Configured Item Planning

Configured items present a unique challenge for planning since the final configuration is unknown until an order is entered and accepted.

A configured end item cannot be planned in a branch/plant or across multiple facilities because the end item product is not yet defined. Planning bills are used to plan and acquire parts for the features and options of configured items before orders are entered in the system.

Once an order is entered and the final configuration is known, the system can plan the nonconfigured components of the configured items.

Note: The configured item must be set up in each of the branch/plants where the configured item is to be planned and built. If the configured item is only set up in one branch/plant, then it must be manufactured in that branch/plant.Once configured item setup is complete, all setup data can be copied to each branch/plant. However, the management of changes to the configured item setup must be addressed in the business processes because the data in each branch/plant must be maintained and synchronized.

A configured item itself cannot be planned across branch/plants, but the components to complete the configured item can be planned as supply from various branches.

During sales order entry, only some of the components can be written to the Sales Order Detail table (F4211). Thus, all components are written to the Configurator Component table (F3215). When a component does not generate a detail line for the sales order, the item is soft committed. Table F3215 records the soft commitment in the Commitment field (COMM). Before Order Processing (R31410) is run, the components that are not in the F4211 table are invisible to material requirements planning (MRP). Thus, another business function reads selected records from table F3215 and accumulates requirements that represent the demand of a configuration.

Once Order Processing is run, the configured item has a bill of material and routing. Items in the F3215 table are written to the Work Order Parts List table (F3111).

The quantity type, CFD in the Quantity Type UDC (user-defined code) table (34/QT), designates component demand from the F3215 table. Processing option settings in the planning programs determine Configurator component inclusion in the planning process.