which should store multiple values, then your batch characteristic should have multiple value enabled. Also, at this stage, you should activate inspection type 04, to create inspection lots and test the final product against MIC specification ranges. You should work on passing these values to your batch characteristics while the MIC results are closed [status = 5], and UD applied.

Finally, Quality certificate creation is another important aspect of QM. You can create it based on the guidelines and certifications your industry is following, and catering across your customer's needs. For example, you can add the certificate profile and add MIC's which are a part of your 'Quality Testing'. But there are some characteristics which are updated through 'Batch Derivation'. One helpful mechanism in such scenario could be to go ahead with a customized output, though you can stick to standard process, already explained. In my previous experience, I had to deal with a totally customized output, including some additional declarations, for some specific customer.

Thanks,

Arijit


Former Member
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Hi Arijit,

Thanks for your detailed feedback.

Regarding b and c, actually it is more c that we need.. Example: from raw material with country of origin Brazil, we are producing a finish good. Our customer is asking us to send a certification proving the characteristic " country of origin= Brazil" for this specific finish good.

I agree with all your comments but I think as well that our entire planning process will need to be reviewed. I guess with this batch classification, we will need to plan based on specific material characteristics and no more based on material code. This will impact both supply planning ( how much should we source of material 1111 from Brazil vs US? ) but as well demand planning. I guess this must be another module or functionalility of ECC ? What about Advance Planning?

If yes, this is a big change as the entire Planning will be impacted.

Any recommendations?

Thanks again.

busyaban7
Active Contributor
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Hi Sandra,

I believe that's a good point and your approach seems to be logical too. If there are limitation of sourcing component material XYZ form Brazil than US, and if you keep the component stock lying in warehouse without really using it for production, that's a waste for you. Sometimes, overstocking "C" indicator materials in warehouse is also not recommendable.

I have not much experience in planning part in PP/APO. So I think, you should write a separate thread in SAP@PP or SAP@APO forum to get a better clarity.

Sorry, as I couldn't help you further. May be someone has some experience in these subjects could help you better!!

Thanks,

Arijit

Former Member
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Hi Arijit,

You have been a great support already.

Thanks!

Sandra.

busyaban7
Active Contributor
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Hi Sandra,

Please can you close this thread now as you may need to work with PP/APO team to get the next feedback on planning part.

Thanks,

Arijit

Former Member
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Hi,

Of course. How can I close a discussion?

Thank you.

busyaban7
Active Contributor
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Answers (5)

Answers (5)

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Great suggestions from Arijit.

Sandra, I would think that you will need to take an integrated approach to the solution. You will need to consider integrating QM and batch management into procurement, production and sales processes (and possibly APO).

Regards,

Harish

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Hi Sandra,

I do like Kumar's suggestion of using Batch Management. In addition, you could leverage some of the standard functionality to trigger inspections differently when you receive materials from two different vendors in different countries. This will also help you in automating the process.

You said there are '2 different qualities' based on the countries of origin. I would assume your 'acceptance criteria' is different for the same material when received from the 2 vendors in different countries. Follow the steps below:

Step 1: Setup Batch class and characteristics for the values you would like to see on the material. (use class type 023). Add the standard system provided characteristics LOBM_HERKL for Country of Origin and LOBM_LIFNR for Vendor number to the class.

Step 2: Setup MICs: Setup 2 sets of Master Inspection Characteristics (MICs) with different acceptance criteria based your inspection requirements for each Country. Create the characteristics with reference to Batch Characteristics created above.

Step 3: Setup Inspection Plan. Create 2 separate "Group counters" within the same "Group", one group counter per Country (US and Brazil in your case). In each of the group counters, add MICs created above - use the set of MICs created for each country.

Step 4: On the "Material Assignment" screen of Inspection Plan, you will be able to specify the combination of [Group Counter - Material - Plant - Vendor]. So, you will have two entries on this screen with one each for the two different group counters (for US and Brazil). You would link same material to both group counters. You will assign two different vendors (one each for Us and Brazil) in each of the group counters.

