MRP Area (SAP Library - Material Requirements Planning (PP-MRP))

MRP Area

Definition

The MRP area represents an organizational unit for which material requirements planning is carried out independently.

Basically, there are three types of MRP area:

Plant MRP Area

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

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

MRP Areas for Storage Locations

You can define an MRP area that consists of a particular storage location, by creating an MRP area and assigning the storage location to it. Material requirements for this storage location are then planned separately from the rest of the plant.

You can also group several storage locations into one MRP area, by creating an MRP area and assigning the storage locations to it. These storage locations are then planned together.

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

MRP Areas for Subcontractors

You can also define an MRP area for each subcontractor.

A subcontractor may be assigned to only one MRP area. An MRP area of the subcontractor type may also only contain one subcontractor.

The following graphic shows an example of how a plant can be divided after the implementation of MRP areas:

Use

You can carry out MRP specifically for the determined MRP areas. This enables you to carry out differentiated material requirements planning. The requester can be, for example, the production on a particular assembly line or a subcontract order.

The MRP area allows you to have specific control over the staging and procurement of important parts produced in-house and purchased parts for each shop floor area. You can, however, also plan the provision of components for the individual subcontractors.

MRP areas of the storage location or subcontractor type are only suitable for:

components that are planned and produced for stock
finished products that are planned and produced for stock. By assigning a storage location in a sales order or by entering an MRP area when creating the planned independent requirements, you can define whether a material is planned in the plant MRP area or in the MRP area of the storage location.

Finished products and important assemblies intended for make-to-order or engineer-to-order production are always planned in the plant MRP area.
The planning run takes into account the planning with MRP areas as follows:

If you do not enter a separate scope of planning, the system plans the whole plant, that is, all MRP areas in the plant, during the total planning run. If you want to carry out a total planning run for a particular MRP area only, you must specify the required MRP area in the scope of planning.
During single-item, multi-level planning, the system plans the selected material in the MRP area entered. In addition, the system takes into account planning file entries from other MRP areas, for example, if the material is to be procured using stock transfer.
During single-item, single-level planning, the system plans the selected material in the MRP area entered only.

Structure

You define the MRP areas in Customizing for MRP. You can thereby assign the following to an MRP area:

one or more storage locations (example: you want to carry out planning for a particular assembly line and therefore assign a production storage location to the MRP area)

a subcontractor.

You assign the various MRP areas to the materials in the material master. For this, you create an MRP area segment for a material for every MRP area, in which it is used. In this MRP area segment, you can define MRP parameters such as, for example, the lot size or MRP type. This allows you to plan the material differently in the MRP area from how you plan it in the plant MRP area.

MRP with MRP areas for the material is not activated until the material has been assigned to an MRP area. If you have not assigned a material to an MRP area, that is, you have not created an MRP area segment in the material master, the material will continue to be planned in the plant MRP area only. If you have assigned an MRP area to it, the system can plan it in the plant MRP area and in the assigned MRP area.

Integration

You can carry out material requirements planning for MRP areas using all MRP procedures and all lot-sizing procedures.

You can also carry out an independent material forecast for MRP areas using your own parameters.

The material consumption values are updated separately for each MRP area.

A separate ATP check is carried out for each MRP area.

If several storage locations belong to an MRP area, the system can also carry out a check at two levels, that is, at storage location level and at MRP area level.