Another SAP AFS Special feature: AFS Categories
In apparel and footwear industry it is very important to categorize materials based on various common features. For an example if you manufacturer a shirt, it can be categorized into high quality and low quality based on the quality of the product. If you manufacturer the same product for two or three countries the common industry practice is to have the same style, color and construction but the languages on the label, or packing items might vary according to the country the product is shipped. In this case the products are categorized by country.
It is very important to differentiate the different categories of products within the same product range. This is achieved with the usage of categories in SAP AFS. Basically categories can be used to group any set of data which have common features. For an example Quality and Country of shipment are features that can be used to categorize the product manufactured in above examples.
Categories need to be configured in the IMG. Then category indicators need to be assigned to the materials in order to make the materials category relevant. When this is done, the stock keeping strategy for these materials will change. Your stock will be categorized with the category it is assigned to. In other words there will be an additional level in defining stock. For an example if you had a finish good stock in batch “XS”, Special Stock “E” for the order “23000” in storage location “1100” of Plant “1000” with the introduction of categories you can further classify your stock to “Quality A” and “Quality B” for an example.
On the other hand the requirement calculation in MRP will also be based on the category. You can define requirement fulfillment strategy in customizing. For an example you can ask your MRP to fill the requirement with “Quality A” goods and then with “Quality B” goods in customizing.
Category is a functionality which can be used very creatively based on the requirement. On the other hand usage of categories must be evaluated very carefully. This change the stock and requirement creation strategy for the category enabled materials. On the other hand there are some limitations to the category enabled materials. Customizing of categories involved many steps. I will discuss this in my future posts.
If you have any problems you can email me on the email address shown in the introduction. Or leave your question as a comment to this post.
It is very important to differentiate the different categories of products within the same product range. This is achieved with the usage of categories in SAP AFS. Basically categories can be used to group any set of data which have common features. For an example Quality and Country of shipment are features that can be used to categorize the product manufactured in above examples.
Categories need to be configured in the IMG. Then category indicators need to be assigned to the materials in order to make the materials category relevant. When this is done, the stock keeping strategy for these materials will change. Your stock will be categorized with the category it is assigned to. In other words there will be an additional level in defining stock. For an example if you had a finish good stock in batch “XS”, Special Stock “E” for the order “23000” in storage location “1100” of Plant “1000” with the introduction of categories you can further classify your stock to “Quality A” and “Quality B” for an example.
On the other hand the requirement calculation in MRP will also be based on the category. You can define requirement fulfillment strategy in customizing. For an example you can ask your MRP to fill the requirement with “Quality A” goods and then with “Quality B” goods in customizing.
Category is a functionality which can be used very creatively based on the requirement. On the other hand usage of categories must be evaluated very carefully. This change the stock and requirement creation strategy for the category enabled materials. On the other hand there are some limitations to the category enabled materials. Customizing of categories involved many steps. I will discuss this in my future posts.
If you have any problems you can email me on the email address shown in the introduction. Or leave your question as a comment to this post.
1 comments:
Hello,
we would like to create a BOM for 1 material with a grid in SAP AFS with different categories. The category per grid should be different because the prodcut is available in different packaging variants (hanger, box.
SAP AFS does not accecpt different packaging categories in the BOM because the category of the BOM header is automatically copied to the grid lines.
Is there any possibility to deactive this mechanism and to allow different categories per sales grid in a BOM.
Thank you in advance for your feedback.
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