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
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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© 2007 SAP AG. All rights reserved. 2006/Q3PLM114 Lesson: Creating a Material Master
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
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
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
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© 2007 SAP AG. All rights reserved. 2006/Q3PLM114 Lesson: Creating a Material Master
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.
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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© 2007 SAP AG. All rights reserved. 2006/Q3PLM114 Lesson: Creating a Material Master
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.
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.