One batch requirement and MRP

[former_member42743]

I'm looking for advice on how the following situation can be handled.  This might be more of an SD issue I'm not sure.  Seems to span a number of modules so I thought I would try here first.

SAP ECC 6.0 system, BASIS release 701, to support pack SAPKB70106.

As a rule, batch managed materials, make-to-stock.

A customer requires their order to be filled by one batch.  For simplicity sake, lets say they order 50 ea.

We have the following batches on hand.

Batch 100010  of 30 ea

Batch 100020  of 25 ea

Batch 100030  of 5 ea.

Order confirms but obviously we don't have a batch size of 50.

MRP runs at night but won't create a planned order since we have 60 ea on hand and only one order for 50.

Next day we get an order, (or even several orders), for the same material but the order size is 15.  And the customer(s) doesn't care how many batches we use to fill it.  My understanding is that this order won't confirm because the existing order requiring 50 is holding 50 of the 60 units leaving only 10 when we need 15.  But these 50 can't be used to fill the original order anyway. This causes MRP to run and show a requirement of 5.  When we really need an order for 50.

A solution has been proposed to enter a dummy batch number (0 inventory) into the order.  Then replace that dummy batch at a later date with the real batch number once a larger batch is made.  This allows the smaller order, (multiple lot orders), to be confirmed, filled and shipped.

This whole thing seems to come down to MRP not honoring the single batch requirement set up in batch determination for the customer.

Does any one have any suggestions or ideas about this process or another way we could deal with it?

Thanks,

FF

[JL23 · Accepted solution]

I remember we had the same situation, but have not found any automatism as a solution.

We usually do automatic batch determination in delivery creation to ensure a FIFO inventory reduction. For such single batch requests the user has to redo the batch determination manually  and causes the a violation of the FIFO rule.

Finally we ended like in your example we many batches having small quantities...which finally became old and had to be scrapped.

At that time I made an analysis and even found out that this material was just bought by  this one customer and he had earlier deliveries from any of the batches.

So it was a very bad situation with this single batch requirement.

MRP would need to do a batch determination to consider such requirements, this would cause performance issues and  it would probably still run when the next MRP run starts.

We tried to convince the customers that they have to buy the entire batch, or have to accept multiple batches if they got already earlier deliveries with the same batch number.

This requirement is usually based on the fact that the customer does not want to analyze several batches.

In situation like in your given example the person who plans the deliveries has to contact the MRP planner to get an extraordinary manual order created.

[Caetano · Accepted solution]

Hello

MRP does not run at batch level, see question 8 of note 550568.

For this specific order, where existing batches should not be considered, you should use a make-to-order strategy, so that MRP creates a replenishment element specifically for this order. You can define an order as MTO assigning a proper requirement type (tab procurement of the sales order).

BR

Caetano

[former_member42743]

Yes.. it appears that there is no "Good" solution for this.

Making the material MTO won't be done since many customers order this same product and they don't want to create customer specific materials.

It looks like we will go ahead with having the order person put in a standard, agreed upon batch number like "ONELOT".  We already have a custom report for planners in which we can group these into a section for reporting.  Then the planers have to manually adjust the plan to accommodate the one lot orders.

We'll then replace the ONELOT batch in the order, with the produced batch. 

Not ideal, but seems to be the only way.

Thanks!

FF

[Caetano]

Hello

You don't need to create customer specific materials to use MTO.

You can define a strategy group with both MTS and MTO strategy, where the default strategy is MTS.

Whenever you have this specific requirement of the order being fulfilled by one batch, you change the requirement type on the sales order (tab procurement) to MTO.

BR

Caetano

[former_member42743]

Interesting.  I'll look into that.  I'll see why my on-site guys haven't come up with that or why they don't like it.

FF

[former_member182575]

Ok, maybe a dumb question and I do not know your industry.  But what about a batch to batch transfer every month to keep the batches clean.

Regards

Waza

[former_member42743]

We can't normally mix batches.  Depending on the product, it might be bottled, in plastic bags, (think IV bags), quart containers, pint containers, etc. etc.. Each container has the batch number on the label and a related COA.  So we can't take 1 case of batch A and a half case of batch B and merge them to ship to one customer.

FF