Material Availability Check

Use

Use this function to check whether material components in networks are available on the requirements date. If the requirements are not covered on the requirements date, the system determines the date on which they can be covered.

Prerequisites

  • Each material, whose availability you want to check, must be assigned a checking group on the MRP detail screen in its material master. The checking group combines materials whose availability is checked at the same time. You can, for instance, group materials according to the material type or the MRP type.

    Example Example

    Since purchase order and purchase requisitions are irrelevant to internally produced materials, you can assign such materials to checking groups whose check scope does not include these MRP elements.

    End of the example.

    Note Note

    If no checking group has been entered for a material, the system does not check its availability. In this case, the system makes a corresponding entry in the material availability log.

    End of the note.

  • You must perform the following activities in Customizing for the Project System in Start of the navigation path Material Next navigation step Availability Check. End of the navigation path

    • Define checking rules

    • Define a checking scope for the combination of a checking group and checking rule . You can, for instance, determine which MRP elements and types of stock the system takes into account or whether it should assume that a material is available after the replenishment lead time.

    • In checking control you have assigned order types, in the Project System network types, to checking rules You can check the availability in different applications in different ways.

Features

The system only checks those components that have item category L (stock item)that are not procured directly..

The following are not checked:

  • Phantom assemblies

  • Bulk materials

In the SAP system availability is determined according to the (available-to-promise) ATP method. In this process, the system checks:

  • Whether the material requirements can be covered on the requirements date

  • When coverage can be ensured, if complete coverage is not possible on the requirements date

The availability can be checked at the plant or storage location level. The level at which it is checked depends on the following:

  • Reservation data for the material component

  • The indicator for storage location inspection in the checking scope

    Note Note

    If availability is checked at storage location level and the component is available,the system also checks at plant level since other requirements at plant level could withdrawn material from the storage location.

    End of the note.

If the requirements refer to a sales order item or a WBS element, the system always checks the relevant segment of the sales order stock or project stock.

Activities

You can trigger availability checks manually or let the system trigger them automatically.

  • You can specify in Customizing in checking control whether the system should automatically check material availability and when to run this check. You can trigger availability checks depending on the status. for example when you release a network, or when you save and changes to quantities and dates have been made that affect the components.

  • You can trigger availability checks manually at any time. As opposed to automatic checks, you check the availability of individual components. See Checking Material Availability .

  • In the Information System, you can check the availability of components for several networks at the same time by using collective availability checks .

  • You can reverse availability checks for components . In this case the confirmed quantities and dates are canceled.

More information on material availability checks is in the Requirements Planning (PP-MRP) component.