Talking about "confirming the available parts quantity" in ATP examination (i.)

In the SAP system of the material ATP check, there is a very humble function, called "confirm the number of available parts" (Confirm Available partial Qty). This function is not only not obvious, but also very infrequently used. This leads us to think about how to activate it in the system when we need support for the relevant features. As a result, this blog series will be specifically presented as a separate feature to provide a brief explanation to facilitate the query in the future when such functionality is required.

When we perform an item availability check on an order, there is a very important concept called "committed Quantity" (Committed Quantity). This quantity represents the number of components that are confirmed by the system to be available for order after the availability check in the component line item of the order. Suppose there is an order, a total of 100 pieces of a material, and the current inventory of a material total of 200 pieces. After the material availability check, the system found that the current a material has 150 have been promised to another order, so in fact only 50 a material can be put into the new order. In this case, the "committed quantity" of a item on the new order is 50 pieces.

The role of "committed quantity" is critical in the usability check function. This is because in general (note that the blogger says "in general"), when the system performs an availability check on an item, the promised quantity is deducted from the inventory quantity in that inventory (that is, the quantity of the item is committed to the other order), and then the item is then judged for the absence of material. Therefore, the number of commitments, the availability of the item in subsequent orders is undoubtedly critical to the results, and how to calculate the order component commitment quantity, it becomes a problem we need to discuss in the system application.

For a finished item in the system, it should have a complete BOM structure, and each component in the BOM should be an integral part of the finished product. Or, without any of the components in the BOM structure, the finished material cannot be completely produced. For example, suppose that a product order (order quantity of 50) for an enterprise requires a total of two components, X and Y. The X component requires 100 pieces and the Y component requires 200 pieces. Assume that the current X component inventory is 50 pieces, while the Y component's inventory is 200 pieces. So what is the method we should use to calculate the commitment quantity of these two materials?

Method One: The X component has only 50 pieces of inventory, so the commitment quantity can only be 50 pieces, and the Y component inventory is 200 pieces, can meet the requirements of the Y component of the order, so the commitment quantity is 200 pieces. This method of calculation makes sense and has a problem: since the X component has only 50 stock, it can only meet the production needs of a product of 25 pieces. In other words, regardless of the number of components in the Y component, our current inventory status can only complete the production of 25 pieces of finished product tasks. At this point, if the commitment number of the Y component is 200 pieces, then in fact there are 100 of them are in vain promised, because these 100 pieces can not be applied to the assembly of a product, promised also useless.

Since there are 100 pieces of Y components that have been promised in vain, this leads to the possibility that these Y components may not be included in the availability of other orders for availability checks. Assuming that a production order for a B product appears, you need to use the Y component 100 pieces. However, because all the Y component inventory has been committed to a product orders, so, although we can clearly promise to a product order of 100 y material first to the B product order use (anyway put in a product order also can not be used), but the system does not check this point, Instead, the Y component is reported as missing 100 pieces in the availability check results for the B product order.

As can be seen, the occurrence of this situation actually provides a false intelligence to the production planner. Specific performance for the material can be used (in essence, an order will not be used in the material first to other orders to use), the system in the usability check that the lack of material. If the production planner into trusting this information, it will delay the production progress, put the warehouse ready-made materials, death purchase orders arrived (of course, the MRP will not be affected by this problem)

Method Two: X components only 50 pieces of inventory, so the commitment quantity can only be 50 pieces; The existing X components can only meet the production needs of 25 pieces of a product, while the production of 25 a products requires a total of 100 y components. At the same time, since the current stock of the Y component is 200 pieces, it can meet the requirements of 100 y items, so the commitment quantity of the Y component is 100 pieces (not 200 pieces).

Using this method, we have avoided false information that may have occurred in method one. As in method two, the system has a commitment to the Y component of only 100 pieces. Therefore, after the production order of the B product appears, the system can put an additional 100 pieces of y material that are not included in the promised quantity into the availability check range of B order, and B order will not be reported as missing material.

In the next blog post, we will explore how to achieve the above two types of commitments in SAP systems, using a case-demonstration approach. In addition, we will further analyze the pros and cons of these two computational methods.