How to handle same material number but different condition?

Question

In our industry(aerospace aftermarket), we can have inventory for one material in different conditions, e.g new, overhauled, scrap, etc. We use batch management and store the condition at the batch level. This probably was not the best way to handle this and now we're wondering how we can run MRP for a specific material, but only for certain conditions.
From what I understand MRP only occurs at the material level, not the material-condition level. Is my assumption correct? Obviously, we would not want to include scrap inventory in any MRP or forecasting calculations. So if we had 10 for material 1234 in inventory, we'd want to exclude the amount that's scrap or any other condition we don't want to include in a forecast/MRP. 
Is there a best practice that someone can share to handle this type of inventory management issue? Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi,
I've never used this but please have a look at it:
http://help.sap.com/erp2005_ehp_04/helpdata/EN/c6/126422bd9c11d1b54f0000e82de178/frameset.htm
Planning startegies for variants:
This section describes how to plan products that have a practical limited number of possible combinations of characteristics and characteristic values. Technically speaking this section describes the use of variants to sell configurable materials.
Regards,
Csaba
Edited by: Csaba Szommer on Feb 5, 2009 10:46 PM