Multiple Planning Variants using Planning Strategy 54 and VC

[former_member597562]

Hi,

We use Variant Configuration and I have created 2 planning variants and configured them as to have 1 different value in one characteristic, the rest of the configuration matches. Both PVs are configured using the same configurable material with Planning Strategy 54 on the MRP3 Tab of Material Master. I can only get my Planning Independent Requirements (PIRs) to consume against my first PV... even if I configure my sales order to match my second PV. Any advice as to how to get my sales order to consume the PIR it's configured to match? I read in the Planning strategy 54 SAP Documentation that you can set Characteristics as not relevant, optional, or required for planning. I can not find documentation on how to set this preference although. I am hopeful this may be the problem and direction on how to set a characteristic up for planning will fix.

thanks in advance.

[former_member597562 · Accepted solution]

I thought I would share my solution to this... I had a very hard time finding any documentation about this, so thought it might help others,.

The Planning T-Code for Type Matching is MDPV. This allows you to mark Characteristics and their values as Required, Optional, or Not Relevant for planning. This enables the similarity check so the correct Planning Variant PIR (planned independent requirement) is consumed based on its configuration in the Material Master MRP3 tab.

The Characteristics that are to be required for planning need to have values assigned in the configuration profile you assign to the configurable material that you configure your Planning Variants with. (This was our problem... we used Chars that were populated from reference chars so had no values in CT04 on the values tab, thus none in the config profile).Make sure you check the Additional Values box on the Values tab if you are not adding all the values to that characteristic that are possible.These values also need to be assigned in the configuration profile (CU42/CL20N) to show up in the Type Matching T-Code, I think.

Also, the Type Matching T-code seems to be across the board even though you need to set it up by configurable material.I would set up the Type Matching Table for one config material, go in and do the next… and it would change in both configurable materials. Which is why I created planning tables.

I created the planning tables (using MDP1)... and populated with the values that were required for planning (using MDP4). I created Planning profiles for the configurable material (using MDPH) and assigned my planning tables.

*Note** You want to make sure when you configure your PV in MRP3... you hit the right button in MM01. The only way I have figured out to not create a Material Variant when you accidentally hit the wrong button is to not save that record and start over. AND remember to link your PV to the BOM in CS40. I forgot to do that for one of my testing cycles and it took me forever to figure out why my PV wasn’t planning anything.

Any thoughts or comments are appreciated.It took me weeks of digging through different documentation to figure this out (I am not PP trained) so any pointers you have learned, I would love to hear.

[former_member597562]

Hi Solomon,

Thanks so much! but I can not see the screen shot. please send to email: jjones2@arielcorp.com

[solomon_macwan]

Hi Jennifer,

I have posted one screen shot which displays the material variant, it is similar to planning variant.

I will create a white paper for this in next week. Please send me your mail id, I will send it to you.

Regards,

Solomon

[former_member597562]

Yes! This was my problem too! I can't find much documentation on the Planning Variants! Please share the links if you find good information.

The only thing I am a little not clear on if I am to use the solution you first presented (Material Variants and Planning Strategy 40) is how if I create MVs to plan against... can I also build them to stock if a Customer order does not consume those requirements. I think I can use a CIR and create an order using MD81, but I am not able to find much documentation on this and how this will be consumed later by a customer order.

I know this is a separate issue, and I can make a new post if you wane me to.

Thank you very much for you help! You have set me in a new direction to test with if you come back and tell me what I cant to do is not possoible..

[solomon_macwan]

Hi Jennifer,

Now I got the concept, the planning variant and material variant concept is more or less same. I understand material variant correctly but I could not find any document for PV. I will get back to you once I explore it more.

Regards,

Solomon

[former_member597562]

Hi Solomon,

Thank you for your response. I did find that link in my searches for how to do this and it is very helpful, but not exactly what I am looking for (I don't think). I am a have many years of Variant Configuration experience, but this PP side is very new to me... please correct me if I use wrong terminology.

I maybe confused and need to change the Planning Strategy we use from 54 to 40. But when I read the SAP documentation for Planning Strategy 54 ( https://help.sap.com/doc/saphelp_erp60_sp/6.0/en-US/57/23bf53d25ab64ce10000000a174cb4/content.htm?no... ) it seems we can use multiple Planning Variants with different configurations that create PIRs for the different partially configured combinations for the configurable material the Planning Variant is configured with. I have 2 PVs with a different value selected in one characteristic.

I can get the PVs to create Planned Orders, but can not get the planned orders to consume to the Sales order as I would expect.

My Planning Variants plan different BOM items within the configurable material the PV is configured with. I would think it would match the chars values then consume the Planned orders that matches it most closely.

The documentation says I should be able to do a similarity check and consumption of planning environment and the prerequisites are to define chars as not relevant, option or required for planning. I can not figure out how to do this. If this is possible I would like to pursue that path.

If not, then I will test changing the Planning Strategy.

Thank you again for all your help!

[solomon_macwan]

Hi Jennifer,

Your post is little bit confusing. It seems that your requirement is for Material variant matching.

For example when you create a sales order for configurable material and when the characteristics match with any of the material than it should pick that material and the sales order is created for that material. in short you create a order with KMAT material and it matches with any FERT material than it should pick it.

you can refer following post

https://blogs.sap.com/2012/09/14/variant-configuration-material-variants-creationusage-in-sales-orde...

If you want to exclude some characteristics while matching it. You can use the FM RCU_EXCL_CHARACTERISTICS.

If your requirement is to consume the PIR for FG material than you can use strategy group 40 for FERT material.

Please let me know if you need anything else.

Regards,

Solomon