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 Alternative Items

Use

In the bill of material, alternative items are assigned to an alternative item group. On the General item data detail screen, you enter the same freely-definable character string (for example, A1 ) for all related alternative items in the AltItemGroup field.

In the production order you can see this assignment on the General data tab page of the corresponding components ( Alternative data pushbutton).

Note Note

The system carries out additional checks for an alternative item:

End of the note.

  • An alternative item cannot also be a co-product

  • Discontinuation data ( Discontinuation data function key) is not supported for alternative items

  • If an alternative item is defined as a material to be discontinued in its material master, you see a warning when you enter the alternative item group in the BOM: When the BOM is processed in related application areas (for example, MRP), the alternative item overrides the discontinuation data.

  • An item in an alternative item group cannot be a phantom assembly

You can enter the following additional data both in the BOM and in the production order: Priority , Strategy, and Usage probability.

  • Priority

In this field, you define the priority of the item within an alternative item group. This determines the priority for planned withdrawal of items.

Example Example

Two items are assigned to an alternative item group (A1) with the following values for priority:

Item 0060 Value for priority: 02

Item 0065 Value for priority: 01

The system reads item 0065 first.

End of the example.

  • Strategy

You use the strategy to determine how selection of the item for planned withdrawal is controlled within the alternative item group.

The strategy should be the same for all alternative items in an alternative item group.

Example Example

If the value 2 (100% check) is defined for the strategy, the first material in the defined priority sequence for which sufficient quantities are available is reserved.

End of the example.

  • Usage probability

MRP plans these alternative material components according to probability of use.

In this field you enter a percentage to show the probability of using an object in production. Material requirements for the BOM components are planned according to the usage probability. Variant parts of a standard product are also planned according to the usage probability.

If you do not enter a usage probability for the alternative item, a warning message appears. In this case, MRP does not receive any quantities for planning the material.

The planned withdrawal for the production order is based on reservation lists. These lists are based on the priority and strategy for the alternative item.