Availabilty check & tor

Question

Hi sd gurus,
can anyone plz send me screen shots for availabilty check and tor in sd point of view ,plz help me am having the theory part idea but am not geting complete picture plz send me

Answer 1

Hello Srinu,
I cant provide you any screen shots for the topics you have asked. But pls go through the following notes. Its really good and you'll have a clear Picture on the topics.
     Availability check is considered as a pre-sale activity, where as TOR and MRP are post sale activities.
Materials Requirements Planning (MRP) and Transfer of Requirements (TOR).
1.     A schedule line in a sales order represents the customers intended delivery date and quantity to be delivered. In a standard sales order processing, the system transfers requirements (TOR) to Material Requirement Planning (MRP).
2.     MRP - then determines if there is enough quantity of stock available for the scheduled delivery date. The TOR aims to ensure that the materials ordered are ready for the requested delivery date.
3.     The TOR is closely integrated to Materials Management and Production Planning modules – thus it must be configured in association with the respective teams.
4.     The TOR can be set either for individual requirements or for collective requirements in MMR (Sales: general/plant and MRP3 views).
5.     Individual requirements are the transference of requirement to MRP for each schedule line of the sales order. An advantage of this is that the availability overview (CO09 – logistics – material management – environment – stock – availability overview) will show the order quantity, sales document number, item number and requirements class for each schedule line for which a demand has been created.
6.     Collective requirements are a collective grouping of requirements created either daily or weekly that are transferred to MRP; but the documents processed in collective requirements cannot be individually identified from the availability overview (CO09). Collective requirements are useful to a business that deals with a large volume of sales orders per day, as it allows the business to have a clearer view of the availability overview and speeds up the response time within the system as well.
7.     The system will automatically create individual requirements (irrespective of the collective requirements indicated in MMR) in case of special stock items such as consignment, returnable packaging, make to order stock etc.
8.     The control elements that are used for Transfer of Requirements (TOR) and Availability Check are –
     the requirements class
     the requirements type
     the checking group
     the schedule line category
9.     The requirements class is the controlling factor for TOR and the availability check for all sales document types. It determines if the system has to perform TOR, Availability check and product allocation to any particular sales order.
10.     The requirements class is determined from the requirements type of the material.
11.     The checking group in general is the criterion that groups together all the checking rules from all application areas for a material. In conjunction with the checking rule, it defines the scope of the availability check for each business event; that is, which stocks, goods receipts and goods issues are taken into account in the availability check, and whether replenishment lead time is checked. The checking group must be defined and allocated to the material master record in the sales: general/plant view in the availability check field.
12.     for TOR to be carried out, you need to ensure the following criteria are met –
     The TOR must be switched on at the requirements class level.
     The schedule line category must be switched on for the TOR (fine tuning).
     A plant must be assigned to the sales document line item level.
     A checking group must be defined and allocated to the material master record in the sales: general/plant view in the availability check field.
Planning materials –
     It is possible to create a common planning material and assign similar materials to it (MRP 3).Independent requirements are created for the planning material to cover the requirements that are expected for the materials assigned to the planning material. This means that you do not have to create independent requirements for each material. Instead create a material and assign the same to the planning material already created with similar properties.
     A valid material master record must exist for the planning material in the planning plant. The material master record of the planning material cannot contain a planning material as this procedure can only be carried out at single-level.
     An appropriate strategy group must also be entered in the MRP 3 screen for planning with planning materials. The strategy group groups all the planning strategies that can be used for a particular material. The planning strategy represents the procedure used for planning a material and is (technically speaking) controlled by the MRP types.
     Consumption mode defines whether and in which direction on the time axis – from the requirements date (corresponds to the date when the sales order items were created) the consumption of customer requirements with planned independent requirements should occur. Consumption period must exit between 1 and 999 days.
     Backward consumption only: starting from the requirements date, backward consumption is carried out within the relevant consumption period specified in MMR i.e. the system reduces the planned independent requirements that lie in the past. Likewise forward consumption only represents – starting from the requirements date, the system reduces the independent requirements that lie in the future within the consumption period.
     Backward/forward consumption: in this case backward consumption is performed first and forward consumption is performed later depending on the availability of the independent requirements in the past. Forward/backward consumption is vice-versa of the above.
Stock requirements list –
1.     Stock requirements list is the central table for planning and stock control. It is invaluable to the interpretation of the available stock and the situation of stock levels in a plant.
2.     Menu path: MD04 – logistics – material management – inventory management – environment – stock – stock requirements list. Here you can see the order number or delivery number as well as the line item and schedule line placing the demand on the given plant. It also shows the required and available quantity of material per order.
3.     Another view of the stock situation in plant can be obtained from MMBE (stock overview). This view will show you total stock per company code, then at the plant, storage location and at batch level.
