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 Checking the Availability of Material

Use

Before you start production, you have the option of checking whether all the material components production resources and tools (PRTs) assigned to a production order are available on the calculated requirements dates.

Features

In a production order, the system can only check a material component, if it is

  • Kept in stock

  • Not a phantom item

  • Not a bulk material

Availability checks can be triggered either automatically or manually:

  • The availability of components in an order can be checked automatically during order creation and/or order release. You specify in Customizing per order type and plant whether the availability should be checked automatically (see Checking Control ). In addition, an automatic availability check can be carried out when the order is saved.

  • You can always trigger a manual availability check

The checking scope is defined via the Checking Group (in the material master) and the valid Checking Rule (in Customizing).

They define:

  • Which MRP elements are taken into account in the check

  • Which inventory categories are taken into account

  • Whether the replenishment lead time is taken into account

  • Whether the check is also to be carried out at storage location level

In Customizing (checking control) you specify which quantity is used to check the availability of a material. You can choose between the following:

  • Availability Check Against Planned Independent Requirements

In the check against planned independent requirements, the system only checks the open planned independent requirement quantities created for the components. This means that the ATP quantity is not included in this availability check nor are receipts or stocks.

This type of availability check is most useful:

  • if assembly planning or phantom assembly planning is used to plan the components

  • if quick statements about the availability situation are required and the results from this check are precise enough

The system uses the open planned independent requirements quantity at component level to determine a committed quantity and this quantity is copied to the planned order header in the Committed quantity field. As opposed to the availability check according to ATP logic, however, the committed quantity is not recorded in the dependent requirements. The planned independent requirements of the components are not consumed by the committed quantity but by the complete dependent requirements quantity. In availability checks that follow, the system can only commit quantities for the amount of planned independent requirements that have not yet been consumed.

In the availability check against planned independent requirements, the following dates/quantities are not calculated:

  • overall commitment date

  • partial commitment date/quantity

  • ATP quantity

In the check according to ATP logic, the system checks whether the dependent requirements of each component are covered by specific receipt and issue elements or by stock. This check is carried out dynamically, that is, each time you carry out the check, the system recalculates the current situation. If a quantity can be committed for the requirement date, the system enters precisely this quantity as the committed quantity in the dependent requirements and the ATP quantity for the components is reduced by the committed quantity. Therefore, in the next availability check, dependent requirements can only be committed for the amount of the remaining ATP quantity.