MRP area

[vivek_varun2]

Hi All,

I have one query,  my customer is automobile dealer, now there requirement is like-  suppose they have total of 7 plants, out of 7   for 4  they do MRP run,

now all products are extended in 4 plants ,so when MRP run for one plant should be done, system should consider the stock of other plants too and the requirement of that plant too.

since I am new to PP,  so I am just guessing that activating MRP area at plant level can solve my issue,but I need to conform it.

I have searched for MRP area and its impact, but  could not reach to final decision.

Can anybody help me in solving this.

Thanks in advance

Vivek Varun

[vivek_varun2]

[former_member209265]

Hi Vivek,

MRP area can be defined in three ways. Plant level, Vendor level and storage location level. By default MRP area is in plant level if MRP you run at any plant as well the material is relevant for MRP run.

You have to run it with Scope of planning. You can include multiple plant in scope of planning(in customizing-T code:OM0E) and run through MD01. MRP will be run one by one plant as per the sequence maintained in scope of planning.

This will solve your problem.

Regards,

Krishnendu.

[vivek_varun2]

Hi krishnendu,

Thanks for answer, will scope of planning  consider the requirement of other plants too, I means suppose there are 4 plants (1100,1200,1300,1400). for plant 1200 requirement is there of 1000 cars and for plant 1300 requirement is of 1500 cars and stock in 1200 is 2000 and stock in 1300 is 1500.So when I run MRP for 1100, system should check  stock of 1100,1200,1300 and also requirement of 1200 and 1300 and based on all this system should generate PR.

Thanks

Vivek Varun

[former_member209265]

Hi Vivek,

MRP will run in this way.

First plant 1100 will run MRP. it will consider the stock of 1100. Then 1200 will run MRP considering stock of 1200. So this will follow a sequence. You have to create Scope of planning considering plant 1100,1200,1300,1400.

But when 1100 is running MRP, it can not consider 1200 stock. This will consider 1100 stock only. Lets say in 1100 stock is not there but 1200 huge stock is there. Then also in 1100 proposals will be created and no proposal will be created in 1200 because of huge stock.

As well lets say capacity is there in 1100 . Same time in 1200 capacity in not there . Then also proposal will be created in 1200 if requirement is there.System can not swap things.

This type of advanced planning is possible in APO not in R/3.

Hope this clarifies.

Regards,

Krishnendu.

[vivek_varun2]

HI Krishnendu,

but my requirement is that only system should consider the stock of 1200 and also requirement of 1200  if I run MRP in 1100.

If i create MRP area storage location wise ,and maintain storage location of all 4 plant , will it help

or if your answer is NO then is there any other solution  for my requirement.

Please let me know.

Thanks

Vivek Varun

[Former Member]

Vivek,

???  In your example, it is not clear to me why you think any PR would be generated.

You say:

	Requirement	Stock	Net surplus/shortage
Plant 1100	Unstated	Unstated	?
Plant 1200	1000	2000	+1000
Plant 1300	1500	1500	0
Plant 1400	Unstated	Unstated	?

No PR would be generated under either 'Plant' processing or 'MRP Area' processing.

The description of your scenario is a bit thin, but from what I can understand, this planning problem is normally solved using Scope of planning combined with Special Procurement (stock transfer from another plant).

In this case, MRP Areas will probably not be helpful to you. 

Of course, you could answer such questions yourself in about 30 minutes of testing in your sandbox.

Best Regards,

DB49

[vivek_varun2]

HI DOGBOY,

I said PR as the company is not producing the vehicle, they just procure it from manufacturer based on requirement, and as you said  stock transfer from another plant, that only my requirement is ,but that will happen only when system will find that  stock is there in other plant  or in SAP terms system should consider the stock of other plants too.

Thanks

Vivek Varun

[former_member209265]

Dear Vivek,

Plant wise it is not possible. But try by creating MRP area in storage location level. Then add all those MRP area in scope of planning. So it can consider the specific storage location.

Regards,

Krishnendu.

[Anupam1143]

Hi

Check with this BAdi MD_CHANGE_MRP_DATA for your requirement.Also you can check this Blog by Expert Caetano for more BAdi on MRP.

Regards,

Anupam Sharma

[Former Member]

Vivek,

My point was that in your example there were no shortages.  No PR or any other type of procurement proposals would normally be created.

You can arrange your planning such that a 'combined net shortage' in your plants (e.g. sum of supply in all plants minus sum of requirements in all plants) will generate a purchase req that covers the net shortage.  The resulting Purchase Req is placed in a single plant.  You accomplish this by establishing a supply chain, using stock transfer Special procurement keys (e.g. stock moves from 1400 > 1300 > 1200 > 1100).  The purchase req created by MRP to buy the material from the vendor would then be automatically placed at the end of the chain..

You do not need to activate MRP Areas for this solution (although it doesn't hurt anything to do so).

