VC - Overview

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SAP SD VC
Variant Configuration an overview
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Copyright IBM Corporation 2003
Contents
Variant Configuration an overview Material Master Data for Configurable Materials Item Categories for Configurable Materials Strategies for Configurable Materials Maintaining Characteristics for Configuration Use
Dependencies for Configuration

Dependency Types Steps in SAP to Configuring the VC with a case Study of Auto Sales. Case Study
SAP sd vc Fundamentals-Introduction | 5/1/2012
Variant Configuration an overview : Purpose
Variant configuration is for manufacturing complex products. The manufacturer is always having to offer new variants of its products. Often, new variants are created by modifying existing product designs as you process the order. The important thing is to react quickly to customers' requirements.
The customer determines the features of the product. A customer buying a car, for example, can choose the features of the car and combine these features as required.
The product configurator improves information exchange between sales, engineering, and production. Variant configuration helps the customer or salesperson to put together specifications for the product and ensure that the product can be produced from these specifications. It also ensures that production costs do not overstep the mark.
Variant Configuration an overview :Features
No need to create a separate material for each variant of a product in your company. You can use one configurable material to cover all variants. You create a super BOM and a super routing for this material, containing all the components and operations for producing all variants of the product. To define the features of a configurable material, you use characteristics. To enable you to use characteristics to configure a material, you assign the material to a class of class type 300. Possible characteristics of a car, for example, are model, country, color, and engine. The customer can choose from among different options for each characteristic (values). The only limitations are combinations of features that are not possible for either technical or marketing reasons. You cannot combine all types of car engine with all types of transmission, for example, or certain types of upholstery are only available for more expensive models. In Variant Configuration, you use dependencies to control this. This prevents combinations of options that are not allowed. Dependencies also select exactly the right BOM components and operations to produce a variant. Each configurable object must have a configuration profile. The configuration profile for a material controls the configuration process in the sales order.
You can make the price of a variant dependent on the characteristic values assigned (Pricing). You can use variant conditions to define surcharges and discounts for a variant.
For variants that are required frequently, you can create material variants, which can be produced without a sales order and kept in stock. When you receive a sales order, you can check whether the variant required is in stock, so that you can deliver immediately.
Variant Configuration an overview :Features
Material Master Data for Configurable Materials
You use central maintenance functions to create material master records for configurable materials. There is some data that you need to maintain specifically for configurable materials
Basic Data Material is configurable indicator = X Sales Item category group = 0002 or MRP Strategy group MRP type MRP Availability check Individ./collective For example = 25 For lot size = EX (checking group) = 02 1 example=PD 0004
Determination Of Requirement Types :---
Item Categories for Configurable Materials
Item category group 0002 Pricing and transfer of requirements for header material .Refer to Graphic Requirements Transfer and Pricing at Header Level The header material has item category group 0002. The BOM for the material is made up of non-configurable finished products and trading goods. These materials have item category group NORM:
In the sales order, the superior material has item category TAC. Items of this category transfer requirements and have an individual price.
The subordinate order items have item category TAE. These items are not relevant to transfer of requirements or pricing, and appear in the sales order for information purposes only.
Item Categories for Configurable Materials

Item category group 0004 Pricing and transfer of requirements for components Requirements Transfer and Pricing at Assembly Level The header material has item category group 0004. The BOM for the material is made up of nonconfigurable finished products and trading goods. These materials have item category group NORM. In the sales order, the configurable material has item category TAM and is not relevant to pricing or transfer of requirements. The subordinate order items have item category TAN. Order items with this item category transfer requirements and are relevant to pricing. The BOM of the configurable material may contain configurable assemblies, which are copied to the sales order as subordinate items. The item category group of the materials and the item category of the superior material determine the item category of these subordinate items.
Strategies for Configurable Materials
Definition A configurable material is a material for which different variants are possible.
The strategies for configurable materials allow you to plan products with an almost unlimited number of possible combinations of characteristics and combination value keys. Use these strategies if you want to plan a product that uses a feasible combination of characteristic values and that does not include final assembly. Typical examples of such products are cars, elevators, forklifts, trucks, buses. Variants, (A material variant is a material that can be kept in stock and that arises from an individual configuration of a configurable product.) The material master record of a material variant is linked to the configurable material and configured using the characteristics of the configurable material. This variant of the configurable material can then be manufactured and kept in stock.
In Other cases it could not be used to plan these products because you had to create billions of variants. Entering usage probabilities for characteristic values instead allows you to plan materials that have a large number of variants. This procedure also improves change management for the components because planning is separated from construction changes.
Strategies for Configurable Materials

