To be able to supply your customers with more accurate information about when they can expect delivery, you may need to carry out availability and resource checks when entering a sales order.

You want to know whether a product is available when the customer wants it or, if not, when it will be available. As the end product is not in stock, it is a good idea to make the check at component level.

Feedback between SD and production is also important to the supply of reliable information to customers. Schedule or quantity changes in the procurement of components must be sent on to the sales order for the end product, so that any information already supplied can be amended promptly (if necessary).

The system accommodates these requirements in the planning strategies that form part of assembly processing.

When you create a sales order for a material, to which a strategy group for assembly processing has been assigned, this automatically triggers an assembly order in the background, and assembly processing. The strategy group determines the assembly order type. In this example, the assembly order is a network.

Assembly processing includes all the sales order and network functions.

When you create a sales order, the system automatically creates the network as the procurement element. In the network, you then use scheduling and the material availability check to determine the correct delivery date. The direct connection means that any changes you make to dates or quantities in the network are reflected in the sales order. Conversely, changes made in the sales order automatically take effect in the network.

In this process, you use assembly processing with variant configuration. The end result is a variant product, configured when the sales order is created. The results of this configuration are automatically adopted in the network and affect which activities and BOM components are adopted in the network.

You can use assembly processing with projects if you are working in make-to-order production or you do not yet know exactly how you will carry out a sales order:

• If your customer orders a product so complex to assemble or produce that you regard it as a project You can use networks to plan in the medium and long terms if, for example, assembly will only begin in six months time
• If your customer orders a product that you are producing or assembling for the first time You can then use the network for rough-cut planning and refine it in further planning, and, if required, complement it with production order.
• If your production or assembly includes technical or chronological dependencies
• If you want to use Project System functions when carrying out an order

You need the following basic data in the Project System to use assembly processing with variant configuration:

• Standard network
• Standard WBS
• Network parameters from sales order

The following prerequisites must be satisfied:

• The end product in the sales order is a configurable material.
• The materials BOM is assigned to the standard network.

• Material (end product) and standard network are assigned using the network parameters from the sales order.

• You have assigned material, standard network, and BOM are assigned to the same variant class, using your configuration profile.

• Dependencies are maintained for activities and BOM items in the standard networks.

• Standard WBS elements are assigned to standard networks.

• Milestones are assigned to the standard networks.