The scenario supports a central overview of the distributed inventory management (Example: a centralized view of the material stocks).

Logistics data is sent from the decentral inventory management to the central inventory controlling, where it causes the information structures to be updated that SAP has pre-defined for inventory controlling (for example, the characteristic plant and the key figure quantity), but which the customers may modify however they wish.

The central system is frequently only interested in aggregated data (for example, the total stock of a material at a plant rather than a detailed listing for each storage location), and therefore the inventory management data can be summarized.

In the central inventory controlling any of the information structures can be updated according to any sets of rules. Therefore the decentral inventory management has to supply all the logistics data that is available for each action.

Data is always sent for individual documents.

Therefore a scenario containing a worldwide LIS system which has to be supplied with data cannot be implemented using this technique. This requires a general information structure distribution that can exchange summarized data between identical data structures.

The core master data has to be distributed for the following master data:

• Material Master
• Cost centers

The control data that has to be distributed for this scenario is detailed in the ALE Implementation Guide.

Inventory controlling includes the following procedures:

• Initial download by setting up statistical data
• Synchronization by making a comparison of stock levels