Assortment Management (SAP Library

Assortment Management

Use

An assortment is an object to which articles are assigned for a specific time frame (validity period). This assignment can be made either directly of via assortment modules. The results of this assignment are listing conditions that form the basis for a variety of reports.

The following types of assortment are available:

Local assortments

These are designated as type A for stores and type B for distribution centers. When you create a site (store or distribution center), the system automatically creates a local assortment which it then assigns to the site. This local assortment is site-specific and cannot be assigned to any other site. Each site has exactly one local assortment.

General assortments

General assortments can be assigned to any number of customers, with one or more assignments for each sales area. They can also be assigned to any number of stores and distribution centers, provided you have activated the multiple assignment flag in Customizing.

An assortment user must be assigned to an assortment before it can use the articles in that assortment for its various business functions. The scope of functions available is determined by the category of assortment user.

Currently, there are the following categories of assortment users:

Retail sites

Stores
Distribution centers

Customers

In Retail, the most important assortment user is the retail site.

The assortments of a site consist of all the articles in which it trades.

Assortments can be grouped together in the Classification System using SAP class type 047. Listing checks use only the characteristics defined here.

Mass functions are available for assigning customers to assortments (using assortment maintenance functions and radio buttons).

The following graphic shows the relationship of assortments to assortment users:

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

The main tasks of Assortment Management for retail sites and customers are:

Determining the articles that may be sold in a store at POS.

Adding these articles to the article assortment that is assigned to this store’s distribution center

Determining the distribution centers via which articles are distributed when stores are to be supplied from the warehouse

Determining the stores in which articles are to be sold at the point of sale

Determining the articles which are to be included in the customer‘s assortments

Features

Assortment Management has been designed to be independent of all purchasing and vendor constraints, goods movements and supply sources. This has the following advantages:

The central purchasing division in a company can function independently, without being involved in any goods movements or marketing activities of individual distribution chains

Different sales and distribution strategies are possible, independent of central purchasing policy

Local autonomy is possible for sites and distribution chains

Flexible supply sources are supported

The assortment management demands of retailers differ greatly. Some require identical assortments in all areas, while others demand assortments unique (for example) to each store. Assortment Management takes account of these differences and offers a variety of tools to allow any combination of article assortments as well as the structuring of article assortments for wholesale.

If an article is not listed it cannot be procured for a site, as it will not exist in the site’s article assortment or in the store’s merchandise management system. However, subsequent listing is possible. (See Subsequent Listing for Articles.)

It is possible to copy all listed articles from assortment to another. You can decide whether or not you want the system to perform validity checks before copying. In this case, then before the copy process is confirmed, the system checks assignment to make sure there are no problems. If there are, the system lists the errors and allows the user to skip over them and proceed with the copy, or else stop and otherwise resolve the problems.

It is also possible to delete an assortment.