Preparing for Material Requirements Planning with MRP Areas 
Preparing for Material Requirements Planning with MRP Areas
Implementation Options
This process describes which master data you must maintain in order to be able to carry out material requirements planning at MRP area level.
Process Flow
You convert the existing planning file entries at plant level to planning file entries at MRP area level. To convert the planning file entries, you use the report that you trigger in Customizing for MRP in the IMG activity Convert planning file entries for MRP areas.
The system creates a new planning file and MRP areas for the existing plants. These MRP areas, however, do not affect how material requirements are planned. The number of the plant MRP area is identical to the plant number and therefore has four digits.
You cannot create plant MRP areas manually. The plant MRP areas are only created automatically by the conversion report (see Converting the Planning File Entries).
In the IMG activity Activate MRP for MRP areas, set the MRP area active indicator. This activates material requirements planning with MRP areas at client level. The MRP area field appears for selection in the MRP applications.
Material requirements planning with MRP areas cannot be reversed.
In the IMG activity Define MRP areas, you create the MRP areas for every plant, for which you would like to carry out material requirements planning separately.
When creating an MRP area, enter:
Finally, you assign the storage locations or the subcontractors to the MRP areas.
There are three different types of MRP area:
The plant MRP area initially contains the plant together with all its storage locations and stock with subcontractors. The plant MRP area is created automatically when you convert the existing planning file entries to planning file entries for MRP areas.
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, as they are now to be planned separately.
You choose this type for MRP areas that consist of one or more storage locations. A storage location can only be assigned to one MRP area.
You choose this type if you would like to define an MRP area for a subcontractor. You can only assign one subcontractor to an MRP area of the type subcontractor. You cannot assign the same subcontractor to another MRP area.
You assign the MRP areas to the materials by creating an MRP area segment for each MRP area in the material master. You can assign several MRP areas to one material (see MRP Area Segments in the Material Master).
MRP with MRP areas for the material is not activated until an MRP area has been assigned to a material. If you have not assigned an MRP area to a material, 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 the material, the system can plan it in the plant MRP area and in the assigned MRP area.
You can display an overview for all materials in an MRP area. To do this, you go into Customizing for MRP and choose the IMG activity Define MRP areas. Call up an MRP area by double-clicking and choose 
Material overview for MRP area.
If you have already entered a storage location in the BOM (BOM item), in the work center (supply area) or in the production version, you should check whether this storage location is the storage location for the MRP area that you have assigned in the material master.
The materials are assigned to an MRP area via the storage location that the system determines during the planning run. You should therefore check the storage locations that you have maintained in the material master. The storage location in the material master must be a storage location for the MRP area, for which you have created an MRP area segment in the material master. You can therefore ensure that material requirements planning will be carried out for the correct MRP area (see Determining and Assigning Storage Locations to the MRP Area).