MRP with MRP Area 

Description

Up to now, material requirements planning had been carried out at plant level. The various requirements were combined in the planning run and procurement elements are created for them.

As of Release 4.5A, it is now possible to carry out material requirements planning separately for defined MRP areas. The implementation of MRP areas provides more clarity and allows you to differentiate to a greater extent within a plant when planning requirements.

The MRP area represents an organizational unit for which you can carry out material requirements planning independently. The results of the planning run are displayed specifically for each MRP area.

There are basically three types of MRP areas:

• Plant MRP Area

The plant MRP area initially contains the plant together with all its storage locations and stock with subcontractors.

When you then have defined MRP areas for storage locations and for subcontractors and you have assigned materials, the plant MRP area is reduced by exactly this number of subcontractors and storage locations, as they are now to be planned separately.

• MRP Areas for Storage Locations

You can define an MRP area that consists of one or several storage locations by creating an MRP area and assigning the storage locations to it. The storage locations assigned to the MRP area are then planned together.

A storage location of a plant may only be assigned to one MRP area.

• MRP Areas for Subcontractors

You can define an MRP area for each subcontractor and assign the vendor number of the subcontractor to it. A subcontractor may only be assigned to one MRP area. An MRP area of the subcontractor type may also only contain one subcontractor.

With the MRP area for subcontractors, you can plan the components to be provided for a particular subcontractor separately from the usual requirements.

You can specifically plan dependent requirements and independent requirements, for example, for spare parts, for individual MRP areas.

In order to be able to plan independent requirements of a material, you can create a sales order with reference to a storage location, which belongs to an MRP area, or you can enter planned independent requirements specifying the MRP area in Demand Management.

In order to be able to implement MRP with MRP areas, you need to carry out the following IMG activities:

1. In the IMG activity

Convert planning file entries for MPR areas , you convert the existing planning file entries at plant level to planning file entries at MRP area level.

2. In the IMG activity

Activate MRP for MRP areas , you have to set the MRP area active indicator. This activates material requirements planning with MRP areas at client level. In addition, the MRP area field appears for selection in MRP applications.

3. In the IMG activity Define MRP area , you create the MRP areas for every plant for which you would like to carry out material requirements planning separately.

You assign the materials to the various MRP areas in the material master by creating an MRP area segment for every MRP area in which the material is planned. You can define your own MRP parameters in the MRP area segment, such as, for example, the lot size or MRP type. This enables you to use different parameters for the material in each MRP area. If you have not entered any MRP areas in the material master, the material remains in the plant MRP area and is automatically planned in the plant MRP area.

The assignment of receipt and issue elements of a material to an MRP area is carried out in the planning run using storage location determination. The storage location determined controls the assignment to MRP areas. If the system cannot determine a storage location or if the storage location determined does not belong to an MRP area of the material, the system assigns the receipt and issue elements to the plant MRP area.

• The receipt elements (planned orders, purchase requisitions, and so on) are assigned via the receiving storage location which the system determines during the planning run.

• The issue elements (planned independent requirements, sales order, dependent requirements, reservations) are assigned via the issuing storage location which the system determines during the planning run. The storage location determination for the withdrawal of components is carried out during the BOM explosion in the planning run.

Dependent functions

• You can carry out an independent material forecast with individual parameters for MRP areas.

• You can carry out an independent ATP check for each MRP area. If several storage locations belong to an MRP area, you can also check at two levels: at storage location level and at MRP area level.

Further notes

The following functions are available for MRP with MRP areas:

• Stock transfer from plant to MRP area

• Subcontracting/Third-Party Order Processing

For more information on MRP areas, see the R/3 library documentation PP Material Requirements Planning in MRP Area.