ATP check on a specific batch characteristic

Question

Hi Experts,
Is possible in GATP to check on a specific batch characteristic?
For example:
Sales order:  Customer request SKU A (1000KG) with quality profile with a specific characteristic e.g. Water content need to be between 110 and 130 ppm.
Production manufacture the SKU A with quality profile Water content between 80 and 160. Production is completed and goods are on hand.
Stock on hand of the SKU A
250 KG Batch 1 -> Water content 85 ppm
250 KG Batch 2 -> Water content 120 ppm
250 KG Batch 3 -> Water content 140 ppm
250 KG Batch 4 -> Water content 115 ppm
250 KG Batch 5 -> Water content 122 ppm
250 KG Batch 6 -> Water content 117 ppm
Is it possible that GATP runs this check on order entry ?
1000 KG SKU A required, GATP is searching and finds 250KG batch 2, 250KG batch 4, 250KG batch 5, 250KG batch 6.
Does standard GATP provide this functionality ? If yes, how does it support this business process ?
Thanks,

Answer 1

Hi
It appears that you are describing a scenario where goods are sold from stock. In that case you can use the Characteristics Based ATP check.
Characteristics-Based Product Availability Check - Global Available-to-Promise (Global ATP) - SAP Library
Search on this forum and SAP help for more details. Customer requirements for characteristic values of batch are maintained in Sales Order using batch search strategies (Tcode VCH1).
Since customers will potentially accept multiple values of a characteristic you can use characteristic substitution in Rules Based ATP to check for multiple discrete values.
Characteristics Substitution Procedure - Rules-Based Availability Check - SAP Library
Note that characteristic based ATP (with or without characteristic substitution) may be difficult to use if a characteristic can have continuous values or if the value of a characteristic changes over time (for example, remaining shelf life or quality grade).
Characteristic substitution creates sub-items in Sales Orders for every substituted characteristic value. May or may not be acceptable from a logistics execution perspective.
Finally, this gets even more complex depending on your scope of check. Foe example, if you want to commit to Inbound STO's at a distribution center, these ATP categories do not have characteristic assignment.
An alternative to using Characteristics Based ATP is to use Characteristic Evaluation functionality. See OSS note 601813 for its several limitations. From a performance perspective it is preferable to use Characteristics Based ATP over Characteristic Evaluation since it uses the ATP time series instead of detailed pegging relationships in order live cache.
Rishi Menon