If you create an order for a product variant, you can perform reconfiguration, in other words, you can change the characteristic value assignments in the order. The reconfigured node in the order therefore has its own characteristic value assignments.

An item or a schedule line of a sales order created in the SAP R/3, and the resulting planned order in SAP APO are considered to be reconfigured if you performed reconfiguration for the item/schedule line when creating the sales order. The same applies to the planned orders that you create in the SAP APO System.

A component is also considered as reconfigured if you have defined a default value assignment for it in the production process model (PPM), or set the value assignment using characteristic propagation.

Reconfiguration is generally not advisable for product variants and should not be performed due to negative effects on performance. Most importantly, do not use a PPM with default value assignments or propagation definitions for the components.