Structure A configurable material can have a few or very many variants, as the following examples demonstrate:
A personal computer may have several more characteristics. For example, hard disk capacity, casing, CPU, country version, color.
A car may have up to several hundred characteristics, each in turn having many characteristic values. An elevator consists of a large number of characteristics, but cannot even be assembled without having to construct new parts for each elevator. The number of characteristics and characteristic values (in other words, the variance) of a material is a key factor when choosing the right planning strategy. Planning a few variants differs drastically from planning thousands or millions of variants. Before you choose a planning strategy for a configurable material, you must consider the possible number of variants.
A personal computer could be produced with two different types of hard disk, three casing types, two CPU types, two country versions, and three colors which results in 72 variants (2 * 3 * 2 * 2 * 3). A car with several dozen characteristics could result in a million variants. An elevator could have millions of standard variants, and an unlimited number of additional variants, produced specifically to meet customer requirements.
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Maintaining Characteristics for Configuration Use
When you create a sales order for a configurable material, this sales order must describe precisely how the product being ordered is to look. This description comes from characteristics and characteristic values. A car, for example, has a large number of options that need to be described. The graphic shows the individual product options such as engine, gears, paintwork, mapped as characteristics. You define values for characteristics, to allow you to select specific options, such as 'black' for paintwork.
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Dependencies for Configuration

Purpose :- Describe the interdependencies between characteristics and characteristic values Control which components are selected from a bill of material (BOM) and which operations are selected from a task list . Change the values of fields in BOM items and operations during configuration
Dependency Types: The SAP System supports the following types of dependencies: Preconditions Selection conditions Actions (obsolete) Procedures Constraints
Global and Local Dependencies The differences between global and local dependencies are as follows: Global dependencies are created centrally and can be assigned to several objects. Local dependencies are created for one object and can only be used with this object.
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Dependency Types:
Preconditions
To hide characteristics and characteristic values that are not allowed and thereby ensure that the configuration of an object is consistent. You can allocate preconditions to the following objects: A characteristic that you want to hide A characteristic value that you want to hide In the precondition, you define the circumstances under which a characteristic or value is hidden.
Selection conditions
to ensure that all the objects relevant to a variant are selected: It determine which variants require a specific component or operation It determine when it is mandatory to assign a value to a characteristic
Procedures
Procedures can set default values for a characteristic, which can be overwritten by the user. Procedures can overwrite default values that are set by other procedures. Procedures are always used for pricing
Constraints
This dependency type is mainly for intensively interactive configuration tasks and for configuration tasks in which you need to take into account the dependencies between the characteristics of several objects. The main purpose of a constraint is to monitor the consistency of a configuration.
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Changing Fields in a Sales Order

You can use reference characteristics to access the following fields in a sales order: VBAK VBAP MAEPV MAAPV VBKD VBPA_AG VBPA_WE VBPA_RE VBPA_RG Header data Item data Material master fields Material master fields Sales document: commercial data Partner: sold-to party Partner: ship-to party Partner: bill-to party Partner: payer
The fields that you can change are in structure VCSD_UPDATE: Gross weight of item Net weight of item Unit of weight Volume Volume unit Item quantity Sales unit of measure Conversion factors Target quantity (BRGEW) (NTGEW) (GEWEI) (VOLUM) (VOLEH) (KWMENG) (VRKME) (ZMENG)
Target quantity unit Article description
(ZIEME) (ARKTX)
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Steps in SAP to take for Configuring the VC
Create the Characteristics
T Code CT04
Create a Class for the characteristics

Create a Configurable Material
T Code CL02
T Code MM01
Allocate the class in the configuration Simulator under class assignments. This is linking the class to the material in an order. Create and Allocate Dependencies go to the configurator simulator T Code CU42 T Code CU42 T Code CU50
to check if the dependencies work.

