Material

Purpose

Use this component to plan and monitor the material requirements and costs in projects, to control the flow of materials and for scheduling.

Integration

Material forms a link from a project to Sales , Materials Management ( Purchasing and Inventory Management ), and Production Planning and Control .

Features

Assignments

Via the allocation of material components to network activities, you determine the assemblies and raw materials that must be reserved or ordered for a project and trigger procurement via MRP or purchasing.

Depending on your type of project, there are various ways of allocating material components.

  • In projects that have few material requirements, you can allocate the network activities material components individually .

  • You can allocate a material with a BOM to an activity and then explode the BOM (level by level).

  • If you work with BOMs that contain a large number of components or that are still been built up, you can expect to make several changes to the BOM during the project. You can minimize the amount of work involved in making these changes in the project by using BOM transfer . Here you create logical connections between BOM items and the network activities. To update the changes in the BOM in the project, you only have to execute the allocation again.

  • If you use standard networks for creating your networks, you can predefine material allocations by allocating material to activities in standard networks . When you then create a network, these component allocations are copied. You can use this method together with variant configuration if you use projects to manufacture “products” that differ but use the same material components and have a similar project structure. In this case, you create a configurable standard network that is allocated a super BOM, which contains all possible components. When you create a network, the system copies the necessary components to the network, based on the characteristic value assignment.

  • Assembly processing is a special case of this process, in which the Project System has a direct link to sales. If you enter a material with the correct settings, to which a standard network has been assigned, in a sales order item the system generates the project structure from the sales order. The material requirements can be predefined in the standard network as above.

Procurement

When you allocate a material, you can determine how it is to be procured via the item category . For a brief guide to the settings in the system that affect procurement, see Procurement Settings .

  • The SAP standard item category N (non-stock item) always leads to direct procurement and to a purchase requisition, which is generated by the network. The system does not generate reservations that are relevant to MRP. You cannot post movements to stock for components with item category N.

  • Inventory management is envisaged for the SAP standard item category L (stock item). Depending on the settings in the material master and the bill of material, or the settings and assignments in the project system, the system generates for components with this item category a reservation or a reservation and a purchase requisition. For more information, see Procurement Settings .

    If during procurement via MRP , the requirements canot be covered from stock, MRP decides whether the material is produced internally or procured externally. The system then generates as a procurement element either a planned order or a purchase requisition.

    If materials have a long lead time (production time or delivery time), you can generate preliminary purchase rquisitions or planned independent requirements. For information about the prerequisites and settings necessary for this, see Advance Procurement .

You can use a grouping indicator to group purchase requisition items within a project into collective purchase requisitions.You do this by defining a grouping indicator at project definition level, which you can assign to the following PS objects:

  • Activity

  • Activity element

  • Material components that are procured externally

When you create a purchase requisition, the system groups all items that have the same grouping indicator in one purchase requisition.

Scheduling Material Flow

During the scheduling of a project, the system also determines the requirements dates of the components in relation to the activity dates. This ensures that you can control and monitor the staging of the required components.

Due to the multi-level BOM explosion in networks, you can exactly control dates, since you can explain not only the top component but also all the subordinate BOM items.

With Monitoring Dates you have a tool with which you can manage the dates in materials procurement (internal and external).

Inventory Management

Material for a project can be managed in general plant stock or in individual stock. With individual stock youcan follow materials that are needed for a project with regards to stock levels and MRP separately. If a network is assigned to a sales order, you can also manage the material components in sales order stock. For more information, see Managing Stocks of Material Components and Project Stock .

Delivery

If components are allocated to a project, you can create deliveries in the Project System, and as a result deliver independently of a sales order.

Via third party orders, it is possible to have externally procured components delivered directly from the vendor to the customer.