AFS has a design edging towards MTO rather than MTS or Made To Stock. This mentality of AFS can be seen in the inability to use various MRP types. Even the simple minimum stock level ordering is not possible through the MRP type relevant for the AFS materials in the stable versions of AFS. This suggests, AFS is more like to be deployed with the MTO mindset than a MTS mind set.

Use of MTO with AFS presents a set of unique challenges. All the demands and supplies are allocated to a customer orders like Sales Order (SO) or a Sales contract. This multiplies the amount of transaction data. For an example if you are going to produce 10,000 pieces in a MTS scenario, you may use one production order for the quantity of 10,000, while in the case of MTO, if there are 10 small customer Pos making the demand of 10,000 with 1000 pieces each, you will have 10 production orders instead. This will increase the number of data available in the system. But on the positive side you will gain more and more control over the order. You are much leaner in manufacturing, as you always try to only manufacture in the quantities customers need.

Data multiplies further with the use of sizes too. If each of the 10 SO had 5 grid values each, the number of table entries in the relevant at the detail levels will increase by 5 times. This again accounts for the increase of data in the system. Increase in the data will slow down the system, if frequent archiving is not done.

Although AFS in my opinion is more inclined towards MTO, I believe there are some areas needs to be modified to better cater MTO business. One of these areas is the subcontracting of goods. Subcontracting is a very common in specially the apparel industry. But unfortunately AFS solutions are not geared to the replicate the physical scenarios in the system in MTO. But when it comes to MTS, they have excellent features. But the good news is there are well established work around available to manage MTO subcontracting in AFS.

There are few other limitations when it comes to MTO as well. One of these is the use of Scales to maintain different discounts for different quantities. Although behavior of scales do vary depending on the configuration, in a pure MTO scenario, you can maintain Scales in purchasing not for the entire PO but only for the particular LI of the PO. If you are using AFS, you may have more insight to these problems. Please leave your thoughts as a comment to this post.

Please note, these are just my thoughts depending on what I have seen over the years. There may be differences in your experience. You can always leave your comments below.

In the apparel industry one of the main raw materials is the fabric. Fabrics are characterized with many subjective parameters like color, color shading and the types of fabric faults. On the other hand when it comes to storing of these fabrics we store them in rolls, while all the other transactions like purchasing and payments happens in length(M, Yd) or in weight(Kg, pound) units. Also we have an interesting question in classification of these materials.

I was working on warehouse management module of AFS. And found a simple and creative way of answering one of my questions listed above. In WM I was able to configure the roll level stock handling capability using Storage Unit management functionality. So there is no requirement to have one to one relationship between the roll and the length it contains. We can manage them separately.

It is not possible to have AFS special features enabled in quality management for the AFS versions before 6.0. But the basic quality allocation and releasing and blocking can be made available using simple IM functionality. Although very simple technically this is a very important functional step for the business.

On top of all these I was invited by ITToolBox to start an AFS blog there. So you can read my blog posts on ITToolBox by visiting this link ( The SAP AFS Blog ).

So some thoughts about the future posts. Most of my friends have asked me how they can write a query in SAP. So I though of publishing my next few posts on the topic how to write a SAP query. See you with interesting blog posts in near future.

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 a known fact that SAP caters to different industry verticals by providing industry specific solutions. In this post I would like to give you an insight into how these industry specific solutions are developed for the different product offerings SAP have.

For instance when it comes to SAP Business One solution, when there is a need to cater to the requirements of a particular industry vertical, the separate add on for this vertical needs to be purchased by the customer. This add on is often a separate development of one of SAP’s Development Partner who have been doing SAP Consulting for the industry clients. This add on developed by the partner is later sent for approval to SAP AG where the solution is tried and tested before being available as a genuine SAP Add on for the particular industry vertical.

For SAP All in One solutions, that is for the higher end of the medium sized companies, the requirements (best in class practices) of the particular vertical is also preconfigured into the solution. This preconfiguration is submitted to SAP AG by the relevant development and/or channel partner and a certificate is obtained from SAP AG, certifying that this preconfigured solution is accepted to cater to the best in class practices of the proposed industry vertical.

As for R/3, the industry solutions are seamlessly integrated with the standard SAP components. This is then configured based on the requirements of the particular client. Therefore the client when purchasing SAP will be buying the relevant SAP Industry Solution suite.

Hope this post provided you with an insight into how SAP IS works.

Send in your comments and suggestions at ssurenlk@msn.com.

Have a nice day!!

