Procuring materials with different delivery timelines

[former_member290536]

Hi all,

I referred to many threads did not get exact answer and i am new to MM.

My customer orders few materials which are having high lead delivery times well before BOM is built based on forecasting and confirmed orders received. Now they are moving process according to which they need to order any material only after BOM is received from engineering tool. So now problem is by the time they get bom which has this materials which take long time to get in to stock the production time line will increase. Because they order after BOM is received and few of materials in bom take long time and few take shorter time. Does SAP has any best process to handle the same.

What i understand is we can put planned delivery time or lead time in MM which can raise PRs based on this time line put here but i am not able to synchronize between long lead items and short lead ones.

What customer wants: By the time BOM reaches SAP from design tool some how long lead materials should be ordered and short lead can be ordered after BOM in SAP.

So can some suggest me best model which can be followed for this

[JL23]

based on what do you think I am angry? I tried my best in 2 long replies to make it understandable for you.

Basically you are asking "How can I swim without getting wet". Based on a natural law it is not possible and everyone understands this as fact.

Your company gave itself a policy "not to create a PO if the BOM is not released" .

If you need material for an order that is produced next week, but your vendor needs 4 weeks to deliver, and the BOM is only maintained today, then you can't go back in time 3 weeks to place your order at the right time. This is another natural law which should be understandable by all.

So the only way to make it happen is to order before the BOM is available, and this violates your companies policy.

So what answer can you really expect from others who had the same situation? You can only solve it by either violating the policy and risking your job or you change the policy, isn't it?

[JL23]

There are some uncertainties in your story.

How can purchasing know what raw material to order if the BOM for a finished good does not even exist?

Probably because the knowledge is already wide spread and present and just the data is not maintained.

Then you say "Now they are moving process according to which they need to order any material only after BOM is received from engineering tool." This is actually your business decision. People who took that decision should be aware of the consequences. If not then you should have told them. SAP cannot solve this situation for you. If a material has 60 days lead time and you get the BOM only 30 days before it is needed, then you can't just make it at the desired time, then you have to shift your production and put your customer off, except you have some wizards as buyers who are able to find a new supplier in the last minute who is able to deliver it in 30 days.

Of course you enter the planned delivery time in material master, otherwise SAP could not know about the delivery times in its MRP planning. But you can only enter the days as a best guess until you really know it better from discussions with several vendors. And then again you have to decide if you use an average time or a best case or a worst case scenario for your planning.

"What customer wants: By the time BOM reaches SAP from design tool some how long lead materials should be ordered and short lead can be ordered after BOM in SAP." How can anyone know about long or short lead times of an unknown raw material? You only know the component after you have the BOM. And if the BOM reaches SAP and you see that there is a component which has long lead times then you can't get into a time machine to order it last month. So you can just start ordering on that day, which is as well the wanted process, you wrote yourself that you are only supposed to order after the BOM is in SAP.

[former_member290536]

I dont understand why you got angry with my question. I was just explaining the current situation here. Before going to business i wanted to be 100% sure whether we have any SAP solution for such situation or is its jut a business process alignment they need to do. I think i was too descriptive which might have confused let me put out in better way step wise and put only necessary points.

As IS:

1. Delivery manager gets confirmed order from sales. Product is engineered in a tool, this engineering will take much time.

2. As delivery manager is already aware of certain materials which will come from design and he knows they will take atleast 2 months to reach stock, he will ask purchasing team to order them before design and bom gets ready.

These are already available materials in SAP so they raise PRs to existing MM

3. Now design is ready and designs are manually converted to BOMS in SAP

5. Now PRs are raised on these BOMs. Now comes critical point long lead items of this bom are already ordered by delivery manager as he knew in step 2. So PRs raised for other MM

TO BE:

Problem:

All the above runs in one of business unit of client but now a global decision is made across all units that there will be common tool, common ordering team etc and they wont order without BOM. But SAPs are again regional.

Now if we place orders after BOM received then lead delivery time to customer increases

My thoughts: Probably such materials should be classified separately, provide lead times in MRP views and then order them to stock based on forecasting and then use for production. There is a problem for this again as per their policy they cant start ordering without having confirmed sales order.

Question: I was finding if there is a way or some process/method/field in our SAP which can help me to handle such situation. If some one in this forum has come across this situation and have handled it some way then please suggest me.

[JL23]

"5. Now PRs are raised on these BOMs. Now comes critical point long lead items of this bom are already ordered by delivery manager as he knew in step 2. So PRs raised for other MM"

How can it be that another PR is raised, an MRP run would "see" the already existing order and would not create another PR, except your first PR does not cover the requirement. Or you do not use MRP and a human creates another PR without looking for existing PR and POs.

And regarding the to-be scenario, it is not solvable by SAP. I tried to explain it already above. SAP needs data to resolve a situation, if your BOM is not maintained then it has no basis to order. And it would anyway violate your new business rules which explicitly wants you not to order when BOM is not maintained. You can only solve this in meetings with your decision takers and planners if you do not agree to your own companies policies.

[former_member290536]

Hi Jurgen thanks for the reply but i still dont understand why are u angry on me. You could have just told its not possible.

Hope u did not understand my statement clearly on PRs. Yes PRs are raised by MRP but its raised for all other materials other than long lead because for long lead already PRs are raised, this i have mentioned clearly. So no issues with existing process. Issue comes with new business decision.

Regarding To be: Every knows data is needed in SAP. I have clearly mentioned in my problem statement because of global business regional production has got a new problem of this long lead items and they trying a way to satisfy both global rules and still maintain delivery timelines to customer. I am trying to help them to my best.

Hi all, I understand from Jurgen that its not possible to handle in SAP.

My concern is if some one has encountered such issue how did they handle and is there any possibility in SAP to handle such situation. I have already put my view points also. Any other ideas from any others please. Inputs and opinions from others also is requested here please