Application of MRP Areas

Hi All,

I am proposing the use of MRP Areas to solve an issue but want to confirm some things before proceeding. The scenario is as follows:

We have a DC which makes fresh foods that are then supplied to retail sites (note the Production plant (DC) is not running IS Retail. Instead, a GVPO is generated in SAP Retail (from store orders) and is sent to the DC's PP instance which is standard SAP 4.6c). The receiving sites have two types (based roughly on store size). Each morning, the GVPO is recieved and used to create sales orders in the PP system. Then they run MRP, generate pull and production lists and produce the goods required to fulfil the orders.

So the problem is that they want to split the MRP and follow on tasks by store type. This is because production for the small stores is done in the morning and is shipped out by mid afternoon. For the larger stores, production does not start until after the production run for the small stores is finished. A number of materials are common to both production runs. The problem with this in the current environment is that as soon as they run MRP, it calculates the requirements for both store types. The pull list and production list then call for the components for the entire production run, which is not ideal because they only want to have sufficient components for the small store production run at the assembly line in the morning, and then the rest in the afternoon.

Consequently, I believe that this can be achieved by activating MRP areas and then in the sales order defaulting a storage location based on the site type. We would then create two MRP Areas - one for each sloc - and define these in the MRP scope of planning as two separate scopes. Based on this setup, my questions are:

1. As the system is already productive, I have proposed that we get a separate development client to do the initial testing in. However, I want to know if that is sufficient. For example, when MRP Areas are activated and the MRP Area field becomes available in some selection screens, would this be limited to the dev client or are the changes client independent?

2. If the MRP runs for the two MRP Areas were run one after the other, would it still be possible to split the pull list and production list by MRP Area? Conversely, if the MRP run for the small stores was done, then the pull and prouduction lists generated before running MRP etc for Area 2, would the lists by definition then be MRP Area specific?

3. My third question is a more general MRP question: If I have created a delivery for a SO but not yet confirmed picking or done the GI, are the materials in that SO still relevant to the requirements calculation or are they excluded once the delivery is created? If not, then is it the picking confirmation or the GI which would exclude the materials in the SO from future requirements calculations?

Any advice is greatly appreciated...