In the Sales Configuration Engine (SCE), an OO class can be a material or a class from the R/3 System.
Materials that have a material master in the R/3 System are, like classes, carriers of certain attributes that are inherited by instances of the material.
A material master record describes material Bolt_Z. The actual bolts that are ordered with the material number are instances of material Bolt_Z.
In this sense, the material is a class that defines the attributes of its instances.