MRP Areas in SAP 1809

Introduction

This blog post provides insights about MRP Areas concept in SAP S/4 HANA 1809, there have been many conversations about MRP Areas being the new way for Planning. It also provides you detailed information about Planning at MRP Area level in 1809 i.e. how this works with Storage Locations & Subcontracting Vendors in comparison to ECC & the addition of new Intra-Plant View and Cross Plant view in MD04

SAP Solution

SAP ECC – Storage Location MRP:

Storage locations can be excluded from MRP or they can be planned separately from other storage locations. In the latter case, where storage locations are excluded from MRP, a reorder point procedure with maximum lot size is used to trigger transport reservations to fill up the storage location. Stocks at storage location level can be viewed in MD04:

Configuration:

Transaction: OMIR

MD04 Requirement & Stocks visibility at SLoc Level:

This functionality is not available in SAP S/4 HANA 1809 for planning stocks at storage location level without using the concept of MRP areas

SAP S/4 HANA 1809 MRP Area at Storage Location level:

MRP areas cover the same business requirements. When we assign MRP Areas in material, we need to mention MRP Type as ‘ND’ for scenarios where we need to exclude a storage location in ECC. Materials with the MRP area specific MRP type ‘VB’ (reorder point planning) can be used instead of materials with separately planned storage locations. The storage location functionality is a subset of the MRP areas capabilities.

We need to define MRP areas storage location wise and then maintain the data in Material Master to plan and view stocks at storage location level

Configuration:

Transaction: OMIZ

Define the MRP area in a plant and assign a storage location to it

In the Material Master we need to Assign the MRP area

Then the stock visibility is also separated at Storage Location Level in MD04

SAP ECC – Stock at SubCon Vendor

In MRP 2 we maintain special procurement key as 30

MD04 Requirement & Stocks visibility when the Stock is Issued to the Subcontracting Vendor:

Comparatively in SAP S/4 HANA 1809 we do not have stock visibility at Vendor for Sub Con, the best way to achieve this is at MRP Area level.

SAP S/4 HANA 1809 MRP Area at Subcontracting Vendor Level:

When we want to separate the stock based on the stock issued to the subcon vendor we need to use MRP area at SubCon vendor level, if not then the system would consider the stock provided to vendor as unrestricted stock. The systems uses this stock to cover all requirements in net requirements segment instead of using it only for the requirements of components to be provided to SubCon Vendor

A subcontracting MRP area should be created for every subcontractor so that once the stock is issued to the vendor it should not be considered as unrestricted stock in the plant. Also, any requirement for issuing the stock will be shown under the segment of that particular vendor

Configuration:

Transaction Code: OMIZ

Define the MRP area in a plant and assign a vendor to it

Then the stock visibility at Vendor end is available in MD04 also this stock will not be assigned to any other requirement

Mass maintenance of MRP Areas in Material Master:

Mass processing reports RMMDDIBE can be used for maintenance of MRP areas.

SAP S/4 HANA 1809 Intra Plant & Cross Plant View in MD04

The new Intra-Plant view was introduced in the Stock/Requirements List (transaction MD04), allowing the MRP Controller to have a complete overview of the Stock/Requirements situation, visualizing the multiple MRP areas for a material in the same screen.

In the new Intra-Plant View, there are a new set of buttons that will allow the MRP Controller to choose the best way to visualize the multiple MRP areas and quickly switch between different views. The figure below shows multiple storage location MRP areas assigned to the same material with a look and feel very similar to the old storage location planned separately.

Configuration to activate this new feature:

Conclusion

In SAP S/4 HANA 1809 we can plan on the basis of MRP area which are defined at Storage Locations and SubCon Vendor Level & with the new Intra Plant and Cross Plant view it can be viewed easily in just one screen

References

https://blogs.sap.com/2019/03/19/s4hana-subcontracting-with-mrp-area/

https://blogs.sap.com/2018/09/27/improvements-for-mrp-areas-in-s4hana-1809/comment-page-1/#comment-454455

https://blogs.sap.com/2016/05/18/simplification-item-storage-location-mrp/

https://blogs.sap.com/2019/05/28/mrp-areas-tips-and-tricks-in-a-s4hana-system-conversion-scenario/