3.2 Master Data Simplifications
This section highlights specific master data functionality in SAP S/4HANA. Within manufacturing in SAP S/4HANA, changes have been introduced to the material master format and some of the structured data on the MRP views. A significant change with SAP S/4HANA is the requirement in Production Planning to have production versions for all produced materials.
3.2.1 Material Master
A number of changes have been made to the material master within SAP S/4HANA. The first change is the ability to determine material master character length. This is a configurable value that defaults to 18 characters but can be extended to as many as 40 characters.
The configuration can be edited via Logistics General • Material Master • Basic Settings • Define Output Format of Material Number (see Figure 3.1).
Figure 3.1 Configuration Settings for Material Master Character Extension
Additional changes exist in the material master on the MRP tabs. On the MRP 1 tab, the Lot Size Unit of Measure group has been removed. Within the retail industry set, this functionality is still enabled, as shown in Figure 3.2.
Figure 3.2 Material Master MRP 1 View
On the MRP 2 tab, the Quota Arrangement field has been removed as SAP S/4HANA always considers quota arrangements active. As shown in Figure 3.3, the MRP 2 view doesn’t contain the Quota Arrangement field.
Figure 3.3 Material Master MRP 2 View
Changes in the MRP 4 view include the addition of the Repetitive manufacturing/assembly/deployment strategy grouping (see Figure 3.4).
Figure 3.4 Material Master MRP 4 View
The following fields have been removed from the MRP views: Action Console, Fair Share Rules, Push Distribution, and Deployment Horizon.
3.2.2 Bill of Materials and Production Version
A very significant change has been made in SAP S/4HANA regarding the usage of BOMs and production versions. Going forward, BOM determination can only occur via a valid production version. Customizing for date validity determination is no longer leveraged for the BOM explosion. Only BOMs with valid production versions are considered during a BOM explosion. Therefore, a valid production version is needed for BOM explosion.
Maintaining the production version helps combine BOM and routing data, which allows for more streamlined processing in the future.
The Customizing that determines the items valid for BOM explosion now has the default value of 2 (Version with latest valid-from date), as shown in Figure 3.5. This Customizing is available in Production • Define Modification Parameters • Basic Data • Bill of Material • Control Data for Bills of Material.
Figure 3.5 Customizing BOM Parameters
The BOM functions remain the same in SAP S/4HANA and leverage the same existing transaction codes. Figure 3.6 shows a BOM from the GUI.
Figure 3.6 View of BOM in SAP S/4HANA
3.2.3 Work Centers
An SAP Fiori app called Work Center has been developed to help display and manage work centers. It provides detailed information for each work center and helps manage capacity, existing and upcoming operations, and queuing operations. The Work Center app provides detailed information such as plant and work center category, as well as overview information such as current capacity utilization (see Figure 3.7).
Figure 3.7 Work Center App: General Information Tab
The Work Center app also provides information on what operations are scheduled for the work center for that day on the Today’s Operations tab, as shown in Figure 3.8.
Figure 3.8 Work Center App: Today’s Operations Tab
Modifications and management of work center data are still available in the SAP Business Suite by using the existing work center management transactions, as shown in Figure 3.9.
Figure 3.9 View of a Work Center in the SAP S/4HANA GUI
Standard routing functionality exists via the GUI, which includes creation, change, and display of routings for a produced material (see Figure 3.10).
Figure 3.10 View of Routing in SAP S/4HANA
3.2.4 Removed and Interim Solution Manufacturing Functionality
A few functions in manufacturing have been removed in SAP S/4HANA. Storage location MRP isn’t possible in SAP S/4HANA. SAP S/4HANA can plan only at the plant and MRP area level. In addition, net change planning inside the planning horizon (processing key NETPL) isn’t available in SAP S/4HANA.
Functionalities that haven’t been removed but are considered interim solutions include Logistics Information Systems (LIS); Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP), which is replaced with IBP; and forecast-based planning (MRP type VV), which is replaced with MRP Type Planning.