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 Manufacturer Part Number: Functions

Searching for MPN Materials

You can search for MPN materials by calling up the value help and then choosing the search help for the manufacturer part number.

Entering MPN Materials

If the material master record for your company’s own material contains a manufacturer part profile providing for checking against the approved manufacturer parts list, the system will check each MPN material that is entered to verify that it is an approved one.

In the course of the procurement process (e.g. when a purchase order is created with reference to a requisition), it may be necessary to change the manufacturer part number if parts that are comparable in form and function are involved. You can specify in the MPN profile whether it is generally permissible to switch the MPN material in this way.

Purchasing Info Record

If you wish to store different prices for different MPN materials corresponding to one of your company’s own materials, you should create purchasing info records not for your company’s own materials but for the MPN materials. To be able to do so, you must specify in the MPN profile that purchasing info records can only be created for MPN materials. In this case, you will not be able to create an info record for your company’s own material.

Caution Caution

If you are working with consignment info records, you must create the info records for your firm’s own material. Reason: in the case of goods issues involving consignment materials, the system searches for the info records for the firm’s own, inventory-managed materials and does not take MPN materials into account.

End of the caution.

Source List and Quota Arrangement

For source determination purposes, you can use either MPN materials or the company’s own material. If you wish to use the MPN material, you must first enter the company’s own material on the initial screen. You can enter the MPN material on the overview screen.

Purchase Requisition

You can enter your firm’s own material or the MPN material in the item overview. If you specify the MPN material, the system converts your entry into your firm’s own material (that is to say, on the item overview screen you always see your firm’s own number and the MPN).

The MPN material is shown again on the item detail screen, where it can be changed.

Source Determination

If you are working with an MPN material, both the MPN material and your firm’s own material are used in the source determination process.

  • All sources of the MPN materials are also taken into account during the process of source determination with respect to your firm’s own, inventory-managed material, since sources such as source lists, contracts, quota arrangements etc. can be created for both MPN materials and for the inventory-managed material.

  • All sources of the firm’s own material are also taken into account during the source determination process with respect to the MPN material.

Example Example

There are two MPN materials supplied by vendor Smith Corp. corresponding to the inventory-managed material Steel_02. There is an info record for each of the two MPN materials Steel_MPN_01 and Steel_MPN_02, because the manufacturer part profile stipulates that purchasing info records must be created for MPN materials. There are no other sources such as a quota arrangement, a source list entry or a contract.

If you have entered the inventory-managed material Steel_02 in the purchase requisition, the source determination process will yield the two info records for the MPN materials. The system will not assign a source to the requisition because it is unable to identify a unique one.

End of the example.

RFQ and Quotation

If you create an RFQ without reference to a purchase requisition, you can enter the MPN material or the firm’s own material.

If you create an RFQ with reference to a purchase requisition that already contains an MPN material, you can change the latter. A precondition for this is that the MPN profile allows you to change the MPN material.

The system inserts the MPN material from the RFQ into the quotation. You cannot then change the number in the quotation.

Contract

You can enter your firm’s own material or the MPN material in the item overview. If you enter the MPN material, the system converts it into the firm’s own material. In the item overview, you always see the firm’s own material number and the manufacturer part number. The MPN material is shown again on the item detail screen.

If you do not specify the MPN material in the contract, you can enter it in a subsequent release order. Once you have saved the contract release order, you cannot then change the MPN material. However, you do have the option of deleting the item and creating a new one.

Purchase Order and Scheduling Agreement

If procurement of the MPN material is mandatory, you must specify the MPN material in the purchase order and in the scheduling agreement. If you nevertheless enter the inventory-managed material, the system will ask you to enter the MPN material.

If no MPN requirement has been defined for the material to be procured, you can enter either the MPN material or the firm’s own material.

If you create a purchase order referencing an existing document that already contains an MPN material, the latter is adopted in the new PO.

Confirmation

  • Acknowledgment

Your vendor’s acknowledgment can relate to an MPN material that differs from the PO item. If the order acknowledgment is the only category of confirmation, it must be marked as "subject to GR assignment requirement" in Customizing for Purchasing. If, in addition, a shipping notification is expected, the MPN material quoted in the acknowledgment has provisional character only.

  • Inbound delivery

It is possible to give notification of shipment of a different MPN material. The confirmation category "inbound delivery" must be marked as "subject to GR assignment requirement" in Customizing for Purchasing. The notified MPN material is GR-relevant.

If the MPN material and the price in the inbound delivery differ from the corresponding data in the PO, the system does not carry out a new price determination process because the vendor’s price is assumed to be correct.

Special Forms of Procurement with MPN Materials

  • You can only create a consignment order if info records exist for your firm’s own material (because the system can only uniquely find the relevant info record at the time of goods issue if this is the case).

  • You can create stock transport orders (for inter-plant stock transfers). The goods issue is effected using your firm’s own material number because the Sales and Distribution component can only work with the firm’s own, inventory-managed material.

  • You can create subcontract and third-party orders with MPN materials.

Goods Receipt

You can change the MPN material at the time of goods receipt. The stock of the firm’s own materials is updated.

Note Note

The system does not carry out the price determination process for the MPN material because inventory management is always based on the firm’s own material.

End of the note.

Invoice Verification

No special aspects.

Message Output (Printing/Transmission of Documents in Message Format)

RFQs, POs, contracts, or scheduling agreements in message format for communication to vendors (e.g. for transmission as hardcopies or via EDI) contain the following data that is not displayed in the system document:

  • All manufacturer plants included on the approved manufacturer parts list (AMPL) and the revision level of the MPN material.

  • The manufacturer part numbers and the external ID of the manufacturer stored in the manufacturer master record.

Archiving MPN Materials

If you wish to archive MPN materials that you have entered on the approved manufacturer parts list, you must first set a deletion indicator in the list.

For more information on archiving, refer to the Cross-Application Components documentation, under CA Archiving Application Data (section on MM Materials Management ).