MRP: Simplification on S/4 HANA

SAP strategy for the digital economy is based on the concept of simplification. The SAP strategy is to accelerate business innovation through radical simplification.

This concept was also used on the new SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511 and several application scenarios available on the ECC were simplified. The idea is to make the S/4 HANA implementation faster and easier, in order to accelerate the return on investment and also make the life of the consultants easier.

A complete list of the simplified scenarios is available on SAP Help and it is available on the following link:

http://uacp.hana.ondemand.com/http.svc/rc/PRODUCTION/pdfa4322f56824ae221e10000000a4450e5/1511%20000/en-US/SIMPL_OP1511.p…

Between those scenarios, some are specific to Material Requirements Planning and changes were made on functionalities that were part of the standard system for a long time.

Some of the most relevant changes are the following:

1 - Simplified sourcing

The source determination carried out by MRP was completely redesigned for internal and external procurement.

For internal procurement, a BOM selection method is no longer available for selection. Now, the BOM is always selected according to the production version, therefore, it is mandatory to have a production version.

For external procurement, the source list is no longer relevant to MRP and it is enough to have a valid info record, in order to have a vendor selected for a planned order or purchase requisition by MRP.

With these changes, the source determination on MRP is similar to the source determination on APO and, according to SAP, unified source of supply model is the basis for future innovations in sourcing.

2 - Storage location planning

The default option to plan a storage location separately is the storage location MRP area. It means that the option to define on the material master that a storage location will be planned separately or excluded from MRP is no longer available.

With the storage location MRP area, there is a separate planning file entry, which means that the MRP area is planned independently. This is a good thing from a performance point of view, since we don't need to plan the entire material just because a change happened on the storage location planned separately.

Besides that, the storage location planned separately runs a very simple reorder point MRP type, while the MRP are offers almost the same settings available on the material master.

3 - Subcontracting

Planning of components provided to the vendor must be now carried out with MRP areas. A separate stock segment for the vendor is not available anymore and the main reason is the performance. It is also now easier to use subcontracting MRP areas, since we simply need to create them on customizing and they will be available for all the materials.

4 - Planning file

The old planning file entry tables were replaced by the new table PPH_DBVM, with simplified update logic, consistency and for update performance.

There is also a new report and transactions to create and check the consistency of the planning file.