Create a table (only if needed) Maintain the table T Code CU61 T Code CU60
Example:---
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Create Characteristics Transaction Code CT04
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Create a Class for these characteristics Transaction Code CL02
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Create a material : Basic Data 1 view Transaction code MM01
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Create a material Classification View Transaction code MM01
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Create a material: Sales Org 2 View Transaction code MM01
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Create a material: MRP 3 View Transaction code MM01
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Create and Allocate Dependencies Transaction Code CU42
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Create and Allocate Dependencies Transaction code CU42
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Create Table Transaction code CU61
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Permitted combinations (Values) to the Configuration table Transaction code CU60
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Create the condition Type for the variants VA00 Transaction code VK11
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Create the condition Type for the variants VA01 Transaction code VK11
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Select Reference to Table Field as SDCOM table and VKOND Field entry in the Addnl Data of the Characteristic for Variant Pricing triggering
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Select Reference to Table Field as SDCOM table and VKOND Field entry in the Addnl Data of the Characteristic for Variant Pricing triggering
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SDCOM Structure that Communicate between Characteristics & SD Pricing
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Create Sales order Transaction code VA01
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Create Sales order (Select Characteristic values in the Order )Transaction code VA01
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Pricing get determined automatically based on the values of the Characteristic selected in the order
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Pricing Screen of the sales order
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Additional features
Updating Fields automatically in a Sales Order that got copied from the masters
The weight of header material is calculated during configuration, then automatically copied to the sales order. For e.g.. Configurable material has characteristic WEIGHT. Procedure 1. Create reference characteristic VCSD_UPDATE field BRGEW. GROSS_WEIGHT with the following table reference: Structure
Set the No display indicator for the reference characteristic, so that it is not displayed in the configuration editor. 2. Assign the reference characteristic to the variant class for the Configurable material . 3. Create a procedure with the following source code: $SELF.GROSS_WEIGHT = $SELF. WEIGHT 4. Allocate the procedure to the configuration profile of the Configurable material .
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Questions and discussion
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Copyright IBM Corporation 2003

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Dependencies for Configuration

SAP sd vc Fundamentals-Introduction | 5/1/2012

Copyright IBM Corporation 2003

IBM Business Consulting Services

Variant Configuration an overview : Purpose

SAP sd vc Fundamentals-Introduction | 5/1/2012

Copyright IBM Corporation 2003

IBM Business Consulting Services

Variant Configuration an overview :Features

SAP sd vc Fundamentals-Introduction | 5/1/2012

Copyright IBM Corporation 2003

IBM Business Consulting Services

Variant Configuration an overview :Features

SAP sd vc Fundamentals-Introduction | 5/1/2012

Copyright IBM Corporation 2003

IBM Business Consulting Services

Material Master Data for Configurable Materials

Determination Of Requirement Types :---

SAP sd vc Fundamentals-Introduction | 5/1/2012

Copyright IBM Corporation 2003

IBM Business Consulting Services

Item Categories for Configurable Materials

SAP sd vc Fundamentals-Introduction | 5/1/2012

Copyright IBM Corporation 2003

IBM Business Consulting Services

Item Categories for Configurable Materials

SAP sd vc Fundamentals-Introduction | 5/1/2012

Copyright IBM Corporation 2003

IBM Business Consulting Services

Strategies for Configurable Materials

SAP sd vc Fundamentals-Introduction | 5/1/2012

Copyright IBM Corporation 2003

IBM Business Consulting Services

Strategies for Configurable Materials

SAP sd vc Fundamentals-Introduction | 5/1/2012

Copyright IBM Corporation 2003

IBM Business Consulting Services

Maintaining Characteristics for Configuration Use

SAP sd vc Fundamentals-Introduction | 5/1/2012

Copyright IBM Corporation 2003

IBM Business Consulting Services

Dependencies for Configuration

SAP sd vc Fundamentals-Introduction | 5/1/2012

Copyright IBM Corporation 2003

IBM Business Consulting Services

SAP sd vc Fundamentals-Introduction | 5/1/2012

Copyright IBM Corporation 2003

IBM Business Consulting Services

Changing Fields in a Sales Order

Target quantity unit Article description

SAP sd vc Fundamentals-Introduction | 5/1/2012

Copyright IBM Corporation 2003

IBM Business Consulting Services

Steps in SAP to take for Configuring the VC

Create the Characteristics

Create a Class for the characteristics

to check if the dependencies work.

SAP sd vc Fundamentals-Introduction | 5/1/2012

Copyright IBM Corporation 2003

IBM Business Consulting Services