Batch Management Fuctionality Sap

7/31/2019 Batch Management Fuctionality Sap

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Generated by Jive on 2012-05-20+02:00

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Innovative way to utilize Batch ManagementFunctionality

Applies to: SAP ECC 6.0

Summary

Recently I came across a business process requirement on inventory management for Semi-conductor

industry that looked like requires a niche software package, but I found that by innovative usage of

existing SAP functionalities the same can be achieved thus enabling a cost saving potential. This

article explain how this can be achieved

ScenarioThe business process scenario that will be solutionized in this article is from SemiconductorIndustry. The semiconductor manufacturing is basically on silicon fabs/wafers. Wafers are unique

products that contain within it electronic chips that can be of multiple statuses. So in a single wafer

there can be a number of chips, while the quality of each chip can be different even though they are

all part of the same wafer. It is this peculiarity that makes optimized inventory management very

challenging.Here is the business requirement. Inventory has to be managed at Wafer level, while each

wafer has electronic chips which are divided into three categories

1. Good Ones

2. Low Speed Ones

3. Scrap Ones

So each wafer should inventoried as single entity while the inventory of chips within each of the

wafers are also to be inventoried as standalone items during production process, but until the

production process, the chips will continue to part of the wafer. Only after being picked for issue to

production, the wafer will be cut into of number of chips. So the chips inventory is basically in-process

inventory.The selection of wafers for issue to production should be based on optimization rule that

maximizes the utilization of Goods Ones and Low Speed ones. The complexity here is that onlythe whole wafer can be issued to production, so whatever Goods Ones & Low speed ones used by

that specific production process will decide whether all of them are used or some of them are used

while the goal is to pick wafers in a such a way that all the chips that can be used are used. Additional

variability is the production requirement on the need for type of chips. It can be only Good Ones or

Low speed ones or a mix of both. So the optimization should take into account this kind of variability

also. Can this kind of inventory management possible in SAP ECC?First question is whetherthis kind of inventory management is supported by standard SAP or only niche products are capable of

supporting such inventory management processes. My initial analysis pointed towards niche products

only but I was able to design a solution using standard SAP functionalities by reducing requirement

complexity. Here is the solution proposal with options and details about the most feasible option

Option 1 Using BOMsRepresent Wafer and chip inventory as Bill of Material. Manage the

inventory of both wafer (as BOM header material) & chips (as BOM component materials) as separate

materials. Use alternate BOMs to represent different component material quantities as it is dynamic

and will change from wafer to wafer

Pros

No special customization required, pure standard SAP solution Inventory management will be plain & simple


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Innovative way to utilize Batch Management Functionality


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Cons

BOM is a master data, to fulfill the requirement this process would need creation of alternate BOM

after wafer is manufactured as only then the actual proportion of chips are known.

Such reactive master data will be big road-block for planning.

The number of alternate BOMs can become too big to manage properly resulting in unnecessarymaintenance issues.

Option 2 Using Batch specific UOM & Batch search

strategy

Create material master data for Wafer which is inventoried like a normal material and then enable

inventory at the level of chips by usage of Batch specific UOM functionality and Batch classification

Pros

Uses standard SAP functionality Needs minimum master data Just one material to

represent both wafer & chips

Cost effective solution

Cons

Usage of standard SAP functionality not specifically designed for Semiconductor industry, so can have un-

intended issues

It is the option 2 that I am detailing out on how to achieve in this article


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Required Configuration Steps

1. Configuration of for Batch Specific UOM

Define Batch Level

SPRO -> Logistics General -> Batch Management -> Specify Batch Level and Activate Status

ManagementTransaction Code ->

OMCT
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Define Batch Number Assignment

Based on the requirement of having an internal or an external batch number appropriate number

ranges have be to configured and assigned.

If the desired number range is to be internal, then there has to be an internal number range defined and

assigned If the batch number is decided to be external, an external number range can be created and assigned

or there can be no external number range too, in which the system will accept any alphanumeric batch

numbers provided externally.

