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SAP MM question - Alternatives to handle Imperial vs. Metric dimensions in Material description

Former Member
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Hi All,

I am wondering if anyone has experience in defining standard rules for the Material Master description and UOMs in English language. My client has several materials like casing, tubing and pipes which are procured in both Imperial and Metric dimensions across different countries in different UOMs.

Example:

Tubing: 2-7/8in,21.32lb/ft,L80,TK69,ERW (Imperial)

Tubing:73.0mm,9.67kg/m,L80,TK69,ERW (Metric)

Technically this is one unique material and issue will be fairly solved if we maintain one common description and incorporate all UOMs in alternative UOM (AUOM) of the material master. The client would like to keep this as one material. However, the following challenges still remain:

  • Short text has limitation of 40 characters and we cannot incorporate both dimensions in short description
  • If dimension are not incorporated in MM short description, Identification of these materials will be harder
  • Each region/country wants to maintain only their dimensions i.e. Imperial or Metric in short description

We are also maintaining the complete descriptions with all possible values/dimensions in the PO text of material master. However, few regions are not satisfied with this approach and they complain that identifying the material is getting harder with common short description and they still want to create a new MM with their own description or change the short description as they need. 

Has anyone come across this situation? Any suggestions are appreciated.

Regards

JS

Accepted Solutions (0)

Answers (2)

Answers (2)

JL23
Active Contributor
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you could use material classification and setup dimensions as characteristics, a set of characteristics for metric units and a second set for imperial units

so it would be very easy to search for a material, as classification is already included in the material master search help.

Former Member
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Hi Jurgen,

This is one of the good options. I partially agree with you to maintain dimensions in characteristics. As I explained in my initial note, we have various materials like Casing, Tubing and Pipes etc.. If we go with this approach I am not sure how many characters we may need to maintain for both Imperial and Metric dimensions. I would rather go with simple approach like creating one class and assigning both imperial and metric description as characteristic values and maintaining their respective descriptions. This would work fine for searching the material based on classification search options. We have few issue this approach:

·         Our users are used to search based on material descriptions and this is a big change for them to search based on Imperial and Metric characteristic parameters

·         We may to need to do additional development with respect to other areas (Purchasing, Sales). Example: We are pulling the long text from BD text and PO text. If we go with this approach, additional coding may need to be done to pull the text from classification

·         Characteristic has a 30 char limit and we may have to go to 2nd line (or) use one of the text field to maintain complete long text. If we go with approach, additional coding may need to be done to pull the description from both classification and text fields

·         One UOM (FOT) can be base UOM(FOT) and others have to maintain their UOM (M) as alternative UOM (M). I know this is a SAP standard functionality and it works perfectly. The problem is; whoever is maintaining their UOM (M) as AUOM are not happy with approach as they have to keep changing/maintaining their UOM in all the transactions. This is a small issue and we will be able to train and convince them

Regards

JS

JL23
Active Contributor
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I think you caught the right points.

you had mentioned your characteristics already, which means you need  them twice, for imperial and for metric values:

  • size/dimension column
  • gross weight
  • Net weight
  • Volume
  • Volume Unit
  • length
  • width
  • Height
  • Unit of dimension

yes changing to classification is certainly a challenge for some users (and even consultants), we experience this with any rollout.

we create the long text as well from material description and characteristics, using a function module to create this text itself while saving the material master.

we do not store any long text in characteristics, just single fields like mentioned above, the text gets assembled with the print programs for external use. But I think we have less problems as we do chemicals and do not have the complexity of all those dimensions you have.

so you may need a policy for the material description visible in the material master, as it can either be imperial or metric. Here I recommend to use a Z1 language, to store the alternative version.

(Which could as well be a solution if you do not want to use classification)

The conversions remain in its usual place of alternative units, they do not need to be redundand in classification.

Former Member
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Jurgen,

Thanks for your additional inputs.

Initially i thought of creating new Z language code and maintaining the second description in that field. Below are the limitations with new Z language code:

  • Additional configuration has to be done for all dependency fields. Ex: If you are using UOM EA, we may need to maintain EA in Z language.
  • Searching based on Z language is not easy and it may not be a user friendly option

At this moment i am thinking Text fields and Classification are the best options to maintain both short descriptions. These two can be searchable and users may be comfortable with this approach. However, I am still investigating and looking for other suggestions from our friends.

Regards

JS

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Hi JS, May I know what solution did you finally implement for this issue ? From the end user perspective, how are they managing this now ? Thanks.

lenastodal
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
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Former Member
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Hi,

you can see the detail in MARA (General Table) and can use as given below fields:

size/dimension column

gross weight

Net weight

Volume

Volume Unit

length

width

Height

Unit of dimension

Ex: 73.0mm,9.67kg/m,L80,TK69,ERW

stored data in material master as given below:

UOM                                                                                       AltUnit        BaseUOM

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

73*0.0393701(conversion:1MM=0.0393701 inch)=2.8740173 inch     MM        inch

we should always take smaller unit and it would suitable for future calculation. I suggest same way you can define in the system.

For Description maintenance, you should make a rule which follow uniformity for all product(maximum).

desc like 2.87-1-M-9.67-KG-L-80-TK69,ERW

all description data should stored in material master fields separately.

Futher any query please ask.

Thanks

Sanjeet Kumar

Former Member
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Hi Sanjeet,

Thanks for your reply

We thought of using AUOM SAP standard dimension fields and this will not work for all materials. We have various attributes for each material and most of them are not covered in SAP standard dimension fields.

Regards

JS