Separating the Backflushing Processes (SAP Library

Separating the Backflushing Processes

Use

Fast response times and the ability to process high volumes of data quickly are the two main factors in backflushing. By separating the individual backflushing processes, you can significantly improve performance as these processes are split into ones critical to performance and ones that are not critical to performance.

In the standard system, the following backflushing processes are automatically linked:

Posting goods receipts

Backflushing material components

Calculating actual costs when posting production activities

Reducing the production quantities (planned independent requirements)

Adjusting the dependent requirements of the components in the reporting point backflush

Reducing the capacity requirements

Adjusting the Logistics Information System

It is possible to separate the two backflushing processes, "posting goods issues" and "posting production activities" which are both critical as far as performance is concerned. This means that these processes are not posted at the same time in the final backflush. Instead, they are collected in a work list and are processed later in the background.

Prerequisites

In Customizing for Repetitive Manufacturing, you must maintain the following steps in the section Separate Backflushing Processes:

Define backflushing processes

Here, you define the process control profile. This profile is used to control whether the backflush for the components and/or production activities are to be posted collectively and when these backflushing processes are to be processed by the system (online, in update program or in the background).

Define times/parallel processing for backflushing processes

In this step, you control the servers/work processes (sessions) to be used for processing the backflushing processes.

First, in Customizing for Repetitive Manufacturing, you have to define RFC groups (under Backflushing ® Separate Backflushing Processes ® Define RFC group).

If you selected background processing, you also have to define the parameters for the background processing in the IMG activity Define background job for processing background processes.

You must assign the process control profile to the repetitive manufacturing profile you use to control the materials for which the backflushing processes are to be separated.

For make-to-order production, you must create a product cost collector and set the indicator for valuated customer stock in the requirements class.

Features

You can separate the backflushing processes for the:

Final backflush for stock materials

Reporting point backflush for stock materials

Final backflush for make-to-order (account assignment to product cost collector)

Activity backflush for stock materials

The system separates the backflushing processes for all materials controlled with a repetitive manufacturing profile which contains a process control profile. This means that, in the final backflush, the system only posts the goods receipt and reduces capacities. All other functions are recorded in a work list according to your settings in the process control profile.

The issue and production activity postings are recorded at every reporting point backflush.

If you have not set any aggregation in the process control profile, the individual, separated processes are carried out later at a time of your choice.

If you have set the aggregation for backflushing components and for posting the production activities, the system proceeds as follows:

Backflushing process - goods issue posting:

The BOM explosion is carried out for the selected materials to calculate the component quantities.

With no reference to the planned order, the goods receipt quantities are cumulated according to the selection criteria in the collective backflush and the BOMs are exploded for the cumulated quantity per material.
With reference to the planned order, BOM explosion is carried out per planned order.

The goods issues are posted. The system carries out an aggregate posting for the same components.

Backflushing process - production activities:

The goods receipt quantities are aggregated. The production activities are calculated in proportion to this cumulated quantity. The system bases this calculation on the routing used for the cost estimate.
It is not possible to use a standard cost estimate for a configurable material.

You can separate the backflushing processes for make-to-stock materials as well as for make-to-order materials. However, the process with make-to-order materials is only possible if the costs for the material are not assigned to the sales order account but to a product cost collector. You can create this product cost collector from the main repetitive manufacturing menu.

For more information on the product cost collector for make-to-order materials, please refer to the SAP Documentation, CO Cost Object Controlling.

Two functions are available for processing the partial processes defined in the process control profile:

A dialog transaction for starting the report.

A background job (Customizing for Repetitive Manufacturing).

In the separated backflush, you can also reverse the goods receipt as long as the goods issues have not been subsequently posted. However, you cannot reverse goods receipts if the goods issue has already been backflushed.

Activities

To trigger the processing of the backflushing processes defined in the process control profile, proceed as follows:

Online transaction

Starting from the main Repetitive Manufacturing menu, choose Backflush ® Separated backflush.

The Separated Backflush screen appears.

In the section of the screen entitled, Select production type, select the appropriate production type.

In the section of the screen entitled, Backflush processes to be carried out, select the appropriate process.

In the section of the screen entitled, Selection data, limit the material selection as necessary.

To monitor progress in dialog mode and to trigger the parallel processing, choose Settings and make the appropriate selections.

If you select Monitor processes, the system displays a dialog box where you can monitor processing after choosing Execute.

If you select Parallel processes, the system works through the various processes on several servers/work processes in parallel according to your settings in Customizing (Define Parallel Processing for Backflushing Procedures).

Choose Execute.

The system processes the data.

Background processing

If you want to process the data in background mode, proceed as follows:

Create a variant of the report.
Define the parameters for background processing in Customizing (Define Background Job for Backflushing Processes).