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Seasons form an important aspect in the product life cycle for the fashion industry. The production of fashion wear is determined or varies qualitatively according to the season for which it is manufactured. An example of seasons would be summer, winter and others. The reason for such a demarcation of a year’s production schedule on the basis of seasonal requirement is understandable, as the demand of fashion wear is almost always seasonal. For instance, woolen garments are in demand only in winter. So, to ensure that the production lifecycles are aligned with the demand, we have the concept of seasons as an intrinsic framework of time, on which the production schedule is based.

Features

This function offers the following options:

Relevance of Articles in Seasons

The relevance of an article to a season determines whether the article is planned for a season. Woolen fabric is an example of a seasonal article which is relevant only for the winters and hence form a part of the production lifecycle for the winter season. But, there are some articles that experience consistent demand throughout the year, for example, vests, and hence are produced normally without being categorized as an article that is relevant for a particular season.

Determination of Seasons

There is no fixed method by which a year’s schedule is demarcated into a number of seasons. You can determine the relevant seasons depending on the kind of articles produced, the customer’s discretion and the demand cycles. There can also be a scenario wherein two seasons overlap. For example, there can be an event like, football season, which creates the demand for apparel associated with the event. You can define this as different season altogether and have specific merchandise associated with it. Also, this football season can overlap over one or more existing seasons.

Further Classification

In the fashion industry, a season belongs to a season year and can have collections associated with it. Collections can in turn have themes associated with them. Every season has a validity period. The presence of these features help in further classification of the offering for a season apart from providing a concept for each segment of product offering.

The concept of seasons in SAP Fashion Management is seamlessly integrated with the processes of sales and distribution, and purchasing.

You use the Season Workbench (transaction FSH_SWB) to create relevant seasons with season year and the corresponding collections and themes beneath them. These four characteristics are arranged in a hierarchy as shown in the graphic below, and are the basis for creation of any season attribute.

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text.

Note Note

There is the dependency of an entity in the hierarchy to the one above it. For example, a collection has to be associated to a season and, likewise, a theme has to be associated to a collection. Hence, a collection or a theme cannot be defined as a stand-alone entity in the hierarchy mentioned above. Also, a season cannot be created without a season year.

End of the note.

You create these entities to define time frame as the elementary attribute, which indicates its applicability in a year. You can also see the hierarchy through the user menu and can define the period at any of the three levels. A sales period or a purchasing period, as shown below, defines the time frame within which that particular entity (season, collection and theme) is valid in the respective application document.

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text.

Activities

Season Processing

You must perform the following activities during the season processing:

  1. Create new Season

    You must create new seasons that are used in the season processing by using the Season Workbench (transaction FSH_SWB). A season can have one or more collections and each collection have one or more themes associated with it.

    Note Note

    A season cannot be created without a season year.

    You can also create a new season by copying data from an existing season. When you try to copy data from an existing season, you have to specify the target season and season year. The sales and the purchase periods for the new season (target) are calculated and proposed by the system, by deriving the difference between the Valid From and Valid To dates of the source season and those of the new season (target). You cannot create a new season using the copy reference functionality without changing the season and season year for the new season. When you use copy reference, in some cases, the sales or the purchase periods calculated using both the Valid From and Valid To dates might not be logically correct. For example, the Order Date To date might be earlier than the Order Date From. In such cases, system uses only the Valid From date to calculate sales or purchase periods.

    End of the note.

  2. Assign Season to the Fashion Article Master

    You must assign the season indicator created above, to the fashion article master. You can assign several seasons to the article master in Basis Data: Fashion. Before you assign a season to the article master, you have to ensure that the season types are defined in the Customizing activity Maintain Default Season Type under   SAP Customizing Implementation Guide   Logistics - General   SAP Fashion Management   Seasons   and a default season type is selected. The periods associated with the default season type are used during listing of the article master. For example, you can define creation Season, roll-out Season and fading Season as the season types and select Fading Season as the default season type.

  3. Create Periods

    You can create periods for a season at different levels for sales (sales organization, country, region, customer group, and customer) and purchasing (purchase organization, purchase group and vendor). You have to assign order window and delivery window while creating periods. Periods can be maintained at any one of the following levels:

    • Season year with season

    • Season year with season and collection

    • Season year with season, collection and theme

    It is specified in which period incoming orders are taken into account and which period is designated for delivery for the articles associated with a season. Periods can also be maintained when the sales organization or purchase organization details are blank.

    Note Note

    You cannot delete a season that has an article associated with it.

    End of the note.