Product Variants 

Use

You can use product variants in Characteristics-Dependent Planning (CDP) if you frequently need particular combinations of characteristic values of a configurable product. Because the configuration is specified in the product master, you do not need to define the characteristic value assignment manually. When you create an order, the system copies these assignments from the product master.

Integration

Product variants in SAP APO are modeled in a similar way to the material variants in SAP R/3. The material variants are transferred from SAP R/3 to SAP APO by means of the APO Core Interface (CIF).

Prerequisites

You have created a configurable product, in other words, a product with a class assigned to it, as a reference product.

Activities

You define a product variant by creating a product and specifying a reference product. The product variant copies the class from the reference product. The reference product can also be the actual product variant. In this case, you must assign the class to the product master.

Specify the characteristic values in the product master of the product variant.

You can create product variants at product and location level. The system uses location-dependent product variants to create in-house production orders in a location For in-house production: If the system cannot determine a source of supply for the location-dependent product variant, the system evaluates the reference product during source determination.