First post, so go easy on me here.

Were entertaining the move to either SAP Business One or SAP Business by Design, but one of the things we need sooner rather then later is an intergration to a lot of our bulk scales.

We have smart scales set up at many of our terminals (Kahler, One-Weigh, etc.) that we would need to tie into any ERP we go to. 

How it normally works is a customer is given a 'release number' which is a unique number for them to go to our terminal and present to the warehouseman.   He/she then checks to see if that number has been loaded yet or not.   If not, they load the truck and the scale communicates to the accounting system what quantity got loaded in (aprox. 25 tons), date, time, etc.

Can a scale interface realistically be done on the initial implementation or is that something we should wait till we go live, THEN cross that bridge?

In a perfect world we would like the scale information to be automatically laid into SAP along with a image of the BOL.   I can't imagine that this is a revolutionary concept and was wondering if anyone has any experience/guidance they could share with me on it.

Hi Experts,

I have seen a unique requirement at my current client,  the issue comes from the requirement from accounting to recognize production variances at the finished paper roll level.

Once the paper plant sets up on a specific grade (i.e. grey or cream), they run that grade over multiple shifts and/or days.  The process begins with loading the pulper with waste paper (manual goods issue to a process order).  The pulp is then processed into a master reel which will be slit into multiple rolls (unique material numbers) which makes it very difficult to know at the start of the process which raw materials are going to which specific process orders for the finished individual rolls; one master reel yields many individual rolls.

We have investigated the MILL_CUT that is available in DIMP.  However, goods receipts to inventory for the finished roll result from a 309 Material-to-Material transfer, and that transfer occurs at the standard price for the finished roll, so production variances are captured at the master reel level. We looked at using co-products, but, again, the financial postings occur at the standard price. Order combination (MILL_OC) allows the business to issue materials to a single process order and flow variances to the individual rolls via the standard order combination cost distribution process and rules.

1.      As per SAP Note 1820289, it is explicitly stated that combined orders are not supported by APO as a standard SAP offering.

2.      With the help of IS-MILL order combination - APO Integration configuration node (Table /sapmp/atrkz_par), we were able to integrate the combined orders for APO relevant materials. This can be accomplished using configuration to activate combined orders for APO in this table.

3.      As part of the process order integration model, both the combined orders and individual orders are showing up as a supply element in APO Product view, which is double counting the supply for Supply Planning, Production Planning, and GATP functionality.

4. Once Process Orders are integrated to APO, we're able to distinguish by APO application "Combined Order (Original)", "Combined Order (combined)"

4.      We also succeeded to stop combined order coming into via CIF modification which works well with execution, costing and APO.

Given the language in the above referenced note:

APO-relevant materials cannot be combined.
In general, the function "Combining Production and Process Orders" is not released in connection with SCM/APO.
This means:
APO-relevant materials cannot be combined. Neither combined orders nor original orders can be integrated to SCM/APO. The customer shall be responsible for any modifications in this respect. Resulting questions and problems will not be processed and supported by Support.

Although we are incorporating generally acceptable customer tools such as enhancement points and user exits to enable this functionality, we are making modifications to the delivered functionality.

We're not sure if SAP is going to change the structure of above mentioned table in future. Our client doesn't want to against the SAP recommendation. Somehow the combined order structure is available in APO (application type).

Kindly provide your inputs/comments/recommendations.

Hello,

This is a general design question related to creation of inbound Sales Orders via EDI for Configurable materials.

Context

In our mill products scenario, we want to explore processing inbound EDI orders for SAP configurable materials however the inbound material on the idoc would be our customer material number not the SAP configurable material. Additionally, the inbound idoc would only contain the customer material number not any configuration /characteristic data. From our customer perspective, their customer material # represents a fully configured SKU which is why they do not specify and additional configuration data.

We understand that normally in inbound EDI sales orders, customer material numbers mapping to SAP material, are simply managed using Customer Material Info records. However in our case the specified customer material number is different than our configurable material and nowhere on the inbound idoc is there configuration/characteristic data provided (only customer material #). Let me explain via conceptual example.

