Configurable materials are materials that can have different variants. For example, an automobile can have different types of paintwork, trim, and engine.

Variants are materials that differ only in certain characteristics such as color and size.

You can define a configurable material in one of the following ways:

• Setting the Material is configurable indicator for the material type in Customizing for the Material Master in the activity Define attributes of material types. In the standard SAP R/3 System, this indicator is already set for the material type KMAT.

• Flagging the material as configurable on the Basic Data screen in the material master record.

You normally create a variant at plant level on the MRP screen, where you assign it to the configurable material. You configure the variant using the characteristics of the configurable material. Besides this plant-specific configuration, you can also define a cross-plant configuration on the Basic Data screen for materials procured externally. If you have defined a cross-plant configuration, you can copy it as the plant-specific configuration. In Purchasing, if you have not defined a plant-specific configuration, the system uses the cross-plant configuration.

Besides the components for all of the variants, the bill of material (BOM) also contains components used only in some variants. You select components by assigning values to characteristics and specifying object dependencies.