Shelf Life Data - SAP Documentation

Use

If you want to take shelf life data into account during planning in Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling (PP/DS) you must

Transfer the shelf life data of products, sales orders and stocks from SAP R/3
Maintain the shelf life data of products in the SAP APO product master

Prerequisites

It is only possible to transfer shelf life data of products, stocks and sales orders from SAP R/3 to SAP APO if you have defined CDP as class system in Customizing for the SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer (SAP APO) under Basis Settings Define Class System (CDP or Classical Characteristics) . You will find the technical details for the transfer in the Notes 339576 (valid to SAP R/3 4.5), 394378 (valid as of SAP R/3 4.6) and 483576.
In order that SAP APO takes the shelf life data of a product into account, you must have set the Plng w/ shelf life indicator in the global data in the product master.

Features

Shelf life data in the product master

The following table contains the shelf life data in the SAP APO product master. You enter the data with the unit Hours.

Element	Shelf Life Data	Description	Use
Receipt	Maturation time	Time that a product requires after the availability date, before a requirement may use the product receipt.	The SAP APO system uses this data for planned orders and manufacturing orders.
Receipt	Shelf life	Time that a product keeps after the availability date. A requirement may not use a receipt or stock whose shelf life has expired.
Requirement	Required minimum shelf life	Minimum time after the requirements date that a product must keep.	The SAP APO system uses this data for requirements for which no shelf data was transferred from the SAP R/3 system (for example, planned independent requirements or dependent requirements).
Requirement	Required maximum shelf life	Maximum time after the requirements date that a product must keep. If the required maximum shelf life is not relevant to your planning, you should specify a larger value, for example, 9999.

Note Note

The shelf life data in the product master applies to all locations. If you want to plan with location-specific shelf life data, see Note 446320.

End of the note.

Transfer of the material master

If you have specified a value for the total shelf life in the SAP R/3 material master, the Plng w/ shelf life indicator in the product master is set automatically when the material master is transferred to the SAP APO system. The value for the total shelf life is transferred into the Shelf life field in the product master.

Up to and including SAP R/3 4.0 you can only specify the total shelf life in days. As of SAP R/3 4.5 you must specify a unit (day, week, month or year) for the total shelf life. During the transfer to SAP APO the system converts the total shelf life into days and enters this value in the Shelf life field. The system uses the following relationships for the conversion:

Total Shelf Life in SAP R/3	Shelf Life in SAP APO
1 week	7 days
1 month	30 days
1 year	365 days

In SAP APO the largest possible value for shelf life is 9999 days. If the shelf life is greater in SAP R/3, the system makes the shelf life 9999 days in SAP APO.

Transfer of shelf life data of product stocks

During planning with shelf life conditions, the SAP APO system can only consider stock that is to be handled in batches, for which shelf life data has been transferred from the SAP R/3 system. The manufacturing time, the shelf life expiration date and, optionally, the end of the maturation time should be specified for each batch.

Transfer of shelf life data of sales orders

For each schedule line of an item in the sales order, the required minimum and required maximum shelf life is transferred to SAP APO. The requirements date relevant to the required shelf life is the material availability date; this can be different for each schedule line. If no shelf life data has been transferred for a schedule line, the SAP APO system uses the required minimum and maximum shelf life from the product master.