Assemble-to-order
An assemble-to-order environment is one in which the product or service is assembled on receipt of the sales order. Key components are planned or stocked in anticipation of the sales order. Receipt of the order initiates assembly of the customized product. Assemble-to-order is useful where a large number of finished products can be assembled from common components. In the SAP system, assemble-to-order is a special kind of make-to-order planning strategy; you define planning strategies in Customizing.
If you use an assemble-to-order strategy, you can check material and resource availability at the moment when the sales order is created. You can quote your customers reliable delivery dates because you know whether the desired quantity will be available on the desired date. If the complete quantity cannot be committed, the system tells you when the total quantity will be available and whether you can commit a partial quantity.
As the finished product is not usually kept in stock, an availability check is carried out at component level when the sales order, quotation, or inquiry is created. The results of the availability check are as follows:
The committed order quantity of the sales order is based on the component with the smallest available quantity.
The confirmed delivery date of the sales order is based on the availability date of the component that will be available last.
Another important factor for ensuring that customers are provided with reliable due dates is continuous feedback between sales and production. In the SAP system, changes to quantities or dates for production or procurement of components are passed back to the sales order of the finished product where the committed quantity or confirmation date is also changed. Similarly, changes to quantities or dates in the sales order are passed on to production and/or procurement.
Assemble-to-order: Process Flow
When you create a sales order, a customer quotation, or an inquiry with one of the assemble-to-order planning strategies, the system automatically creates an assembly order. An assembly order is one of the following procurement elements:
Planned order
Production order
Process order
Network (project)
Service order
The choice of procurement element is determined by the strategy group in the material master record.
The system carries out scheduling for the assembly order. You can also have the system carry out capacity checking when the sales order is created. Furthermore, the bill of material is exploded for the assembly order to determine the required components. The availability of each component is then checked. This check can be carried out either according to ATP logic or against planned independent requirements at assembly level. It determines what quantity can be committed on the desired delivery date. If no quantity can be committed, the system displays the missing parts. If you carry out the check using ATP logic, the system also determines dates for partial and final confirmation.
If a material is configured in the sales order, the results of configuration are copied to the assembly order. The system then checks the availability of the components that were selected on the basis of configuration.
If the assembly order is a planned order, any changes made to the sales order become immediately effective in the planning order. If the assembly order is a production order or a network, changes made to the sales order become effective in the production order or network on condition that its status allows this.
By default, changes to the assembly order automatically adjust the committed quantities and dates in the sales order. However, you can also configure the system so that changes made to the assembly order do not affect the sales order.
Procedures for Assemble-to-order
1:1; that is, exactly one procurement element exists for each sales order item. This is known as the static procedure or static assembly. Exactly one request schedule line exists for every sales order item.
A loose link exists between sales order items and procurement elements; you can split quantities and dates both in the sales orders and in production. This is known as the dynamic procedure.
Static assemble-to-order is represented in the following diagram:
