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This is another AFS Special article in the series on Grids. I have already introduced you to the grid functionality and usage of 3D Grids. There is another special functionality in AFS which solves a unique problem to the apparel and footwear industry.

Apparel is a global industry. Orders comes from one part of the world, manufacturing of raw material happens in some other place and garment manufacturing will happen in another part of the world. Some buyers refer their product sizes as “Small (Size S), Medium (Size M),…” and so on. Some refer their sizes as “10, 12,…). On the other hand some suppliers of raw materials will call Size S as 14” depending on the product you order and the place from which the supplier operates. So every apparel manufacturer faces the problem of communicating with external parties in the same language they do.

AFS has adopted a creative method of solving this problem. This is by using grid conversions. We will maintain grids internally as we identify them. But displayed grid values will differ based on the Customer, Supplier or Material. For an example supplier will refer the product size as 14” and customer will see their document as Size S while we maintain it as ST internally for manufacturing purposes.

This requires maintaining the grid conversion in the customizing. Here in customizing all the conversions will be maintained for Customer, Vendor and Material. Then we have to make the conversions available for particular customer, supplier and material in master data maintenance. If all three are maintained system will take the Customer as the first preference then the vendor and material in last and grids will be displayed accordingly.

I find this function really useful in operation. But again I do not think this functionality is used for its fullest potential. If you are using it and if you have any comments leave it here by adding a comment to this post.

I will show you how to configure this functionality in my future posts. If you have any questions or suggestions pleas contact me on the email in the introduction above.

Sometime back I wrote about special feature in AFS, which is the Grid option. Generally apparel and footwear products contain sizes. This is where SAP uses grids extensively in its industry specific solution. For an example if you buy a garment you will look for the correct size even when all the other qualities like color and fabrication are met. Even for the manufacturer or the retailer it is important to know the size of the product they manufacture or sell.

But SAP AFS grids can be used very creatively in many other ways other than using it just to specify the size. Actually GRID option in AFS can be used with three variables. So it forms a 3D grid. This 3D grid can be used to reduce the number of master data created, complexity of the manufacturing and make the data entry simple.

In the 3D grid you can maintain three important variables of your business. For an example you can maintain size, color and the country of the order. Or you may maintain the size, customer and quality grade of the garment you require. In the case of first example your grid may look like “S_RED_US”. When you create your material masters for the finish good and the RM you can create one material code for a particular style for an example, since you have all the critical variables in your grids you can use it with freedom over and over again. For an example if you have a single dimension grid with the Size as the only variable you will have to create two materials to for RED and BLUE. If you want to differentiate them according to the country, you will have to create two for each of the color to say each material is specific for two countries. So if you have two colors and two countries each you will have to create four materials and possibly four BOM to replicate the scenario. Below is the summery of the example.

MAT_RED_US
MAT_RED_GB
MAT_BLUE_US
MAT_BLUE_GB

But if you have a 3D grid as per the earlier example you need to create only one material. So you can just imagine the time saving with this option. It will also reduce the data load in the system and will make it easy to maintain the system.

Having said that there are some limitations to usage of the 3D grid. Only 8 characters are permitted to be used altogether. That is all the three variables together can not go beyond 8 characters in length. This will limit you from using meaningful grid values in the system. Most of the times it will be required to code the variables used. For an example you may use 01 to indicate size S, 0002 to indicate color Red and 01 to indicate Country US in the above example. So you will enter “01000201” instead of “S_RED_US”. As you can see code is not meaningful to the reader. But standardizing will help to accommodate the longer descriptions to the grid. For an example you will use a four digit number to indicate the color “Dark Blue” in the system which is not usable in the system as it is.

Maintaining the grids also will be slightly harder if the changes happen frequently. But this would not be a problem after a while when all the possible combinations are captured in the system.

It is a tradeoff actually. But I think by using grids effectively you will be able to make the life very easy in terms of data entry to the system. But you will require longer time to familiarize with the usage especially if you have many changes within a shorter time period. Anyway I am still very exited about the concept and think 3D grids have not being explored by many organizations effectively. So if you are interested in SAP AFS explore it, it will be interesting hopefully you will save lot of time and effort.

SAP AFS offers many special features to its customers. One of them is the ability handle its functionalities according to the sizes. Apparel and footwear trade is based on the size of the product. For an example if we are making a shirt some of its properties will differ according to the collar size of the shirt to be produced. For an example the cuff size of the shirt, sometimes the consumptions of fabric can vary according to the size of the shirt to be manufactured. This is same in the footwear industry as well. So without sizes it is almost useless to have a solution to the apparel and footwear industry.

SAP grids are ideal way to handle the products with size dependencies. Even when the styles, color combinations remain the same size requirement can vary in this industry. For an example size Extra Small (XS) will have a lesser demand than the size Medium (M) in the market. So the demand must have a variation based on the size while all the other features of the product are the same. So all the dependent subsequent activities will depend on the sizes. In the other words procurement, manufacturing and deliveries will happen according to the size wise requirements.

Sizes are important in some industries outside apparel and footwear trade as well. For an example Tyre manufacturing has a size reference. So SAP apparel and footwear solutions have found its place in many other industries where size is a key differentiator.

There are many other ways size grid functionality can be used in SAP AFS. I will discuss this in the future posts.