Material Masters
Unit Overview
In this unit you will be introduced to the concept of the SAP ERP material master. You will be instructed on the creation, maintenance, and configuration of the material master. In addition, you will execute various transactions to manage the process surrounding its life cycle.
Unit Objectives
After completing this unit, you will be able to:
• Describe the organizational layout of the material master • List the prerequisites to creating material masters • Use various methods to create material masters
• Describe the request process with interactive forms and explain how it might benefit your business
• Describe how the material master can use classification to include company-specific fields
• Describe how classification can be used for batch management of inventory • Describe how classification can be used for variant configuration
• Describe different ways to update or change the material master • Demonstrate the mass maintenance features of the material master
• Describe how the material master can be updated using the request processes with interactive forms for materials management
• Describe the archiving and deletion process for the material master
• Describe the process of influencing the field characteristics of the material master • Describe Process of configuring the screen layout of the material master
• Set up a customized material master in Customizing • Test the settings by creating a material master
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Unit Contents
Lesson: Overview of the Material Master... 43 Procedure: Organizational Levels of the Material Master... 47 Lesson: Creating a Material Master ... 49 Exercise 1: Creating Material Masters... 63 Lesson: Classification of the Material Master ... 76 Exercise 2: Material Classification ... 85 Lesson: Managing the Material Master ... 91 Exercise 3: Managing Material Masters ... 99 Lesson: Configuration of the Material Master ...108 Procedure: Setting Up Screen Sequences ...120 Exercise 4: Material Types, Field Control and Material Status ...125
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Lesson: Overview of the Material Master
Lesson Overview
In this lesson you will learn about the material master at a high level and its purpose in SAP ERP.
Lesson Objectives
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
• Describe the organizational layout of the material master
Business Example
As the project lead for implementing material master files, you must be aware of the structural design of the objects in SAP ERP. You want to learn how the material master is structured to integrate it with several business areas in your company.
Introduction to the Material Master
The material master contains information on the materials that a company constructs, procures, manufactures, stores, and sells. The information is stored in a database that is a central source of data on materials. The material master record integrates data from different areas of a company.
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For a company, the material master record represents the central source for data on materials, and is used by various SAP logistics applications. The material can be a finished product (product or article), a semi-finished product (subassembly), or a raw material (purchased part).
The material master can be valid for many different areas within the business. All data is maintained in several centralized tables, based on relevance to the particular part of the organizational structure. The material master is used by all SAP R/3 logistics applications. It controls whether a material is purchased, produced, or sold.
Every area of responsibility can have a material master view. Because different user departments in a company work with the same material, and each of these departments wants to store different information on the material, you can subdivide material master data according to the department to which it belongs. Each department then has its own material master record view and is responsible for the data being correct. The data that you maintain in the following views is used by production planning (PP) functions:
• The basic data view includes general data, such as the material number, material description, base unit of measure, and technical data.
• The classification view contains user-defined class assignments for a material. • The materials planning view contains plant-specific data used in procurement
planning.
• The scheduling view contains plant-specific data used for scheduling materials for production.
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Figure 19: Organizational Levels of the Material Master
Some material data is valid on all organizational levels and other data is only valid for specific levels. So that the material data can be managed centrally in the company without clogging up your data with redundant information, the material master is structured hierarchically, reflecting a company’s structure. In SAP ERP, the only elements that directly impact production planning are client, plant, and storage location.
General material data that applies to the whole company is stored on client level. This includes material descriptions, base units of measure, and conversion factors for alternative units of measure. This data is contained in the table MARA.
All data that applies to a plant and its assigned storage locations is stored on plant level. Examples of this kind of data are MRP and forecasting data. This data is contained in the table MARC.
All data that applies to a specific storage location is stored on storage location level. This is mainly storage location stock. This data is contained in the table MARD.
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The material master is a linkage of several tables, defined by their relationship to the organizational structure. Several of the main material master tables are:
• MARC - Client • MARA - Plant
• MARD - Storage Location
• EINA/EINE - Purch. Info Record Data • MAKT - Material Descriptions
• MVKE - Sales Data • MLGN - Warehouse Mgmt • MBEW - Material Valuation
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Organizational Levels of the Material Master
1. Enter P-100, and select only the Basic Data 1 view. 2. Select the MRP 1 screen and enter plant 1000. 3. Select the Plant data/stor. 1 tab and enter 0002.
4. Select the Sales: Sales org .1 tab, enter sales organization 1000, press ENTER, and then select the drop-down for the distribution channel value. Select 10.
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Lesson Summary
You should now be able to:
• Describe the organizational layout of the material master
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Lesson: Creating a Material Master
Lesson Overview
In this lesson you will learn about the prerequisites for creating a material master, as well as the various methods of creating a material master.
