Create reservation once the sales order is released

[Former Member]

Hi, everybody, I get a tough question. In my company, some raw materials for sale should be posted to sales order stock, in that way, we need to specify the strategy group of the material with a certain requirement class so that it can be posted to the sales order stock.

Problem comes along with the specified requirement class, once the sales order of that kind of raw material is released, it creates a demand on sales order stock, which means unrestricted-use stock is not considered in the availability check of that kind of sales order. One of our solution is creating reservation once the sales order is released and the sales order doesnu2019t transfer requirement to MRP, the reservation can create demand on unrestricted-use stock.. Now I know how to stop transferring requirement to MRP from sales order, but for the reservation part, itu2019s still uncertain.

The problem is whether this kind of solution is feasible, if it is, how could I proceed it? Is there any user exit for this kind of idea?

Or is there any other solution?

Thanks for your consideration.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Liyouhua,

It is not clear to me why you feel you must post the RM stock to Sales order stock for these Sales orders. I will assume that you have fully reviewed this requirement, and from a business perspective the requirement must be met.

It is also not clear to me why you have elected to add a reservation into the process. It seems to me that this reservation is not solving any problems. Forgive me if I am a bit dense.

You have found that when you configure the sales order such that the requirement is placed against Sales Order Stock, that it ignores unrestricted stock. This is normal functionality, and is considered to be a 'feature' of MTO processing, not a problem. For MTO requirements, you are SUPPOSED to ignore unrestricted stock.

So, given these conflicts, at some time during the life of the sales order, you will have to convert some unrestricted stock to 'E' (sales order) stock to meet your requirement. MRP won't help you here, this will have to be a manual effort.

One way to achieve this is to create a new MRP strategy group that contains both an MTO and an MTS strategy. I typically do not recommend this process, because from a planning perspective it becomes very difficult to plan the parts. You can create a custom strategy group in IMG>Production>Production Planning>Demand Management>Planned Independent requirements>Planning Strategy>Define Strategy group. Select an existing group with the MTS strategy you wish to use, and then add an appropriate MTO strategy to it as an alternate strategy.

Once this is done, Sales orders will default to a requirements type determined by the 'Main strategy' in the strategy group. For you, you might want this to be an MTS requirements type so that you fully utilize the unrestricted stock that may be available. Prior to shipping the sales order, you then can change the requirements class MANUALLY within the sales order from MTS to MTO, and immediately convert the unrestricted stock to Sales order stock using MB1B (working from memory here, I believe it is a 411 or 412 movement, ask your MM expert) . Immediately deliver the order and PostGoodsIssue the resulting E stock to the order.

You haven't asked for my advice in this matter, but I have a big mouth. I believe you should leave the RM part as MTS, create the sales order against the RM part with MTS requirements, and issue the unrestricted MTS RM stock directly to the MTS sales order. Forget about using Sales order stock for these parts.

Regards,

DB49

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks very much for your detatied solution.

I tried your suggestion, but in our SAP system, once the sales order is released( status 4000), after I get it back to the status 3000, in VA02, I cann't change the value of requirement type even though I set two planning strategies for the corresponding strategy group. Is this a standard SAP functionality? Can you tell me how you change the value of that field?

Thanks!

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

HI Liyouhua,

I am unaware of the statuses of which you speak. In my experience (and my area of expertise is NOT SD) I have never seen a sales order release process in Standard SAP. I do believe I have heard of something along these lines in a system where 'Order Change Management' was implemented, but I have no experience in this area. I can't comment if your findings represent 'standard' SAP.

I think that if you are able to display both of the requirements types during order creation using F4 help, then you have a proof of concept that the config is working. You would then have to see if there is a way to work this change into your currently installed 'Sales Order Release' strategy.

The way I change requirements type is to enter the sales order in VA02, select the procurement tab, and then overstrike the requirements type with the desired one. Using F4 help on this field should tell you the 'legal' requirements types possible for that order for the configuration you have in your system.

Regards,

DB49.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Sorry, my fault, I didn't tell you that we customized user status for our sales order, 3000 means created sales order, 4000 means approved sales order,we use a customized program to change the user status of the sales order.

Maybe it's because of our configuration, I can change the requirement type just after I create the sales order, but if I make it change from 3000 to 4000, and then make it back to 3000 just as the status when it was created, I cann't change the requirement type any more.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Liyouhua,

Again, forgive my ignorance of Sales&Distribution topics, but I not very familiar with systems which have activated user statuses for sales docs.

The general concept of user statuses is that certain business processes (such as sales order item change) can be allowed, and certain others can be disqualified, based on which user status(s) have been activated. These user statuses are defined locally, and only apply to your system.

I believe that your company has created some customized programming that limits the users from making certain changes to sales orders. I cannot guess which changes are allowed under your customized User statuses. I believe that this custom development may be preventing the changes that you seek to make.

You need to consult with the local experts who created this customized functionality, and ask them what changes need to be made to these User statuses so as to allow you to make the changes you are requesting.

Best Regards,

DB49

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thank you for your continuous concern on my problem.

Actually you are right, the reason why I cann't change the requirement type is that the customized program limits it according to the reply from the creator of the program.