SPRO -> Logistics General -> Batch Management -> Batch Number Assignment -> Activate Batch

Number Assignment

Transaction Code ->

OMCZ

-> Logistics General -> Batch Management -> Batch Number


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Assignment -> Maintain Batch Number AssignmentTransaction Code ->

OMAD

Activate Batch Specific Material Units of Measure

SPRO -> Logistics General -> Batch Management -> Batch Specific Material Units of Measure

Transaction Code ->

OMWS

to activate inventory at semiconductor chip level, 3 new unit of measures are required. These are

GPC Good piece

LSP Low Speed Piece

SCP Scrap
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Each of the UOMs as the name itself suggests will be used to represent the number of good chips, low

speed chips and scrap chips within each wafer and individually they represent the inventory at chip

level.

2. Custom UOM Configuration

Create the new UOMs using transaction code CUNIGPC Good PieceLSP Low Speed

Piece

Scrap
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Piecethese new UOMs have to be enabled for usage as Batch specific UOM. This can be done using

the following configuration pathSPRO -> Logistics General -> Batch Management -> Batch

Specific Material Units of Measure -> Edit Batch Specific Unit of MeasureTransaction Code ->
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BMA1

the New entries button add the UOMs in this table so that these UOMs can be used asBatch specific UOMsNow we have to configure how these UOMs will be linked to material

UOM. SAP terminology for this linkage is Proportion factorSPRO -> Logistics General ->

Batch Management -> Batch Specific Material Units of Measure -> Calculate Proportional

Factors -> Define calculation of Proportion Quantity from Base QuantityTransaction Code ->

BMA3the three batch specific UOMs are fully configured and ready for usage in transactions.

3. Class & Characteristics

We have to now create batch class and the characteristics that will be part of this batch class.

We need one characteristic for each batch specific UOM. Batch class is of class type 023I

am not going to detail out the process of creation of class & characteristics. You can learn it

from SAP help itself. So here are the batch class and characteristics that are required for our
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functionality


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is the important is that the characteristics should have the new batch specific UOMs assigned as

units

4. Batch search strategy configuration

We now have the new UOMs and the necessary batch class & characteristics; the next step is the

design of batch search strategy where-in we will configure the chips optimization rules. It is this batch

search strategy which is going to provide the unique wafer inventory management solution which I

have outlined earlier.I am going to use the standard batch search strategy already available as part of

standard configuration. In general a batch search strategy configuration would require the following

configuration steps Define Condition Tables

Define Access Sequence

Define Strategy types Make Batch search procedure definition

Carry out Batch search procedure Allocation and check Activation

The batch search strategy type ME01 MovType/Plnt/MatNo.is the one I have picked for usage in this processSPRO -> Logistics -


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General -> Batch Management -> Batch determination and Batch check

You

can see this batch strategy type uses Access sequence ME01 MovType/
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Plant/Material which in-turn has multiple condition tables defined as part of the

sequence

4. Define Sort Rules

Now we have to define the sort rules which represent the wafer inventory optimization

rule Transaction code CU70/71/72SPRO -> Logistics - General -> Batch Management

-> Batch determination and Batch check -> Define Sort Rules I have defined the sort

sequence ZPMC that represents the wafer inventory optimization rule. Basically I have

taken a simple rule that wafer is picked for production based on higher the number ofgoods chips and in descending order to finally achieve the total number of goods chips

that are required for the specific production process Here is the sort sequence set-

up


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Now

click on tab Characteristics to check the

rule

This shows that the batch search rule will be on the characteristics GOOD_CHIPSETS which is based

on the batch specific UOM GPC. This UOM represents inventory of goods chips in each wafer. By
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selecting the Descending check box, the rule specifies that batch search procedure has to pick up

wafer which has the highest number of goods chips and go on selection of wafers in a descending

order until the total number of goods chips becomes greater than or equal to the required number of

chips for the specific production process.

