Segmentation (LO-SGT)

Businesses compete today in an increasingly customer-oriented market. Therefore, it becomes necessary to streamline internal processes and logistics around the needs of each market and its unique requirements through appropriate sourcing, planning, and supply of goods to meet market demands.

Some materials are expected to support large volumes of data. Segmentation can be used to order such materials by logically categorizing them based on certain criteria or characteristics.

For example, in the fashion industry, you can distinguish a fashion material such as a t-shirt based on the size and the color. This t-shirt in a particular size and color is called a material variant. You can enter a specific item line for a material variant. Using segmentation, you can also order material variants of different quality levels, for different customer channels, and from different countries of origin.

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text.

In material master, you can segment a material using segmentation structure and segmentation strategy.

Implementation Considerations

These functions are a part of the business function Material Segmentation across Logistics (SD, MM, PP, IM, LE) (LOG_SEGMENTATION).

Integration

Segmentation is integrated in the following applications:

LO Material Master
SD Sales
MM Purchasing

You can assign segments to a material using segmentation structure and segmentation strategy in the material master. You can configure these settings for segmentation in Customizing for Segmentation under SAP Implementation Guide Logistics - General .

Features

There are two types of segments:

Requirement segments
Stock segments

Requirement segments are important for sales documents such as sales orders, planned independent requirements and dependent requirements.

Example Example

The incoming requirements such as sales orders are divided based on the requested quality - Quality 1, Quality 2, or Quality 3, and by customer channel - Store, Wholesale, or E-Commerce.

End of the example.

Stock segments are used for logical distribution of existing and planned stock. Therefore, stock segments are assigned to both the physical stock and procurement proposals such as planned orders, production orders, purchase requisitions, and purchase orders.

Example Example

You can divide your stock based on the same criteria as the requirement, that is, by quality - Quality 1, Quality 2, or Quality 3 and by countries of origin - India, China, or Germany.

End of the example.

The segments influence the entire logistics chain. You can assign segments to a material using segmentation structure and segmentation strategy in the material master.