Now, In effect, when you receive the material from US, the group counter that contains US vendor gets triggers the inspection lot with the set of MICs listed in the US Group counter; and when you receive material from Brazil, the Brazil group counter triggers the inspection lot. Now you will be able to carry out results recording for each of the above lots with different specifications (this should address the '2 quality for same material' question).

secondly, when you carry out the Usage decision, Batch classification occurs and you can see the inspection results get transferred to the batch automatically. The two system defined batch characteristics (LOBM_HERKL and LOBM_LIFNR) will be automatically populated as well, so that you have the vendor number and country of origin showing up within the batch.

Note: I have not gone in depth detailing the batch classification process, there seem to be other articles already published on SCN.

Hope this helps you setup the complete process for your scenario.

Good Luck.

Harish

Former Member
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Hi Harish,

Thanks a lot.

I am going to ask to my technical team to check if we can follow your steps in our ECC.

The goal all of this is to be able to provide the requested material certification to our customers.

With the changes of the market conditions, we should be more agile and able to provide material certifications when customers request them. We can have multiple certifications for the material used a production batch.

Do you think that batch classification can help in this case?

Have you faced same requests these last years?

Thanks.

Sandra.

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Hi Sandra,

The design provided above will allow you to generate different Certificates (called as certificate of analysis or COA) with different values.

You need to create 'Certificate Profiles' in the configuration to be able to generate customer certificates.

The above steps I mentioned in the previous note are on the 'receipt' side. customer certificates are on the 'out going side'.

You will be able to create "Customer specific certificates". You can pull inspection results into the certificate either from the batch or from the inspection results in QM. Also, you can define a number of parameters to drive how you want to see the values in the COA.

It appears like you need to setup end-to-end process right from procurement through to shipping product to the customer. Break this up into smaller steps and set it up one step at a time. Very much do-able..!

Thanks,

Harish

Former Member
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Hi Harish,

Exactly a end to end process implementation is needed. I will need my IT support

Do you any documents or links to share with me as a starting point?

Thank you very much.

former_member184574
Active Contributor
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Hi Sandra,

are you using batch management.? if yes.. then try the below option..

Use batch classification... 

create Characteristic CT04 named source of supply.. for this assign values like Brazil, US and so on..

Now assign the this  Characteristic to a class with class type 023 in CL01. Finally assign this batch class to your material in material master in classification view.

Now when the materials are received from the respective source, during GR ask them to maintain value in batch classification. T-code : MSC2N

with the above you can easily come to know which batch received from which country...

with this you can manage with single material code though it comes from different sources..

Hope this helps...

Thanks

Kumar.

Former Member
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Hi Kumar,

Thanks. Looks a good option.

Will be checking this.

Do you have any idea if material certification ( more and more requester from customers) can be handle with batch management?

Thanks again. Great forum.

Sandra.

anand_rao3
Active Contributor
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How you are managing the inventories for these 2 different materials with the same code? How you are distinguishing them at the moment?

If we talk about QM module only, the probably the solution is easy. You can customize the new storage location for Quality B. So that Material with Quality A would be GRed in Location A and Quality B in to Location B.

But if the changes are at organization level and impacting other departments such as Production, Finance, you can explore assigning revision levels to the material or the one which is provides in above post.

Anand

Former Member
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Hi Anand,

Thanks.

Today we do not do any distinction for inventory management but this is not the best option.

What are revision levels?

Thank you for your help!

suresh_bachan
Active Participant
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Hello,

This can be managed with variant configuration as explained by the link below (for colors)

http://www.gotothings.com/sd/steps-for-variant-configuration-and-pricing.htm

Regards

Former Member
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Hi Suresh,

Thanks.I will check out in details.

But let's say I have a raw material ( SAP code: 1111) sourced from US, and as well from Brazil. I will produce a finish good with either raw material from Brazil or from US. My customer is asking for raw material from Brazil only, Will I with this configuration be able to select Brazilian raw material when starting the production ( with material code 1111)?

With this type of configuration, will it be easy to manage inventory?


I am not too technical sorry for this !


Thank you.

suresh_bachan
Active Participant
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Hello Sandra,

Yes you can always chose a raw material you want to use. After having created the configurable material, characteristic, class and the profile you have to define a BOM with both raw materials from US & Brazil with object dependency.

Best regards

Former Member
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Hi Suresh,

All this with same sap material code?

As well, any idea if we can manage material certification ( ie: certified sourced in Brazil) using this solution?

Thanks again.

Sandra.