5. Assign batch search strategy type to movement type

In this process we are focusing on wafer inventory optimization at the time of production

process. Hence the relevant movement type is 261 Goods Issue to Order (Production

order)

Basically you have to assign the batch search procedure for each movement type that is relevant This

completes the necessary configuration required for the process. Now let us move to master data set-

up

Required Master data set-up

1. Material Master Set-up

Here are the primary requirements on material master1.Classification view has to be activated

2.Material has to be activated for batch management3.Batch Classification has to be assigned

4.Batch specific UOM needs to be assigned in the Prop/Prod unit screen under Additional data tab

Finished goods material


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235

This material is manufactured in-house and accordingly the MRP set-up is done. It

has a production version and Routing which are created as simple as possible with

single operation. Also this finished good material is the BOM header material with

semi-finished goods material 236 as the component. Semi-Finished Goods material


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236

This material is procured and this is the material on which the wafer inventory rules are applied. As

required, this material has batch classification activated and batch specific UOMs defined at material

master level.

2. BOM, Routing & Prod. Version

Material 235 which is the finished product should have BOM, Routing and production

version defined as these are mandatory master data for production process.
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Accordingly these are created and below screen shot provide those details

3. Condition record set-up for batch search strategy selection

In this set-up we will assign the already configured batch search strategy to the required

material/plant and movement type configuration under inventory management option so that

the batch search procedure is activated during inventory posting

Transaction Code MBC1/2/3
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While creation of condition records, both the batch class and the sort rule also have to be

assigned. The above screen shots show these steps

This completes the data set-up necessary for this process. Now let us go to the actual execution of

transactions

Scenario Testing

For this testing I have actually created planned independent requirements on the BOM

header material 235 and then ran MRP with BOM explosion, followed it up with creation of

purchase orders for the material 236 (BOM component) and production order for material

235 (BOM header)Against the purchase order the material 235 is received and batches

are created while posting of goods receipt. The above steps are pretty standard so have

not included screen-shots on these process steps. Here is the stock data for material


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236.


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batches with 1 wafer per batch representing total 24 wafers of

stock.

The same stocks now represented in good pieces of chips are 2198 GPCs (The amount of GPCs per

wafer is obtained through values entered in the batch classification during GR posting). Out of these

1000 GPCs are needed for one production order 100060 to manufacture 5 pieces of finished good

material 235.As per the BOM set-up, one piece of material 235 requires 200 GPCs of material 236

Now while issuing material 236 for production order 100060, the system will execute the batch search

strategy to identify the wafers for issues as per the optimization rule we have established as part

of the batch search strategy. Here is the list of 24 batches with the corresponding stock values in

GPCs

wafers should be identified by the descending order of stock amount in GPCs. Applying this rule, we
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see the following batches to be picked up for Goods Issue to satisfy the requirement of 1000 GPCs as

per the BOM explosion

Batch No. GPCs

0000000403 95

0000000406 95

0000000407 95

0000000408 95

0000000409 95

0000000415 95

0000000418 95

0000000419 95

0000000420 95

0000000421 95

0000000423 92


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Here is the batch determination process during the goods issue

posting

This is the result of the optimization process. While I have taken a simple optimization rule, we can

configure slightly complex rules too if supported by batch search strategy configuration. For very

complex rules involving say more than one UOM then we have to go a for a user exit solution. It will

still be a batch search strategy process, but through custom code maintained through user exit. For

example in the current case itself we can see that from batch 423 only 50 chips are needed, so instead

picking the wafer with more number of good chips we can pick one with less number of good pieces of

chips like say batch 425 which has only 85 good pieces of chips. For such kind of a mixed strategy auser exit solution is the way to proceed.


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Here is the final inventory document posted


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Conclusion

By innovative way of utilizing the standard SAP functionalities was able to satisfy a complicatedinventory management requirement. This aspect is the best part of this whole solution. Some of the

known issues are Goods Issue reversals can become very complex as the stock assigned to batches

post reversal may not be same as before

Even through user-exit solution, not sure whether very complex optimization rules can be

implemented

Multiple UOMs being used on the same material can cause issues in MRP run. Having identified the

above issues I still feel that only the second one can be real issue while the other two should have

standard SAP solutions through SAP notes.
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Batch Management Fuctionality Sap

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