S.Suren

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.

Many people wonder how SAP AFS IS was conceptualized. There needed to be some sort of an activity that spurred the development of the SAP AFS Industry Solution.

This initiation was taken by Dr.Peter Zencke in January 1996. Dr. Peter Zencke, a mathematician and economist, joined SAP in 1984. As a member of the Executive Board of SAP AG since 1993, he has led major development areas for SAP R/3 and SAP industry solutions.

The new solution was developed in conjunction with such industry leaders as Reebok International Ltd and VF Corp and today this solution is being used by more than 60+ SAP AFS Customers worldwide.

There you go, thanks to initiatives taken by people like Dr.Peter Zencke that SAP Continues to dominate in the world of ERPs and consistently spring out solutions for emerging industries.

S.Suren

ssurenlk@msn.com

In IS AFS 5.0, the specific functionalities that have been included in the SAP R/3 are:

In AFS Master Data:

Material Grids (refer to the earlier post on “Using 3D Options in SAP AFS”, by Azwath for more information on this enhancement)

Categories - AFS materials are based on a large volume of data. To order this data volume, AFS uses categories. Categories are used to logically segment materials. You can enter a specific schedule line for a material per grid value. You can distinguish a material by color and size, for example. Using categories you can also order the grid values at different quality levels, customer segments, and countries of origin

Seasons - In the fashion industry, seasons are an integral part of the business processes. Previously, seasons were only available in Sales and Distribution (SD). In SAP AFS, you can have a season at the stock side. It has been enhanced so that it can also be used for Material Management (MM), Production Planning (PP), and Inventory Management (IM).

In Sales & Distribution

Value Added Services – Some of your customers might request that you add customer-specific services to the goods they ordered before they are delivered. Customers frequently request special labels, packing according to certain criteria, or other special services for their goods.

Depending on what kind of service and how complicated it is, you will need materials, know-how and/or more personnel to provide the service. An added service that you provide upon customer demand is therefore not free of charge, but rather it increases the value of the goods that you will deliver. You can calculate price markups that your customer has to pay, to reimburse you for your resources and materials.

You can map these requirements including their costs as value-added services in the AFS system.

Multi-store orders – The multi-store order (MSO) facilitates the mapping of business processes in which a corporation requires goods from you for any number of stores You can process all stores in one single order.

You explode the MSO document in the following process steps. The system creates individual sales documents.

This allows you to make specific and clear changes to the order quantity for certain stores.

Available to Promise (ATP) – The AFS availability check is carried out in the order entry to see whether the desired AFS material is available for the requested delivery date in, for example, the selected color or size. During the order entry you check if there is enough stock to fulfill the order at the requested delivery date. If the order cannot be delivered immediately, the ATP specifies when enough goods are available and confirms this date as the delivery date.

Allocation Run – The special situation of the apparel and footwear industry requires an optimization of the assignment of existing stock to open requirements. If a stock shortage occurs, the allocation run ensures an optimal assignment of stock to the open requirements. The allocation run distributes the currently available stock to due sales orders according to certain calculation logics at a specific time. If the ordered quantities are larger than the actually available stock, you can use the allocation run to reach the best customer satisfaction under the given circumstances in your business.

In Production

Markers Production Lots

Combined Orders – With this function you can group several production orders. The combined production orders can use the same component or have the same operation in the routing.

The functions you can execute for combined production orders include:

• releasing combined production orders at the same time
• posting the goods issues for all component quantities from the combined orders at the same time
• confirming operations at the same time that are carried out for the combined orders

For more information on these features, I urge you to visit http://help.sap.com/saphelp_afs50/helpdata/en/b2/53ae56cda511d2aca20000e829fbfe/frameset.htm

Hope you found this post useful, feel free to send me your comments and suggestions to ssurenlk@msn.com

Have a nice day !!

S.Suren

• Banking
• Defense & Security
• Healthcare
  • Healthcare Providers
• Higher Education & Research
• Insurance
• Public Sector
  • Public Security
• Aerospace & Defense
  • Aerospace and Defense Manufacturers
  • MRO/M&E Service Providers
• Automotive
  • Automotive OEMs
  • Sales and Service Organizations
  • Automotive Suppliers
• Chemicals
• Consumer Products
  • Food
    Beverage
  • Home and Personal Care
  • Consumer Durables and Home Appliances
  • Apparel and Footwear
• Engineering, Construction & Operations
  • Homebuilding
    Construction
  • Engineering & Design
  • Shipbuilding
  • Commercial Real Estate
  • Facilities Management
• High Tech
• Business, Medical, and Consumer OEMs
• EMS Providers
• Semiconductor and Component Manufacturers
• Software Providers
• Industrial Machinery & Components
  • Construction and Mining Machinery
  • Electrical Equipment, Appliances, and Components
  • Engine, Turbine, Pump, and Compressor Machinery
  • Industrial Machinery and Equipment
  • Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, and Plumbing Equipment
  • Industrial Tools and Metalworking Machinery
  • Lifting, Material Handling, and Railroad Equipment
  • Measuring and Controlling Devices
  • Motion and Fluid Control Equipment
  • Oil and Gas Machinery
  • Semiconductor and Electronic Measurement Equipment
  • Textile, Paper, Printing, and Packaging Machinery
• Life Sciences
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Biotechnology/Biopharmaceuticals
  • Medical Device/Scientific Instruments
• Mill Products
  • Building Materials
  • Fabricated Metal Products
  • Furniture
  • Packaging
  • Plastics
  • Primary Metals
  • Pulp and Paper
  • Textile
  • Timberlands and Solid Wood
• Mining
• Oil & Gas
  • Upstream
  • Supply, transmission, and trading
  • Refining and manufacturing Instruments
  • Downstream marketing and retail
• Retail
• Telecommunications
• Travel & Logistics Services
  • Logistics Services
  • Postal Services
  • Railways
  • Airlines
• Utilities
  • Generation
  • Retail
  • Transmission and Distribution
  • Water
  • Wholesale Distribution
• Media
  • Broadcasting
  • Entertainment
  • Newspapers and Magazines
  • Premium Content Publishers
• Professional Services
  • Consulting and Audit & Tax
  • IT and BPO Services
  • Commercial Real Estate
  • Business Services
  • Legal Services
  • Staffing
  • Facilities Management

For more information visit:
http://www.sap.com/industries/index.epx

IMG Path: Production -> Shop Floor Control -> Operations -> Availability Check -> Expand Scope Check at AFS

Activity Importance : Critical Activity

Here you can make additional settings for the control of the availability check (ATP). You can make AFS-specific settings for each combination of check group and checking rule within the ATP.

Checking rule for the availability check

Use 1:

This rule defines the checking procedure to be used for the availability check (or in Inventory Management, the missing parts check) in individual applications.

Use 2:

It defines, together with the checking group, the different MRP elements that make up this key figure in Flexible Planning.

Brief Explanation…

The whole purpose of this settings is to determine the type of availability check that the system needs to carry out and based on what criteria, if for example is we are to do an availability check for receipts of materials, then we can define the settings such that the system checks if the availability of the material comes from production orders or from purchase order, and as for issues, when checking the availability we can define if for example the sales order and dependant requirements are taken into account during the check.

2. Define General AFS Specific Control Parameters

IMG Path: Production – > Material Requirement planning -> Plant Parameters -> Define General AFS Specific Control Parameters

Activity Importance : Critical Activity

In this section you can carry out general, MRP-relevant settings for a plant.

Activities to be done:

Restrict the number ranges for planned orders, purchase requisitions, and planned independent requirements. Specify the SKU horizon and determine the pegging logic.

Brief Explanation…

Once the MRP is run, this creates purchase requisitions or planned orders for the planned order requirements, and the number ranges for planned orders, purchase requisitions, and planned independent requirements can be setup in this setting.

3. Define MRP Modules to Control Category Assignment (AFS)

IMG Path: Production – > Material Requirement Planning -> Planning -> Define MRP Modules to Control Category Assignment (AFS)

Activity Importance : Critical Activity

In this section you define the MRP modules you use in maintaining the category assignment during the planning run. The MRP module is used for the assignment of stock categories to requirements categories.

Example

Module M1 means that the entire stock, all purchase requisitions, and purchase orders that are available for the customer’s requested delivery date, are used to satisfy the existing requirements (FIFO – first in first out).

In the configuration you would need to setup the MRP Module and the relevant function module for this.

Brief Explanation….

The MRP module controls the assignment of the requirement categories to the stock categories. Module M1 uses a strategy where all batches of stock, purchase requisitions and purchase orders which are available on the requested delivery date (sales order) and assigned to the stock category, will be used to satisfy the requirement.

It is important that you have a clear idea of the function module in order to specify the setting for this MRP Module.

Hope you found the above post useful. I shall update more posts such as this in the future.

Have a nice day.

S.Suren

ssurenlk@msn.com