The mere act of creating MRP Areas and then running MRP without the SPK's will not meet your requirement (consideration of other plants' stock when calculating a single plant's net shortage).

Best Regards,

DB49

[vivek_varun2]

Hi Dogboy,

Please help me, I have created one material  in 1100 plant and extended it to 1200 plant too. in 1100 plant I assigned special procurement key as 20 and in 1200 I assigned 40.

In configuration I have created one planning scope as Z01 under which I assigned 1100 and 1200 plant.

I have assigned server id and sessions as 2 in define parallel processing in MRP

I have not created any MRP areas

stock in 1100 is nil

stock in 1200 is 10

through SOP I upload requirement in 1100 as 100

and requirement in 1200 I gave 90

Now when I run MRP by MD01 with parallel processing tick mark for 1100 plant

But what I feel is system is not considering stock of 1200 .

Is anything I missed in config or some thing which is not required but I did

Please let me know.

1 point which I noticed is  during SOP upload for material system generates different inactive versions, and when I transfer the version to active version i have to do it one by one ,so the last version  which I transferred will overwrite the previous version, as in MD63 data was coming for 1100 plant but not for 1200 plant

Thanking you

Vivek Varun

[Former Member]

Vivek,

Please help me, I have created one material  in 1100 plant and extended it to 1200 plant too. in 1100 plant I assigned special procurement key as 20 and in 1200 I assigned 40.

Please elaborate.  Why 20?  For both 20 and 40, what are the configuration details?  As delivered by SAP, these two SPTs don't really do much until you have configured them to meet your business requirements.

I will assume you are trying to create a supply chain.  For planning purposes in ECC, supply chains only move product in one direction.   If your SPT 40 in 1200 points to a supplying plant of 1100, this means that for planning purposes you intend to plan to move stock from 1100 to 1200.  In ECC, there is no standard functionality to automatically move product bilaterally between plants to solve shortages.

Under such a scenario, it is only logical to establish all of your forecasts at the end of the chain (in this example 1200).  Ideally, your sales demand should also appear at the end of the chain.

APO does offer such standard functionality (bilateral movements) although one must be very careful not to establish a circular logic for which there is no solution.

With respect to your SOP questions, I do not intend to cover multiple topics in a single thread.  You would be better served by raising another thread, with a new subject, to address any issues about SOP functionality.

Best Regards,

DB49

[vivek_varun2]

Hi Dog boy,

I have removed procurement key 20 and now I have created  a z procurement key as z4

Please see the screen shot below and let me know  whats missing

I request you to please tell me the full steps of config to be done and transactions, as I am new for PP  configuration.

Thanks

Vivek Varun

[Former Member]

Vivek,

Your screen shots are not visible.

Best Regards,

DB49

[vivek_varun2]

Hi Dogboy,

I just want to say that now I have created one special procurement key,assigned that key to material in plant 1100 only

then I  created SOP for plant 1100 and did MD01 with scope of planning

but  in MD04, system is showing  available stock of 1100 only and  no line items are getting generated for requirement. although I have given requirement as 2000 for Jan and 2000 for Feb,

Stock I maintained is 200 in 1200 plant

                                100 in 1300 plant

                                10 in 1100 plant

Why system is not generating requirement after MRP and why its not considering stock of other plant

Thanks

Vivek Varun

[Former Member]

Vivek,

I believe there is some confusion about how this solution is supposed to work.  It is not clear to me why you now are including plant 1300, and I will ignore it since it is off topic.

The following narrative is high level.  Everything below assumes that all basic PP configuration has been completed AND TESTED prior to embarking on this solution.  If you want to know basic PP configuration, please see the following Best Practices Documents.  You will have to determine which are applicable to your situation.:

142 – Production Planning and Control

145 – Make-to-Stock Production - Discrete Industry

141 – Internal Procurement Cross-Company Stock Transfer

134 – Stock Transfer with Delivery

135 – Stock Transfer without Delivery

So, at a high level:

1.  You enter a requirement into the plant that is at the end of your supply chain.  For you, now, this is evidently plant 1100.  We will consider this to be the destination plant.  This requirement is normally a Planned Independent Requirement or a Sales requirement of some kind.

2.  You enter a Special Procurement Type (SPT) in the Material Master for a material in this plant (not in the BOM), which is Stock transfer from another plant.  You do not use 'withdrawal from another plant', I suggest you remove this from the SPT Z4 you have created for now.

3.  MRP runs against scope, which includes both the supplying plant and the destination plant.  For you, now, the supplying plant is evidently 1200 based upon the Z4 SPT you have displayed.  Within the Scope of planning, you normally have the Destination plant first, then the supplying plant.  You can assume for this narrative that MRP first runs against the Destination plant.