Conceptual Example

• - SAP Configuration Material “A500”
• - Within the SAP Material Master, we have characteristic “C1” with a blank value. The “C1” characteristic is only populated at time of Sales Order creation
• - Now our customer will send us customer Material # “A500-10” when Characteristic “C1” = X and Material # “A500-20” when characteristic “C1” = Y.

Problem Statement

Conceptually we know that we could use a CMIR to map customer material “A500-10” to SAP material # “A500” but we don’t know of a way (standard way) to determine that when customer material # is A500-10, Characteristic C1 = X and when customer material # is A500-20, characteristic C1 = Y.

Preliminary Analysis

We have looked at the DIMP classification functionality in CMIR Customer Material Info records (http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp60_sp/helpdata/en/28/7e2e7d16a411d486190000e8200b4c/content.htm) however have not been able to make this work as it only allows a 1:1 mapping of customer material number to SAP material #. In our example above, we would want to map both customer material numbers "A500-10" and "A500-20" both to SAP material "A500" with the only difference being the configuration data for Characteristic C1.

Also, we understand within the basic iDoc type ORDERS02, there are available segments to manage the specifications of the configurable material  (http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp60_sp/helpdata/en/92/58ca49417011d189ec0000e81ddfac/content.htm), however in our case, customer only provides material # not configuration data.

Would appreciate any member insight on how companies have chosen to model inbound EDI sales orders for configurable materials in the above scenarios.

Thank you in advance for any assistance.

Hello,

I would like to reach out and pose a question within the Mill products forum regarding Batch number generation process.

First let me say, I recognize this is a general question but I would like to get some mill community member feedback as to their respective experiences.

Question - in SAP mill products implementations where SAP-ECC is interfacing with an external MES system, which one of the following processes for batch number creation do you commonly see

1) MES system creates an external batch number (based upon agreed SAP standards) and sends that batch # to SAP (ie EXTABC0001) OR

2) MES system sends its internal unique ID # (ie MESABC0001) and then SAP creates its own batch # using internal number ranges (ex INTABC0001) during inbound iDoc processing (example Production order Goods receipt process)

We have model 1 currently implemented for some of our locations however some new locations planned to be deployed to SAP have been requesting model 2. Obviously we want some design consistency but would like to reach out and get some broader community feedback as to what are some of the more common implementations scenarios and the reasons why.

Thank you

Hi J Gill

I work for the Mill Products IBU within SAP, and was an SD consultant for several years as well.  In my experience you will need to utilize the enhancements in IDOC_INPUT_ORDERS.  There are several enhancements available to handle many customer specific scenarios with EDI inbound orders scenarios.  It is quite common for projects to utilize these enhancements, especially in the case of mapping codes like material masters.  These enhancements are all well documented in the system as to their specific usage.  In addition, you can See Note 753153 - FAQ: Customer-functions in IDOC_INPUT_ORDERS

Thank you,

Paul Barney

Hello Team,

I need to update the stock type MSEG-INSMK dynamically at runtime based on few conditions.

This will happen upon save on Tcode MIGO during GR creation on mnt type 101.

I am trying to implement the logic  using MB_MIGO_BADI.

The Method LINE_MODIFY allows me to make changes to the line item. However I discovered that the field CS_GOITEM-INSMK is not modifiable.

Is there any other suitable  technique by which we can achieve this?

From a logical view, there might be not the one and only solution. 1. Concerns might be about the consistency of numbering. In case of several MES software products (maybe also from different software vendors) integrated to SAP ERP the integrity (number uniqueness) needs to be ensured. a) organizational: you need to define unique number ranges for each MES (plants…) software b) technical: can every MES system "customize" the range and maybe c) does the field length harmonize ?  2. If you do not want to manage the criteria in 1), then you might go with SAP ERP internal number assignment. You transfer the MES external batch number and an external system ID (MES) to SAP ERP, into an additional field.

Thank you Paul. Will review. Take care

Hi Ramiwal,

MIGO is calling MB_CREATE_GOODSMOVEMENT if I remember correctly. Maybe you can use a BadI or CFC within this module?

Although I have to say, it seems awkward (w/o knowing the context) to exchange the stocktype upon save - maybe confusing for the user if he intentionally selected a stocktype before).

Regards,

Stefan

Any luck with it? I have similar requirement.