Usage of material variants in automotive industry

Dear Experts,
I want to understand the usage of material variants in an automotive industry (car or two-wheeler). Please provide the config settings required and also the usage of super BOM & Routing (if required) with the complete flow. I would prefer if someone can share the scenarios in a two-wheeler industry.
Thanks in advance.
Sameer

Hi Suresh,
Thanks for your answer.
1)We have about 9 characteristics. If we need to create material variants, around 200 material variants will be required to be created. Is that the best option?
2)If we select the first characteristic value, we want only those remaining chararacteristics to be available for selection which are related to the first characteristic. Likewise, we want to have control over the selection of each characteristic, till all the characteristic value selections are made in the sales order. Is it possible that a pop-up comes with the available characteristic options for that combination/s.
3)Can we make a super BOM for items selection? How can I control the selections from the super BOM? Can it be done via Object Dependencies? Routings are same for all the options.
Thanks in advance.
Sameer

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Role of Quality Management udring NPDI Stage for Automotive industry

Hi All,
Can anyone tell me how the quality requirements for automotive industry, during NPD stage can be addressed by mySAP PLM-Quality Management?
Best Regards
Guruprasad

Hello Isabelle,
Greetings! and thanks for the reply.
Can you please elaborate more on exit - QPL10001. I am not clear where the Inspection plan will be maintained and with what usage? How the inspection lot will get generated? is it need to trigger manually?
I will just explain the scenario in short- During New Product development, OEM can get the parts in 2 ways, one is from Supplier and another in-house production.
In case of supplier parts it comes as a sample part till finalisation of drawing and other aspects. At all stages during development, suppler part quality is throughly verified - dimenstionally, metallurgically, performace, endurance etc..
here am facing 2 main difficulties
1.Too many number of characteristics.
2.How the results recorded can be identified, later when moved to regular production? since the parts will be inspected against inspetion type 01.
Similarly, for MIW (made in works / in-house production) material / part is manufactured without using actual machines initially and hence there is no rate-routing and no inspection characteristics assigned to material.
In the later stage on the process is finalised and rate routing is maintaied.
Here am facing problem as,
1. No rate routing and hence no inspection characteristics initially at NPD.
2.And even if I maintain the inspection characteristics in rate routing, Since Auto industry follows repetetive manufactuing scenario, the Production order type - PP01 etc is not of use.
am trying with manual generation of inspection lot for material version - using MFPR...asking client to maintain the inspection characteristics in rate routing to cater the requirement.
I will really be glad if u could slightly brief - on how/ where to maintain inspection plan and how will the inspection lot will get generated?
Thanks a lot.
take care
Guruprasad..

Is it Possible to delete the configuration from a Material Variant?

Hi,
Can you delete the configuration from a Material Variant and then reconfigure the part in MM02?

Hi
Once we created variant we can't delete it,
Regards,
srihari

How to find the list of material variant based on the characteristics value

Hi
We are creating materials variants for FERT Material Type in material master in MRP-3 view .There we configure the variant by attaching characteristics value
Now we want to have a report , which can give the list of material variants , if char value is given in selection
Can somebody guide me if there is standard report for this OR what is the linkage in Table , so that we can develop a report
rgds
Sandeep

I couldn't find a standard report to get the material variants based on characteristic values (the nearest I could find was CT12) but I wrote a report some time back here's the table join logic for the main select statement.
select a~matnr
        e~atwrt
        h~atwtb
into table i_tab
      from MARC as a
      inner join IBIN as b
      on b~instance eq a~cuobj
      inner join IBIB as c
      on c~ibase eq b~ibase
      inner join IBINVALUES as d
      on d~in_recno eq b~in_recno
      inner join IBSYMBOL as e
      on e~symbol_id eq d~symbol_id
      inner join CABN as f
      on f~atinn eq e~atinn
      inner join CAWN as g
      on g~atinn eq e~atinn
      and g~atwrt eq e~atwrt
      inner join CAWNT as h
      on h~atinn eq g~atinn
      and h~atzhl eq g~atzhl
     where     a~matnr in s_matnr
            and e~atinn in s_atinn
            and e~atwrt in s_atwrt
           and b~valto eq '99991231235959'. "This is important condition
I included bare minimum fields to suite your requirement needs you can add whatever other field you want . Though I tested the table join, I suggest you to test it again before writing your own ABAP program using SE16N.