4.  For the destination plant.  MRP performs a net requirements calculation against this plant, which only includes supply and demand in this plant.  If there is a shortage in this plant, MRP creates a procurement proposal to meet the requirement.

5. Since you have entered an SPT for Stock transfer from another plant, the procurement proposal that is created in the destination plant (1100) is a Stock Transfer Purchase Requisition, which is sourced at the supplying plant (1200).

6.  This Purchase requisition automagically creates a demand element in the supplying plant.  This demand element represents the net shortage from the destination plant.

7.  MRP completes its work in the destination plant.  It now begins to run in the supplying plant (due to Scope).  It now considers all of the supply and demand elements in the supplying plant.  These elements include the demand elements that were previously transferred from the destination plant.  Although it does not actually 'see' the stock in the destination plant, the transferred demand elements have already performed this consideration.  MRP in the supplying plant considers all of the supply elements that exist in the supplying plant, which include Plant stock in the supplying plant.

8.  If the net requirements calculation in the supplying plant detect a shortage, MRP creates a procurement proposal.  The proposal that is created is dependent upon the MRP master data iin the supplying plant.  Assuming that this is a manufacturing product, the most likely procurement proposal is a Planned order.  This procurement proposal represents in effect a net requirements calculation against both the destination plant and also the supplying plant.

I will not discuss execution in this post, which is another topic altogether.

Why system is not generating requirement after MRP ....

There could be any number of reasons.  I suspect you have overlooked some basic configurations.  I suggest you peruse the basic configuration documents cited above, and then once you have assured yourself that you have all the compliant configuration in place,  come back with detailed questions.

Best Regards,

DB49

[vivek_varun2]

Hi Dogboy,

Let me explain the requirement, then you will understand why I am taking 1300 plant

My client is  a dealer in vehicles, so he just procure the vehicles from manufacturer like (Mitsubishi/BMW/Mahindra), which he sells to customers.

They have total of 4 plants in the city and they are planning to open new also.

All the vehicles are there in all plants. they are doing MRP  for  generating requirement.

Now suppose they are running  MRP in one plant (say1100) then system is not considering the stock of other plants.

They actually want the system like,if they run MRP on any plant, then  system should check all plants stock and also  demand if any is there for all plants  and generate the requirement for  that particular plant.

For example

in 1100 current stock is 100 vehicles

in 1200 current stock is 500 vehicles

in 1300 current stock is 1000 vehicles

and demand in 1100 is of 1200 vehcles

demand in 1200 is of 400 vehicles

demand in 1300 is of 1000 vehicles

now if I run MRP in 1100 plant,

system should  generate a stock transfer PR of 100 vehicles from 1200 to 1100

No PR will generate for transfer from 1300, as stock and demand is equal in 1300.

and for 1000 vehicles system should generate , normal PR.

same should happen, if MRP is done in other plant, i.e. bilateral, but as per your answers I found that bilateral is not possible.

SO, can you  please tell me that now this scope of planning will solve my problem or not ? and if your answer is yes ,then what I am missing that  system is not generating the requirement as per my requirement.

Thanks

Vivek Varun

[Former Member]

Vivek,

As I said earlier, the technique i described works well only when demand is at the end of the supply chain.  You can extend the supply chain to as many plants as you want, but at some point you have to ask if you want to keep moving stocks from plant to plant.

I will take a step back, and just say categorically that if you want a single planning run to

1. consider all supply and all demand in all plants, and

2. transparently and without user interaction,

3. determine which plants have shortages and which plants have surpluses, and

4. automatically plan to move stock back and forth to alleviate any shortages in any plants,

then I will say that unenhanced SAP ECC planning will not fill that requirement. 

Many companies use workarounds to solve similar problems in ECC.  The solution I have been describing is a common workaround, but it will not move stock bidirectionally, so each time you add a plant (from two plants to three to four to n plants) in a single chain, the utility of the workaround is reduced since transportation costs begin to increase.

It would be possible to use a 'procurement hub/distribution center' methodology to emulate some of the features of bidirectional stock movements during planning.  In your case, you could, say, make 1100 and 1300 to act as distribution centers (the ends of the supply chains).  They would both obtain stock during local DC shortages from 1200, using SPTs similar to your current Z4.  In effect, you make all of your plants (dealerships) except one act as Distribution centers, and one dealership (plant) be the principal supplying plant (hub), where new cars are always procured.  Although this method is transparent, transportation costs will probably increase, and there is no facility to transparently supply a shortage in one of the distribution centers from another one of the distribution centers.

In any case, this posting has already become much too long, and I believe that the original question is settled:  MRP areas will not solve your original business problem, nor will any other standard functionality in SAP ECC planning. There are workarounds that will partially solve some of the business requirements, and I have outlined a couple of them.

I now conclude my contributions to this thread.  If your client cannot live with the workarounds I have suggested, perhaps he should consider using APO.

Best Regards & good luck,

DB49