Supply Network
A supply network consists of transportation lanes. It determines which products can be delivered between which locations.
You can only procure products when transportation lanes exist between the possible locations in your system. You import the transportation lanes through the interface.
In SAP F&R, the supply network is made up of the following levels:
Transportation Lane for Subranges
Defines replenishment-relevant settings at the subrange level or for all subranges. The transportation lane exists between a source location and (one or all) target locations, as well as (one or all) subranges. When distribution centers are involved, the subranges are merchandise categories; when external vendors are involved, they are vendor subranges.
Transportation Lane for Products
Exists between a source location and (one or all) target locations.
If you have defined certain parameters for the transportation lanes for products and subranges as modifiable and time-dependent in Customizing, you can change these parameters in mass processing. To maintain the transportation lanes of a supply network, go to the
SAP Easy Access
screen and choose
Forecasting and Replenishment
Master Data
Supply Network
Maintain Transportation Lane for Products
or Maintain Transportation Lane for Subranges
.
Integration
Source determination
SAP F&R uses the transportation lanes for source determination. The system uses parameter BWSCL
of the location product to evaluate a supply source control, which determines the available source locations from all transportation lanes.
Of these locations, source determination selects a valid internal or external supply source — by priority, if defined. When determining source of supply data, the system selects the transportation lane with the highest lane priority when more than one valid lane is found. Where two or more transportation
lanes have the same priority, you can define how the system prioritizes these lanes during source of supply determination in client-specific master data Customizing for SAP F&R.
Depending on your settings, you can also use the following functions in source determination:
You can use the purchasing organization for source determination. In this case, the system gives higher priority to transportation lanes whose purchasing organization is identical to the main purchasing organization of the target site (compared to transportation lanes without an identical purchasing organization). For more information, see Inbound Interfaces for Purchasing Organization Data.
You can decide whether the system should only consider transportation lanes with listed products in source locations. In this case, a listing check is also performed for the distribution center (DC) determined as the supply source. If the selected product is not listed at the DC, SAP F&R rejects the DC as a source of supply.
You can decide whether the system should consider source list lanes (that is, transportation lanes based on source list entries in the SAP ERP system). Since source list lanes only contain information regarding the source of supply assignment, the system determines the replenishment-relevant data from a corresponding purchase info record or internal transportation lane (that is, a lane with the same source location, target location, product, and purchasing organization as the source list lane). If you choose this setting, the system always gives priority to source list lanes over other transportation lanes during source of supply determination, and evaluates the possible source list lanes for a location product.
To use the source list lane option mentioned above, you must activate the business function SCM-FRE, Replenishment and Optimization in F&R (SCM_FRE_OPTIM
).
For more information about source determination, see Customizing for SAP F&R under Forecasting and Replenishment
Master Data
Define Settings at Client Level
.