Use of "Supplier Part Number"

[Former Member]

ByD allows you to maintain Supplier Part Numbers on the Material Master Data. For each Supplier the Materials is procured from, the relevant Supplier Part Number can be entered.

When creating a PO for a Material where the Supplier Part Number is defined, this is visible in the UI as an additional Item-level attribute (and is printed on the PO, and one assumes is sent along in the XML if the PO is transmitted to the Supplier via a communication arrangement).

Would it not make a lot more sense if the "Supplier Part Number" were used as the "Product ID" on an outgoing PO? After all, that is the ID that will make sense for the Supplier...

Conversely, if ByD is the recipient of an incoming PO via XML, and such PO contains a "Supplier Part Number", would it not make more sense for ByD to use that ID as the Product ID, since that would be it's own internal reference?

Any thoughts? any way to make ByD behave as above? We have an intercompany scenario where that would save us a lot of work.... 😉

Thanks!

[anand_dethg]

Hi Eelco,

In the purchase order printout that is sent across we do have the supplier part number don't we ? The supplier will get to know his part number in this way and if we address the same product with a different id in our company we can use it as we want. Are the suppliers having issues with having the supplier part number and the product id both in the purchase order which is sent to them ?

Regards,

Anand

[Former Member]

Hi Anand,

It's there on the PO form, but we're looking at 2 scenario's where that (so far) has not been "good enough":

1. rather than sending the PDF form, supplier gets XML from ByD (integration scenario). In such a case, sending the Supplier their own part number as the Items "main" ID makes a lot of sense;
   
2. Internal EDX in ByD, where 2 companies might want to have different part numbers for the same "thing" - in this case in particular, since we do not get to control what the receiving side in ByD uses, the current setup prevents automation.

More generically, the current design means that when sending a PO to a Supplier, the primary ID we send them is an ID that is internal to "us" (and therefore meaningless to the supplier), as opposed to sending them an Item ID that is relevant to them.

In the case where we do not have a supplier's Item ID on file, it's perfectly reasonable to fall back to ByD's Item ID.

Hope this clarifies.

Regards,
Eelco

[anand_dethg]

Hi Eelco,

Thank you, yes it does clarify. Voted for your idea as well. 🙂

Regards,

Anand

[Former Member]

Thanks Anand!

[Former Member]

Consider supporting this Idea on the Innovations forum: https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#/idea/142444

Thanks,
Eelco