Length of MARA-BISMT 'old material number'

Hi,

I'm working on an ERP implementation project and we are facing the following issue:

For reference, reporting and look-up purpose we would like to store the previous used material number from the legacy system in the field mara-bismt in the material master of SAP. Unfortunately we have thousands of legacy material numbers exceeding the field length of 18 characters defined for mara-bismt.

To shorten the original material number is not an option, also using the short text to keep this information is not suitable.

Does anyone of you face a similar situation? How, did you manage it?

Thanks for your help,

Frank