The production processes for a product are described without reference to an order in routings. A routing contains the operations required in production, and the production resources/tools, material components, and test equipment required to produce the product.

When describing the production resources/tools used to produce a material, the work scheduler is supported by the assignment of BOM items to operations.

This assignment means that the BOM items or materials are not reserved until the start point of the operation. If you do not assign items to specific operations, the system automatically assigns all material components in a BOM to the first operation when the order is opened. This means that they are all made available at the start point of the first operation.

The following graphic shows the assignment of items to operations.

You can create the assignment from the following screens:

• Material item overview

• Item detail screen of a specific item that you want to assign to an operation.

• Class item

• Document item

• Text item

• PM structure element