Defining an Application (SAP Library

Defining an Application

In Customizing for Production, you define the procedures for automatic alternative determination in your company by choosing Bill of Material ® Alternative Determination ® Define applications.

The application is the key to the following criteria for the search process:

Priority of BOM usage

Priority of a specific alternative in a multiple BOM

Production versions from the material master record

Checks for specific status indicators for different application areas

The following sections use examples to illustrate these criteria.

Priority of BOM usage

In Customizing for Production, you can define a priority sequence of BOM usages for an application by choosing Bill of Material ® Alternative Determination ® Define order of priority for BOM usages.

Example

For application SLDB (sales), the highest priority usage is sales. The next usage in the sequence is production. If there is no valid BOM with the usage sales, the system looks for a BOM with the next usage defined in the order of priority –Production, in this example.

If no valid BOM exists with any of the usages defined in the priority sequence, the BOM is not exploded.

When you define an application, note the item status indicators defined for the usages you select. For example, if you define an application for sales, include the usages that allow items to be relevant to sales. Otherwise, when you process a sales order using the application the system cannot find any components because there are no items relevant to sales.

Priority of specific alternative

In Customizing for Production, you can define for one BOM which alternative the system is to select as of a specific date by choosing Bill of Material ® Alternative Determination ® Define alternative determination for multiple BOMs. This setting applies to one BOM only, which you identify by entering the Material, Plant, and Usage.

You can use the Alternative selection for multiple BOMs indicator to define the application so that the alternative entered is used, provided that the material master allows alternative determination by explosion date (Alternative selection field must contain the value 1).

Note

If the application is defined in such a way that a specific alternative has priority, the lot size is not checked.

Example

For BOM MAT04/Plant 0001/01, the entry in the alternative selection field determines that alternative 03 is always selected as of 07. 01.1996.

One application (for example, STD1 – Standard 1) is defined in such a way that this field entry is used.

However, another application (for example STD2 – Standard 2) ignores this field entry, and selects an alternative that is valid according to date and status. The lot size is not checked.

Production versions

You can use the Production versions indicator to define an application in which production versions for the material influence automatic alternative determination.

If the Alternative selection field in the material master contains the value 2, production versions are used in automatic alternative determination. The lot size is always checked.

Production versions allow you to define the following criteria for selecting an alternative BOM:

Alternative BOM
BOM usage

Note

If you define an application in which production versions are not used, the system only checks the lot size.

Status indicators

Only an alternative that contains the required indicators in the application is selected.

Example

For example, if you set the Explosion in MRP indicator when you define an application, only an alternative that has this indicator in its BOM status can be selected.