on 11-02-2012 4:47 PM
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:
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
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.
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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
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:
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.
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:
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,
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
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