Material Management in Projects

Scope of Functions

In Release 4.6A the functions for planning and management of components in networks have been extended and changed as follows:

• Item category
  

The processing of material items in networks has been changed to make the process in PS similar to that in PP. The logical process in networks has been adapted to that in production orders and planned orders. The new process is as follows:

Item category N is not intended for use with quantity-based inventory management. Item category N always leads to direct procurement and consequently to a purchase requisition, generated by the network. The costs from the purchase order are account assigned directly to consumption, that is the network. No goods receipts to stock are posted. It is only possible to generate a reservation and simultaneously a purchase requisition to cover the requirements, if you use item category L.

Item category L is intended for use with inventory management. Depending on the settings in the material master or the bill of material as well as the settings and assignments in the Project Systems,the following procurement types are available:

• Reservation for the network in plant stock or individual stock

• Reservation for the network in individual stock. A purchase requisition is also generated to cover requirements.

This procurement type corresponds to direct procurement in the Project System using item category N without MRP planning, as in previous releases.

• Purchase requisition for individual stock as either a preliminary purchase order or a third-party purchase order

• Planned independent requirements for plant stock or individual stock

• Purchase requisition for the network (direct procurement)

The material is consumed directly from procurement as for production orders

These changes result in the following advantages:

• Using the special procurement key, you can switch between internal production and external procurement without having to change the item category of a BOM item.

• It is possible to carry out an availability check for reservations in individual stock with directly generated purchase requisitions.

• Reservations are selected and displayed in inventory management.

• Networks, production orders, and planned orders all behave similarly. In addition, with networks it is still possible to procure material components without using requirements planning.

• Procurement Parameters on the Component Detail Screen
  

On the component detail screen there is now an additional tab page - Proc param. (Procurement parameters). The relevant settings for procurement from the material master, bill of material , and the network are grouped together here. It gives you an overview of the settings, the resulting requirements and how these requirements are covered. As well as reservations and purchase requisitions, purchase orders are now displayed here. You can also branch from this screen directly to the purchase order.

• Jump to Material Master
  

In the component overview you can now go directly to the material

master by double-clicking on the material. In the material master you can then display the settings.

• Copying Component Data
  

You can now copy the general data and the purchasing data from one component to another. If you execute this function, a dialog box appears on which you can select the data to be copied, change this, and select the target components. You then copy the data.

(Not yet avaialble in the Project Builder)

• Component Overview
  

In the activity component overview there are now two tab pages, Total and Purchasing . On the Purchasing page several fields can be maintained that previously were only on the component detail screen.

(Not yet avaialble in the Project Builder)

• Bill of Material Explosion
  

During the explosion of multi-level bills of material (BOM) you can now expand and collapse the subordinate levels in the overview screen for transfer. You can also call up the overview tree for the BOM. This overview tree shows the structure of the BOM, including phantom assemblies.

• Availability Check

• You can now reset the results of availability checks in networks. If you execute this function in the network header, the confirmed dates and quantities for all the components are reset. If you execute it from the component overview, only the selected components are reset.

• Changes in Automatic Availability Check during Saving:

• If the

• Check material availability when saving order indicator has been set in Customizing the Project System (Material -> Availability Check -> Define Checking Control), an availability check is only triggered during saving, if a change as described in the F1 help for this indicator has been made.

• In the individual overview for networks of the Information System you can now carry out a collective availability check for all the selected networks. You can thus check the availability of all the components in several networks simultaneously.

• Bill of Material Transfer

See Bill of Material Transfer

• Monitoring Dates/>

See Monitoring Dates

Effects on Customizing

You can now call up the IMG modules for the Control of Sales-Order- Related Production and for Activating MRP Groups for Requirements Grouping in Customizing for the Project System.

For information on the IMG modules that have been added for monitoring dates and BOM transfer, refer to the release notes for these topics.

See also

For more information, see the R/3 Library under Project System -> Material.