4.     A useful tool in MMBE is material movements, which can be viewed by selecting stock line and proceeding to environment, material movements.
<b>Configuring Transfer of Requirements –</b>
1.     IMG – sales & distribution – basic functions – availability check & TOR – transfer of requirements – define requirements classes.
2.     Requirements class – (OVZG) is the controlling factor for the availability check and TOR for all sales documents. It determines whether the system should perform the transfer of requirements, availability check and product allocation when a sales order is created.
3.     The system uses the entries used at this level as default and brings the data into the sales order. The same entries made at the schedule line category level (VOV6) are only used to fine tune the entries previously made at the requirements class level. The standard requirement class is 041 (order/delivery requirement).
4.     Requirements type – (OVZH) – (displayed in the sales order beside schedule line category) requirements types identify the different requirements, such as sales order requirements, delivery requirements or individual customer requirements. The requirements types can be changed, for example, in order to represent customer-specific terms.
5.     The first step in the process of configuring TOR is to define a requirements class (041 – standard) by copying the standard one. It contains the preconditions for performing availability check, TOR and product allocation.
6.     Next step is to create a requirements type, which is based on item category and MRP type of the material and allocate the previously defined requirements class to it. A requirements class can be allocated to more than one requirements type. It is possible to change the requirements type manually at the time of creating the sales order.
7.     MRP type in the MMR determines how a material is planned for requirements i.e. automatic reorder point planning, manual reorder point planning or forecast based planning.
8.     Determination of requirements types using transaction: when a sales order is created, the system looks for a relevant requirement type by using its own search strategy. Either it uses the following search strategy or you can make the system skip this entire process and straight away search for item category and MRP type by selecting 1 in the Q field while configuring determination of requirements types using transaction.
9.     First attempt is to find the requirements type using strategy group in MMR.
10.     If strategy group is not found, it will look for MRP group (MRP group groups’ together material with similar planning requirements and allocates special control parameters for planning such as strategy group, planning horizon and the creation indicator for planning run.
11.     If MRP group is not found, it will try to access MRP type.
12.     If no requirements type is found using MRP type, the system will use material type when accessing the corresponding tables.
13.     Failing to find the requirements type even at this stage, it will try to get the requirements type using the item category and MRP type.
14.     If this doesn’t work either, then it will try to determine requirements type using only item category.
15.     If the last attempt fails, the system determines the transaction is not relevant for availability check or transfer of requirements.
16.     As discussed earlier TOR and availability check are fine tuned at the item category level. This is done at this stage i.e. define procedure for each schedule line category as a next step.
17.     Block quantity confirmation in delivery blocks (linked to VD05 customer block): in the standard sales order processing, the system transfers the requirements to MRP, but in some cases you may need to block a transaction due to a bad result of the credit check.
18.     When requirements are transferred to MRP, the confirmed quantity is also reserved for confirmed sales documents . If a transaction is blocked for delivery, the required stock will be blocked so it cannot be used elsewhere. To prevent this, you can block the transfer of requirements for a delivery block in this step.
19.     You can set a limit on the number of days you would want the system to postpone this block on confirmation of requirements. This can be done by setting the number of days to the block in the Def. period column.
20.     Maintain requirements for TOR: can be used to determine that the TOR to MRP is not carried out unless a number of conditions are met. For example in a standard sales order processing, a purchase order may need to be created in order to meet the demands of the customer. This purchase order is used to purchase new stock in order to meet the demand on MRP for particular customer’s sales order. Here you define requirements that must be met in order for the purchase order or assembly order to be created.
<b>Availability check</b>
1.     Availability check is an integral part of the business process that determines if the required delivery quantity can be met on a required delivery date. For this purpose the system takes into account pre-delivery activities such as scheduling for picking or packing times and the time taken to produce or obtain the material. It also performs several background functions such as Backorder processing, rescheduling and ATP quantities.
2.     Backorder processing: processing of a sales order that has not been fully confirmed or not confirmed at a certain delivery date.
3.     Rescheduling: is a proposal of how – confirmed quantities already assigned to a sales order can be reassigned to other sales orders that have a higher priority.
4.     Available to promise (ATP): is a process of checking the available quantities of a material. The ATP quantity consists of warehouse stock + planned receipts (incoming stock) – planned issues (outgoing stock). to examine stock on hand (CO09) proceed to logistics – sales & distribution – sales – environment – availability overview.
5.     Replenishment lead time (RLT): is the time taken for the material to become available either internally (in house production) or externally (from a vendor). The most important things to consider during an external procurement are purchasing and MRP 2 (procurement) views of MMR where the processing time for purchasing, planned delivery time and goods receipt processing time are taken into account. On the other hand internal procurement is based on in house production time (MRP 2 view) goods receipt processing time or alternatively RLT time, which is found on MRP 3 view.
