Why you need to set up material variant as configurable material also?

Dear All,

I am a support consultant in SAP and I have supported LO-VC area for more than 7 years, during these years, some questions are in my mind and I want to know the reason. One of them is why some of the customers would like to set up material variant as configurable material also.

We all know that configurable material is one material that could be configured directly, it should be used only with MTO(make to order) scenario as we can’t place stocks for such kind of matrials without a firmed configuration data set comes from certain requirement. Also the material variant is used to standard for a firmed configure data set of one configurable material, it could be used with MTS(make to stock) scenario because the plant knows exactly what they need to produce even there is no requirement to describe it.

Therefore, basically, the configurable material should have material type KMAT and the indicator “material is configurable” should be ticked on in Basic data 2 view of material master.

Then the material variant should be normal material with material type finished goods or semi-finished goods and so on. And with configurable material assigned but without  indicator “material is configurable” ticked.

However, for some cases, I can see someone would like to “integrate” the two kind of materials as one, that is with  indicator “material is configurable” ticked and configurable material assigned. AND, with such combination, it will lead to some function in VC can’t be run well in some areas. Some of such problems could be solved by adjusting system settings or implementing modification and user exit, but some of them totally can’t be solved due to the “integrate” set up.

I have discussed it with my colleagues deeply, and our developer also advice not to set up the material like this. But I am thinking, if this problem does not come from one or two people, but a group of people, then may be there is some reason why you should use this in your business. However, to my knowledge, I can’t

imagine what kind of business could use such kind of set ups, so I want to know if anyone here could problem some information regarding this? I really want to understand the requirements from customers better, then I think I may support them better.

Regards,

Rachel