From an SAP point of view, you are in a mass production environment using sales orders when you have configurable products with super bills of material and super task lists whose individual variants you define through the characteristic values in the sales order but for which no further customer-specific changes are made. This means that the configuration in the sales order completely describes the variant. In mass production environments on the basis of sales orders, the main focus is not on the cost of the sales order but on the cost of the product.

The use of a valuated sales order inventory in this scenario means that you do not have to manage the costs of sales order items. This eliminates the need for results analysis and settlement of the sales order item in Controlling. WIP is calculated at the level of orders (such as production orders) and production cost collectors, for which variance calculation is now possible.

Mass production environments using sales orders are often encountered in advanced-technology industries and in the automotive industry. Sales orders are processed as in make-to-stock environments. Cost Object Controlling in this scenario is not managing the costs of sales orders but the costs of products.

If you make customer-specific changes to a variant, this scenario is no longer a mass production environment using sales orders. It is now a complex make-to-order environment.