Material variant replacement in sales order for Configurable Material

HI
I am using variant configuration. In this i have created material A as configurable material and have Preconfigured Material B as its variant by assigning configurable material in MRP 3 view.
Now when i am creating Order for material A i.e. Configurable material and the characteristics values are same as that of Preconfigured material system is not replacing Configurable material with Preconfigured material.
Please help me out.
Regards,
Anand.

Even after maintaining the item category MTAC(Mills Make to order config at mat level), the configurable material is not getting replaced in the sales order (va02). It is just showing material variant exists for the configurable material.
The setting in item category for configuration is.
Config. Strategy 01(Sales Order Strategy (TAC, TAM))
Mat. Variant Action 4 (Replace configurable material (Append and change))
ATP material variant 2 (Do not substitute if not completely available)
Structure scope D (Configuration, poss. with BOM explosion)
I have maintained the stock for material variant as well to take care of ATP material varinat setting shown above.
Please suggest if missing something.

Material Variant Matching in Sales Order Creation with ref.to Sales Order

Hi All,
We are working in Variant configuration.Our product is defined at PQD(Product, Quality & Dimension).
But, Sales Contracts are created at PQ (Product, Quality/Grade ) level only.
We have defined Variant Characteristics GRADE(ALLOY CODE),DIMENSION AND TWO MATERIALS.
MAT 1 , configurable material.
MAT 2, A Material Variant of MAT 1, Having values of GRADE = A & DIMENSION = 150 in MRP 3 view of the same.
When a Sales Order is created for MAT 1 and its characteristics values are GRADE = A, DIMENSION = 150, Material Variant type matching happens & it replaces the configurable material.
Similarly,Sales Contract is created for Configurable material MAT 1, with only GRADE = A ( As mentioned above, only quality is known at contract creation level).But, when we are trying to creart a Sales Order with reference to this Contract, we are trying to punch characteristic Value for DIMENSION = 150 also. At this stage, Materuial Variant MAT 2 is shown, but it is not replacing MAT 1.
Is this the standard behaviour or there is some solution/enhancement available.
regards,
Stuti

Dear Vijay,
in incompletion procedure we can arrange to check whether any field is empty, here data comparison is not possible.
As far as I know you can not achieve this through standard config.
To achieve your requirement, you will need to take help of an ABAPer, it can be achieved using Userexit.
ABAPer can use include MV45AFZZ
and Userexit ""USEREXIT_SAVE_DOCUMENT".
the code written in this userexit will check and compare the quantities before saving the dcument.
Logic if quantity enter is greater than the quantity mentioned in Contract show warning Message.
I hope this solves your Problem.
Regards,
Paresh

Transfer of characteristics values from material variant to its subordinate

Gurus
Need your Expert opinion on Variant configuration
We are using Multi level Material Variants and our bussiness process demands for configuration of These Material variants in Transaction MD81 and during creation of Sales order .These configuration will not affetc the BOM explosion but will only be passed to the The lower level components (Which are again theMulti level Configuriable Material variants ) as manufacturing instructions .To Enable these Flow of Characterisitcs we have Applied a Note which allows the Multi level Configuration of Material Variants and Pass this Values to lower Level and the characteristics value flow is visible as well for lower level from CU50 ,but when i create the requirement through CIR or sales order and Configure the Material Variants and Generate the Procurement Proposals to fullfill these requirements (MD02) in the form of Planned order we are unable to pass one the Characterisitcs values to planned orders of lower level Components of Material Variants .These characterisitc values are Used as Manufacturing Instructions and should be passed on to the Lower level of Material Variants through the use of dependencies in Configuration profile .but the problem is it works in CU50 and does not flow in planned orders , does any body have a solution for this ?
Thanks In Advance
awaiting reply
Milind

Hi Milind,
I check that you implement a Note which allows the Multi level Configuration of Material Variants? is it sap note? mind to share the number.
I ever faced this problems to before but fortunately the case in simpler so i just create another variant and maintain the component for the variant. For example : characteristic color. I create variant with color red black etc. For variant red, maintain component red. For variant black maintain component black, so on. Is it possible for your case?
Regards,
Arman

BAPI FOR CREATION OF MATERIAL VARIANT IN SAP

Dear All,
Can anoy one please provide me name of BAPI to create material variant.This is required when we create material variant for a configurable material, characteristics values are added in MRP 3 View .

i am not clear what youn are looking for.
Say material X is KMAT,
Material Y you have created as a variant of X by entering the conf material X in MRP3 view and setting the char values
Material Z you have created as a variant of X by entering the conf material X in MRP3 view and setting the char values different than Y
Now Y and Z are material variants of X, now tell me exactly what you are looking for?

