Why to copy a Plant before defining it !!

Hello Everyone,

In this blog I would like to point out a system behaviour which was noticed while Plant creation/copy. As this is a forum of experts, would love to hear your thoughts on the observation explained below;

CASE 1:

For the first case we create a new plant afresh.

T-code  OX10/SPRO is used for defining the plant and then all the required assignments and configurations are made in the system with respect to this plant. When we define the Plant, Plant master table T001W is updated with the corresponding entries. When configurations like Company code and Purchasing Organisation assignment,Storage locations creation for this Plant, Valuation grouping code assignment to Plant; Tables T001W, T001K, T001L, etc are updated.

Here if we check the table T001W before assigning Valuation grouping code to the New Plant, the Valuation area column value will be missing. The same will appear after this assignment. Similarly, table T001K will have no values for the New Plant code created until a Valuation grouping code is assigned to this Plant.

CASE 2:

Here we create Plant by the SAP recommended technique of Organisational object copy Plant.

T-code EC02 is used to copy a Plant from an existing Plant. Here multiple tables are copied all at once, 142 in all, in my case of copy (which takes awhile 😏 ). And yes i checked ! 😀 .The FROM Plant is the reference plant in business terms and the TO Plant is the new Plant you want created in the system (new Plant code required obviously).

In this case too the table T001W is updated appropriately, the created Plant code also appears as the Valuation Area in Table T001W and T001K.

CASE 3:

Now, this is the case that has caught my interest.

Here the Plant is created in T-code OX10 (New entry or Copy available in OX10) or the respective SPRO path, wherein only the Plant code, Names and respective address details are entered and saved in the transport.

Now, unlike CASE 1 instead of manual configurations, we go and copy this Plant object using t-code EC02.

Observations in this case;

Table T001W has all entries copied except for the columns Valuation Area, Purchasing Organisation and Sales Organisation, as observed below;

Whereas, in table T001K the created Plant is visible as a Valuation Area.

Additional observations are a Plant created in such a way may or may-not appear as a Valuation Area in transaction OMWD (Group together Valuation Areas).

Also, other Org unit assignments like: Purchasing Organisation to Plant assignment, is also not conventional as the status column has text missing which existed in the reference Plant. Also, the Material Type Valuation and Quantity update settings are not copied in this scenario.

Well, the solution to all these inconsistencies is really simple, but not an easy one if the Plant is live in production and has transactions made against it 😕 .

When you have a requirement to create a Plant with reference to an existing Plant, copy the Plant object first using t-code EC02 and the edit the details for the same in OX10.

And cases where you have created Plant as in CASE 3, inconsistencies can be removed by deleting the Plant object in transaction EC02 and creating it again in the SAP recommended process as described in CASE 2.

Refer to SAP KBA 1754880 – Some configurations are missing when copying/creating plant master in T-code OX10 for SAP recommended standard process of Plant creation.

Auf Wiedersehen 🙂