6.     RLT (Replenishment Lead Time) is the time taken for the material to become available. RLT is only used when doing an ATP check (Available To Promise). The value of RLT for a material is specified on material master record.
7.     there are three types of availability checks –
     Check on basis of ATP quantities.
     Check against product allocation.
     Check against planning.
Configuring Availability check through Checking Groups –
1.     The checking group + checking rule determine how the availability check is to be performed.
2.     The checking group determines whether and how the system checks the stock availability and generates requirements for material planning. The checking group defines what type of requirements will be passed on i.e. summarized requirements (daily/weekly) or individual requirements for each sales order.
3.     The checking rule applies to how the availability check is to be carried out at the transaction level. Note that you must define checking rules for each individual application such as for production orders for example. In Sales and Distribution, the checking rule is specified internally within the system and cannot be changed.
4.     The checking rule, in conjunction with the checking group, determines the scope of the availability check for every business operation; that is, which stocks, receipts and issues are to be included in the availability check and whether the check is to be carried out with or without the replenishment lead time.
5.     Briefly explaining the above – checking group determines which type of requirement to be passed on to MRP whether it be individual or summarized and checking rule which is at the transaction level and can be configured independently for each application module, determines which stocks, receipts and issues to be taken into account. For performing an availability check checking group has to work in conjunction with checking rule.
6.     advantages of individual processing over summarized processing –
     Backorder processing is possible.
     You can access (MD04) order, line and schedule line individually which gives a greater control on available stock and requirements placed on stock.
     The system automatically uses individual requirements in case of special stock items.
7.     Required data for the Availability check to be carried out –
     The Availability check must be switched on at the requirement class level.
     The Availability check must be set at the schedule line level.
     A requirements type must exist by which the requirements class can be found.
     A plant must be defined in the sales order for each schedule line item (in other words plant must be defined for every material in MMR).
     A checking group must be defined in the material master record in the MRP3 screen in the availability check field.
8.     configuring Availability check and defining Checking Groups –
     Checking groups are introduced into the sales order based on the setting in the material master record.
     SAP standard checking groups are 01 – summarized requirements and 02 – individual requirements or you can create your own by copying the standard ones.
     Total sales and total deliveries columns are there to configure a checking rule to sum up requirements to post to MRP either individually or by day or week.
     Block quantity required can be set if you want several users to be able to process the material simultaneously in different transactions without blocking each other.
     The no check indicator is CHECKED when you DO NOT want the system to carry out ATP check.
9.     Defining material block for other users – the block check box is an indicator that enables you to block material master records of a particular material during the availability check and restrict other users from accessing same master record and reserve the material. If the block is not set, two users can confirm the same material at the same time for two different orders, not knowing if the stock is available or not. If you select this field, the material is blocked during the availability check and other users cannot: a) Make changes in the material master record. b) Create purchase orders for the material. C) Create orders for the material.
10.     Defining default values for checking groups - Checking groups are introduced into the sales order based on the setting in the material master record.
     However if there is no entry present in the material master record for the checking group, a default value can be set here, depending on material type and plant.
     This default value will be used by the system depending on the material type mentioned in MMR and plant in sales order.
     If an entry exists, this default value is over written by MMR.
11.     Controlling Availability Check – in this section, you tell the system what stock on hand and what inward and outward movements of stock it must take into account when performing the availability check in addition to whether or not to consider the replenishment lead time.
12.     These settings are based on the checking group that is assigned to the material master record and the checking rule that is predefined and assigned to the sales and distribution transaction.
13.     These settings carry out control both for sales order and delivery as well. This is due to the fact that you may want to include specific stock or incoming stock for the sales order, yet at the time of the delivery only include physical stock on hand waiting to be shipped.
14.     It is possible to indicate to the system that you would like the availability check NOT TO CHECK the stock at the storage location level. This indicator is used to set the scope of the availability check.
15.     It is used to switch off the check at storage location level. You create a reservation for a particular storage location. However, the scope of the availability check is set in such a way as to exclude the storage location. In this case, the system carries out the check at plant level only and does not take the storage location into account that is specified in the reservation.
16.     Should you not want the system to automatically check RLT, you may indicate so here. RLT is the time taken for a material to become available. It is only used when doing an ATP check and is taken from MMR.
17.     defining the elements in the availability check entirely depends on the business needs, but a few tips are given under –
     When controlling the Availability check at the time of the sales order, a purchase requisition does not necessarily indicate by it is going to come into the plant.
     A shipping notification on the other hand - a confirmed purchase order – is a good indicator of receiving stock on a specified date.
     It is always recommended not to select the shipping notifications for the delivery requirements type as you may not actually receive the stock into plant or warehouse for which you are creating a delivery.
<b>Reward points if helpful</b>
Regards
Sai