Configuring Plant Driven Procurement in SRM 5.0

Question

Dear All,
In our company we have implemented SRM 5.0 Classic Scenario. We are using SRM system for ordering consumable materials through external and internal catalogs. All other materials as raw materials, marketing materials and spare parts are procured in R/3 system.
There is a new business requirement to use SRM system for ordering spare parts through catalogues. Currently, spare parts are planed in MRP in SAP R/3 system, where purchase requisition is generated and after that a purchase order is created manually in the procurement department.
I have investigated how the process can be reproduced in SRM system, but still there are some open questions. Hope, somebody of you can give me some answers.
Generally the process will look like this:
1.     The purchase requisitions created in MRP will be transferred as external requirements to SRM Sourcing application.
2.     In Sourcing Application purchaser is enabled to use different sourcing functions- to create or assign contract for these requirements, bid invitations or directly to create purchase orders in SRM or in the backend SAP system. Our customer will use it only for creating orders though selecting items from catalogs.
My first question is: Is it possible, for these external requirements, to select the items from existing catalog and to create purchase order in the backend system? And if yes, in which SRM version this could be achieved? I read somewhere, may be in this forum, that items from the external requirements can be substituted by catalog items but only in SRM 6.0 version?
It is also not very clear for me whether I have to activate extended classic scenario in order to configure Plant Driven Procurement.
Thank you in advance,
Best Regards,
Desislava

Answer 1

Hi,
Your suggestion is appropriate for my situation, but still there are some open questions for me:
It is not a problem to maintain internal catalogues for the spare parts and when needed users will create shopping carts manually by selecting parts from the catalogue and PO will be created in SAP backend system as it is for the consumables- that part of the process is clear. But the main question is how we can use this catalogue when spare parts are planed through MRP run, because most of the spare parts in the company  are planed in MRP?
In this case,  the MRP purchase requisition have to  be transferred to SRM sourcing application and from there to replace somehow the items by catalogue items. Is this scenario possible for SRM server 5.5 clasic scenario- I think no?
Anyway thank you for your answer, I will think for a workaround.
Regards,
Desislava
Hi.
Please continue with classic scenario for consumbale material
You can do one thing for the spare parts .Please consolidate the total requirement of spares requirement for 2 to 3 years
prepare a master list with vendor and price (frequently procured)
Publish this in a separate catalgue so that you can use SRM for Spare Parts.
In the mean time which materials is not there in the Catalogue procure manullay thoro 'PR in SAP and you can consolidate next
year and totally you can procure both consumables and Spare Parts
Regards
G.Ganesh Kumar