Material variant not found when configuring an item on a sales order...

My client has been using Configurable Materials and Material Variants for several years. At times, when entering a sales order on a Configurable material, the Material Variant is NOT displayed, even though the values entered for characteristics exactly match that of a Variant.
I suspect that the "link" between the Configurable material and the Material Variant has been broken, perhaps due to changes made to one of the material masters. I've found that I can restore this "link" by changing the configuration of the Material Variant (MM02 transaction, the MRP3 tab, "Configure variant" button).
(1) Can you tell me under what circumstances the "link" between Configurable and Variant gets broken? In other words, are there certain fields on the Material master which, when changed, break this link? If so, which fields?
(2) Can you tell me how to identify those Material Variants which have a broken "link" (eg, those which do not link back to a Configurable material, for sales order entry purposes)? Is there an ABAP or such to restore all such broken links?

Hello and thanks for your response. I've searched OSS and had found several informative notes (900732, 774346), though none seem to deal with my problem. If you know of a note I'd much appreciate the lead... (:

Material Variant of a Config Material to take Charac. Values from Sales Ord

Hello Guys,
Is there any way to have a Material Variant for a Configurable Material to take the Characteristic values from a Sales Order instead of Material Master ?
I understand by default Material Variant has fixed characteristic values and is taken from material master......
however here is the situation am in.......
I have a completely MTO scenario where we will making the product from scratch only after we know the characteristic values.......however our Costing Guys want to do standard cost estimate for the Configurable Material somehow......they were able to do Cost Rollup by making the Configurable Material itself as the Material variant of itself (assigning the same Configurable Material # in MRP3 view)............however this broke my design of taking characteristics from the Sales Order...because the Configurable Material is now behaving as Material Variant and taking the default characteristic values from the Material Master....
Note: Our Costing guys donot want to cost settlement at Sales Order level.
Regards,
BRN.

I had exactly the same problem. (configuration "blocked" in SO because the use of material variants for PC purposes...)
SAP help says : To allow you to change the configuration of material variants in the sales order, the Configuration allowed or required indicator must be set in Customizing for Sales and Distribution. The requirements class is determined using the strategy group and requirements type defined in the material master.
The req. class parameter, mentioned not very clearly by the SAP help, that allows changing the characteristic values of a material variant during the SO configuration is V_T459K-KONFI and value must be either * or +
Hint: A quick check can be done In the SO entry: go to the procurement tab and replace your requirement type by KEL, you'll see that configuration is "open"
Hope this helps
Iñaki
Edited by: InakiGonzalez on May 11, 2009 8:08 PM
Edited by: InakiGonzalez on May 11, 2009 8:15 PM

Sales Contract with Material Variant at Sales Order

We are producing fabric and using make to order in SAP. Our customer give us a commitment with qty and a fixed price for certain fabric in advance, then later they release order to us with specific qty per color. We want to use Sales Contract for the customer commitment and sales order when the customer release the order with color qty to us. We are putting color in the sales order in the material variant. However we are facing the following problem:
1. Let say we have a contract 1 with 100,000 yds of material A.
2. then we have a sales order 2 of 20,000 yds of material A with color Blue refering to contract1.
3. Somehow our factory over produced Material A color blue total 25,000 yds.
4. Then we have another sales order 3 of 5,000 yds of material A with color RED referring to contract 1.
5. MRP does not create plan order for RED material A because it is showing customer stock 25,000 with contract 1 and 20,000 consume by sales order 2 and 5,000 extra. however these 5,000 extra is blue is not red and cannot fulfill sales order 3.
Any idea how to solve this problem?
Tks,
Calvin Ngan

Hi Calvin,
I think if you define your material as configurable, it can solve your problem.
A car, for example, has a large number of options that need to be described wheras the order is created only at a model and variant level. Then you define values for characteristics, to allow you to select specific options, such as 'black' for paint.
So in your case you need to define characteristics of colour(or texture or thickness) or whatever differentiates each output and add optins for each of them.
These are asked for and stored both in your reciepts(stocks, Prod. orders, POs etc) and in your requirements(SO etc). Also MRP will differentiate between each characteristics while planning.
Hope this helps.
Thanks & Regards
Santanu Dawn

