If you would like to use one or several alternative components in an assembly, you can enter these in the bill of material and combine them by grouping the alternative items.

These alternative items can then be taken into account when exploding the BOM during the planning run.

The alternative items can be taken into account in MRP according to the defined usage probability or can be defined in the BOM purely for information purposes for the employee.

Proceed as follows to combine components that you would like to use as alternatives into a group:

1. Enter the materials as items in the item overview of the BOM.
2. Double-click on the Item field to call up the item data for the first alternative item.
3. Enter the key for your alternative group in the Alternative item group field in the Basic data and choose Enter.
4. Enter the usage probability for the components. Enter a priority and strategy to define the procedure used for the withdrawal posting for the production order.