In backflushing, you can control from which stocks the components are to be withdrawn. For example, you may want to withdraw stock from unrestricted-use stock first and then from consignment stock or vice versa. Using the stock determination functions, you can define strategies which the system then uses to automatically determine which stock type is to be used for the withdrawal.

Stock determination is integrated with the following components:
Inventory Management, Sales, Warehouse Management, Repetitive Manufacturing, Production Orders and the Pull List.

• You must assign a stock determination rule in the repetitive manufacturing profile of the assembly.

• You must assign the stock determination group to the component in the material master record.

The system uses the predefined stock determination strategy to check which stock is to be withdrawn.

You can define stock determination for the following stocks:

• Unrestricted-use stock

• Vendor consignment stock

• Pipeline material

The system usually determines the storage location for component withdrawal via a storage location determination in the BOM explosion. If, however, you want to determine the storage location dynamically according to certain criteria, you can also use dynamic storage location determination tools in the Stock Determination component.

If several consignment stocks from different vendors exist when backflushing, you can use stock determination to instruct the system to choose the vendor with the cheapest prices and who has enough stock available, for example.