Problem during material variant creation

Hi Guys,
I am trying to create material variant in MM01. I entered configurable material let's say DESKTOP. nOw i have partial variant scenario so instead of entering all 30 characteristics i need to enter only 3 characteristics.These 3 charcteristics based on which partial matching will happen in sale document.
My requirement is as out of 30 , TEN chars. are maintained as required entry. So system is asking me to enter all 10 required chars. in material master which my scnario don't want.But the same is required in Sales document.
How to remove this required entry in case of material master creation and keep required entry in sales order or quotation?
Regds

Hi,
You can decide whether it is mandatory to assign a value to a characteristic on the basis of transaction code.
You must use [selection condition|http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp60/helpdata/en/92/58d455417011d189ec0000e81ddfac/frameset.htm] which calls the [user-defined function|http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp60/helpdata/en/92/58d455417011d189ec0000e81ddfac/frameset.htm]. In function you need to analyze sy-tcode and raise the predefined exception FAIL for those when you don't want to assign a value to a characteristic (e.g. mm01, mm02). Contact your ABAP team to create such a function.
Don't tick the characteristic as required entry in class definition but assign this selection condition to this characteristic in class.
Regards,
Alexander

GATP check on a Material Variant of a configurable material

Hi Experts,
In ECC side material variant is created . with reference to a configurable material of type KMAT.
The same configurable material is also used a pricing reference material for the material variant.
The configurable material is not relevant for production has no MRP tabs created. It is also not relevant for ATP check.
Material variant is of MTS strategy and relevant for ATP check.
Configurable material is not CIF'ed to APO. ECC ATP check was working fine. While doing GATP check , it is showing following error and not doing ATP check.
Product for external product number XXXXXXX and
BSG BSG1 does not exist .
XXXXXX---> is the configurable material.
Do I need to CIF across classes , characteristics and configurable material to APO even if I am doing ATP check on the material variant.

Hi,
No need to CIF across Class and Characteristics.
CIF across the Material ( Guess this material is just one Material). Activate the ATP Model for that material.
You need to maintain "CDP" in the customizing instead of Variant configuration in APO.
This should work.
Regards,

Difference in the Material variant BOM Qty during Standard Cost estimation

Hi SAP Experts,
We are trying to estimate the cost for the material variant, but the BOM exploded
during the cost estimation, the quantity differs slightly with the BOM exploded
during CU50.
What might be the reasons for difference.
Please give your valuable Inputs.
Thanks
Best Regards
Siva

Dear Mr.Kumar,
For any material in the material master , for Price
Control indicator in Accounting 1 View we can either
maintain S or V.
For In House Manufactured materials we maintain S
(Standard price) & for Sub contracted or bought out
items we maintain V(Moving Average price).
During cost roll up & release as far I know we cant
split like 70 & 30% and we can do the costing.
So either you have to use the moving average price for
both inhouse & bought out.
Because 1 material cant have both standard price &
Moving Average price.
Because bought out item's doesnot have standard price.
If your vendor is ready to give the material(Finished
product) using the same amount which you spend for
producing inhouse,then no issue,you can use
standard price.But Practically it doesn't occur.
I hope this will help to clear your doubt.
If useful reward points.
Regards
Mangal
Message was edited by:
Mangalraj

Automated Material Variant Creation

Is there an automated way to create material variants once a configuration is entered on a sales order, if one does not already exist?
Take an example, I have configurable material ComputerA which is a laptop computer. Say there are two possible configurations, 2GB of memory or 4GB of memory. Let's say that I have a material variant already for the 2GB configuration, and say that I called it ComputerA_2GB. If I were to create a sales order for ComputerA and configure it with 2GB of memory, then I could have my item category set to swap in the the material variant ComputerA_2GB automatically.
Now assume that I create an order for ComputerA but configure it with 4GB of memory. I have not previously created a material variant for this. Is there a way to have ECC dynamically create that material variant and swap it into my line? So the process would be: create line item for configured material, if material variant exists, swap in, if material variant does not exist, create the material master for the variant and then swap that material in. Is there any way to do this without custom code?

Hi,
You can decide whether it is mandatory to assign a value to a characteristic on the basis of transaction code.
You must use [selection condition|http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp60/helpdata/en/92/58d455417011d189ec0000e81ddfac/frameset.htm] which calls the [user-defined function|http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp60/helpdata/en/92/58d455417011d189ec0000e81ddfac/frameset.htm]. In function you need to analyze sy-tcode and raise the predefined exception FAIL for those when you don't want to assign a value to a characteristic (e.g. mm01, mm02). Contact your ABAP team to create such a function.
Don't tick the characteristic as required entry in class definition but assign this selection condition to this characteristic in class.
Regards,
Alexander

Usage of material variants in automotive industry

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