Lesson Objectives
After completing this lesson, you will be able to: • List the prerequisites to creating material masters • Use various methods to create material masters
• Describe the request process with interactive forms and explain how it might benefit your business
Business Example
As an engineer at Precision Pumps, you are responsible for the creation of material masters in SAP ERP. In doing so, you must learn the various methods of creating a material master. This will include creating a material from scratch, creating a material from an existing material master, and creating a material using profiles and other shortcuts.
Prerequisites for Creating Material Masters
Prior to creating a material master, several pieces of information must be known in order to properly create a material master record in SAP ERP.
The person who creates the first view of each material master record must define: • The material number
• The industry sector • The material type • The unit of measure • The description
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Figure 20: Material Types in SAP ERP
When you create a material master record, you must define material type for the material. The material type determines which business processes (such as sales, production, or purchasing) and functions (use of material in BOM or routing) are allowed for a material. The selection of the material type should not be taken lightly, as a wrong choice can have serious impacts.
The material type is a configurable item and is usually controlled by costing or Inventory Management due to the large impact is has on those areas of an implementation.
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Figure 21: Material Type Configuration
To be able to manage different materials according to the company’s standard requirements, materials with the same characteristics are divided into groups and assigned to a material type. Examples of material types are raw materials, semi-finished products, and finished products.
When you create a material master record, the material type determines: • Which departments can maintain the material master record • Whether the material number is assigned internally or externally • Which number range interval the material number comes from • Which screens appear and in which sequence
• Which department-specific data you have to enter
• Whether quantity changes in the material master record are updated • Whether value changes to financial accounting stock accounts are updated Additionally, the material type determines the procurement type of a material, for example, whether the material is produced in-house, procured externally, or both. Moreover, the material type determines which accounts are posted to when a material enters or leaves the warehouse.
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Figure 22: Industry Sector
The industry sector determines which data fields and screens are available for input during material master maintenance. Industry sector is one of several influencing factors. In the configuration of the material master, industry sector can act as one key in specifying whether a field is required, changeable, display only, or hidden. In addition, industry sector is used in configuration to determine what views and what sequence a user can display the material master.
Note: From within any of the Create, Change, or Display transactions, users can access the Defaults → Industry Sector menu. This transaction is user-specific, and can control the default industry sector as well as hide the industry sector once a default is set.
Figure 23: Material Numbering
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Each material has a unique material identification number. You can assign a number externally or internally. If you assign a number externally, you enter the required character string when you create a material master record. If you assign a number internally, you do not enter any material number when you create a material master record. Until you save the material master record, the system sets the internal material number in the appropriate field. When you save, the system automatically assigns the next available number.
The type of number assignment that is allowed depends on the material type and is defined in Customizing. First, you have to maintain the number range groups. You then assign the material types to the groups.
Note: Material numbering is defined at the client level.
You can assign an interval to only one group. You can also change the current number of an interval manually.
Figure 24: Storing and Displaying the Material Number
During configuration, your company can decide how to view material masters. The material master field has a maximum of 18 characters. You can configuration a template to provide breaks in the material number, for example, 123-456-789. In addition, if you do not intend to use all 18 characters from the beginning, you can specify whether leading zeros are to be displayed.
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The data you enter for material number conversion determines the way material numbers are displayed in dialog functions and printouts only. This means that the information is stored in the database unconverted.
Caution: The display format for the material number is effective for all clients.
For every material master, a base unit of measure must be assigned. This is referred to as the stock keeping unit or the smallest unit of measure a material has consumed. This field is used client-wide and will impact all plants of any company code that uses this material master.
Figure 25: Units of Measure
In addition to the base unit of measure that the system uses for stock keeping and to execute all its calculations, other departments can use their own units of measure.
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All units of measure in the SAP system that are additional to the base unit of measure are grouped together under the title “alternative units of measure.” The following alternative units of measure are supported:
• Base unit of measure (Basic Data 1): Stock keeping unit. All other units of measure you use are converted to the base unit of measure. If there is no standard formula to convert an alternative unit of measure to the base unit of measure, you must enter the conversion factor for the units of measure in material master maintenance.
• Order unit (Purchasing): Unit of measure used for ordering the material. This is the default unit for purchasing functions.
• Sales unit (Sales: sales org 1): Unit of measure used for selling the material. This is the default unit displayed in the sales order. You can also change this unit in the sales order.
• Production unit (Work Scheduling): Unit of measure to be used in the receipt of production. When you create a production order for a material, and a production unit has been entered in both the material master record and in the routing, the system checks whether the quantity entered in the production order falls within the lot size range in the routing.
• Unit of issue (Work Scheduling/Whse Mgmt 1): Unit of measure for issuing the material from stock. Use this unit for goods issue and stock movement transactions. You can also use this unit for the BOM item quantity.
Note: The design engineering department uses the base unit of measure as a rule.
SAP ERP comes supplied with the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) unit of measure tables. Simple put, SAP ERP already has the conversions from kilograms to pounds. Conversion of other non-dimensional units of measure must be defined. This would include the conversion from pieces to pallets, for example. This is often material-specific and would have to be maintained in the material master tables.
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Figure 26: Unit of Measure Groups
For materials that have similar weight and dimension characteristics, you can group together several units of measure in a unit of measure group and assign the group to a material. For each unit of measure in the group, you can enter the conversion factor to the base unit of measure. You maintain unit of measure groups in Customizing for the material master (Logistics - General).
Caution: The base unit of measure must not be entered in the unit of measure group.
Creating New Materials
When a company needs to create a new material master record, they have to match the process to the SAP ERP transactions. Listed below are several options for creating new material masters
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Create Material Master Record: Transactions • MM01 - Create (general) immediately
• MM11 - Create (general) planned for the future
• MM#1 - Create with special material type immediately (# = R, B, F, I, H, U, N, V, L, S, K, P, W and G)
• CEWB - Engineering workbench
Hint: The engineering workbench (EWB) enables material master records to be created for new BOM items. The material is usually created immediately. It is generally the case that BOM maintenance cannot work with material master records that are only planned.
Note: As soon as a material master record is created with MRP data and a valid MRP type, this material is then automatically included in the planning file, which is extremely important for MRP. When loading the data from a legacy system, the transaction does not create planning file entries.
You can define defaults for certain views, organizational levels, and industry sectors. You can take the dialog boxes for selecting views and organizational levels out of the standard screen sequence. You can hide the industry sector.
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If you copy from another material, values from the material master are copied to the new material master record that you are creating, where you can overwrite them.
Hint: As of SAP R/3 4.6X, you can select the Create Views Selected checkbox to automatically create all views that exist in the reference material (departments). Previously, each view (department) had to be viewed
individually. This is no longer necessary. Material Master Record Defaults
To access material master data efficiently, you can: • Predefine the industry sector
• Predefine the selection of views
• Predefine the selection of organization levels
To enable more efficient and accurate entry of MRP/forecast data, you can predefine several MRP/forecast profiles:
• Default values for MRP/forecast data fields • Rules for MRP/forecast data field input
In certain companies, not all views of the material master are created immediately. This may require having new views of existing material masters created. This can be accomplished with the following transactions:
• MM01 - Create (general) immediately
• MM11 - Create (general) planned for the future
• MM#1 - Create with special material type immediately (# = R, B, F, I, H, U, N, V, L, S, K, P, W and G)
• CEWB - Engineering workbench
• MM17 - Create new data records (views) immediately in mass maintenance • MM50 - Create new views for extendable materials
Hint: The above comments on the engineering workbenchalso apply here. Ensure that when using MM#1 transactions, the material type of the existing material master record is appropriate for the transaction. This is not important for transactions MM01 and MM11, as the system reads the material type from the material master and, in doing so, overwrites any data entries.
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Creating a Material Using MRP Profiles and MRP Groups
The MRP profile allows users to set default values for MRP data fields and to determine whether the values can be changed during material master maintenance. If a change is made to a default value in an MRP profile and the field cannot be changed using material master maintenance, the system automatically changes the field value in all material masters linked to that specific MRP profile.
The forecast profile allows users to set default values for forecast data fields and to determine whether the values can be changed during material master maintenance. If a change is made to a default value in a forecast profile and the field cannot be changed using material master maintenance, the system automatically changes the field value in all material masters linked to that specific forecast profile.
In addition to the MRP profile, users creating MRP views can use and assign MRP group to the material in the material master (MRP 1 view). The MRP group is defined in configuration under the MRP section. It is used to apply field values to a large number of materials.
Caution: When using MRP groups, be aware that the field values do not appear in the material master. This is different from the MRP profile.
Creating Material Masters Using Request Processes with
Interactive Forms
In most organizations, one of the major obstacles is defining and managing a process for creating master data. A huge range of forms are used on a daily basis in all types of business, especially for processing requests and approvals. Using paper forms for such processes is singularly inefficient. Delivery and submission is very time-intensive, and usually requires direct contact with an employee. Under such conditions it is difficult for the managers responsible to follow the progress of a process.
As of SAP ERP ECC (2004), a new function called Interactive Forms is available for Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) . This new functionality enables you to complete the processing of products and materials considerably more efficiently, as well as to implement company-specific standards for quality throughout the course of the process.
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Figure 28: Creating Master Data with Interactive Forms