In recent years, SAP has moved some industry specific solutions into S/4 HANA layer and SAP MILLS Product is one of the core solution which is available in S/4 HANA since 1511.

The product owner of Mill Product (Stefan Weisenberger) correctly describe: No more discussion whether to activate or not, and whether DIMP is compatible with another industry solution.
When you move to S/4 HANA you will always have the mill products solution “switched on”.

SAP Mills Product is an ocean and I decided to pick one of the functionality which I had faced during my past career when I was working for organization which used to have business on ”Cable Assembly” in India.

Single-Unit Batches.

Use

In certain sectors (Metal, Paper, and Textile industries, Cable ), it is necessary to assign means of transport or materials with a uniquely identifying unit number. These materials (for example, large rolls of paper) are managed as individual batches and are uniquely identified using this unit number.

More indicative for these materials is that quantity changes (for example, by cutting operations) only affect the redeemable quantity units of measure (for example, m, m2, kg). The quantity in “piece unit of measure” is unaffected – it is always either exactly one indivisible unit (for example, piece), or it is zero.

Especially in Cable industry( Paper Industry), it is necessary to identify materials using a unique number per piece or per role.  Shipping for customers can be done for individual ”Length of Cable’‘ instead of complete Rol of cable or Piece as customer will ask for individual specified measured not complete Piece or Roll.

Also during production, the requirement of cables can be in specific length, so ideally cables consumption should be partially driven instead of bringing the whole role in Production Supply.

Production which involves one of the operation in routing as Cutting, it may be required to consume the cables in specific length( Metre). 

The quantity in “Rolls” is always either zero or one. If you use single-unit batches, you can ensure that a roll, which always represents one piece, the paper roll. This enables you to ensure that a roll is always a unique batch.

Set Up of Single Unit Batch.

• Activate Batch Specific UOM
• Use Base UOM as uncountable like Meter, M2, KG
• Use Batch specific UOM as countable like PC, ST, ROLE, EACH

Since we know the batch specific UOM which is fixed(PC), the calculation of  base Unit (Variable) will be derived from product unit of measurement.

Create a material having Base UOM=M and Product unit of Measure=PC.

 Use Characteristics: SAP_MILLCA_LENGTH_SUB

This characteristic is used for materials that are defined with base unit of measure M and are to be inventory-managed as single-unit batches. The factor for converting between the base unit of measure ( M ) and the unit of measure for the unit itself ( PC ) is stored in this characteristic. The conversion factor corresponds to the individual length.

A single-unit batch differs from other batches in as far as the Single-Unit Batch indicator is set in the relevant batch master.

Use plan conversion factor, actual conversion factor will be created during creation of Batch and conversion factor will be stored in Batch master.

Inbound Process:

Creating PO with product unit of Measure of 1 PC, and conducting GR via MIGO, Single Unit Batch field is marked and an actual conversion can be recorded as 108 M/PC.

And the Batch master is updated with the relevant ‘‘Single Unit Batch”

Business case-I

During production, business needs 30 m of cable  from a Piece of 1 which is 108 M long. You want to cut a length from the roll but do not want to post a goods issue for the complete roll. You post the withdrawal quantity for the production order as a single-unit batch goods issue.

Partial Consumption of Single Unit Batch.

As the indicator is marked as ”Partial Consumption” system allows to consume the partial quantity from Single Unit batch. Single unit batch, Product unit quantity will always be 1 PC or zero, however, the base Quantity will be changing.

Usage Point:

 Single-unit batches can be created during goods movements or immediately by using the function Create Batch (transaction MSC1N). If you create a new batch during a goods movement, the system proposes either a single-unit batch or a factor batch, depending on the settings you made in the material master. You can change this proposal in the following functions:

• In the Goods Movements function (transaction MIGO), for goods receipts or postings
• In the Enter Time Ticket for Production Order function (transaction CO11N), for goods receipts
• In the Cutting Stock Transfer function (transaction MILL_CUT)
• In the Delivery-Related Trading Unit Change function (transaction MILL_CUT_LBA)

Activate the Partial GI indicator with Single Unit batch indicator.

• Now, create a Production order and allow the partial consumption of Cables.30 M of Cables is allowed to cut from the total 108 M cable.

The stock consumption of 30 M is successfully done, 261 is posted and Single Unit batch is now reduced to 78 M. System automatically updated the batch master while posting consumption.  

• Stock will be shown 78 M in unit M , but in EA, it will be still be showing 1 EA as single unit batch still has Rol qty in it.

Business case-II

Production of Steel happens which is wound onto large rolls. You identify the individual rolls by means of the roll core (corresponds to a batch). When the steel sheet on the roll core has been consumed, the core is to be reused with the same batch number in the system

 Steel Rolls: The steel is processed in production department. When you post a goods issue for the production order in which the steel plates is processed, you withdraw the complete roll. Once the production order has been completed, some steel sheet remains on the roll core. You can post this remainder to the original batch.

Activate the ”Goods Receipt to Posted Single-Unit Batch Allowed”. This will allow posting of unconsumed the quantity of steel sheets back to the core( to the single Unit Batch)

Remarks: The product unit/Proportion units functionality is not  available in Embedded EWM, it is under SAP Customer influence program, expected integration release to SAP EWM  by 2021( As per SAP link)

Fast Entry of Characteristics in Production Orders:

Till now, CO products were added as components in production order or were part of BOM. But this functionality allows to add co product directly fast entry in tab and you can get 2 outputs in production order can be conducted directly in Production Order. This can be easily integrated to SAP EWM.

The confirmation parameter should be configured to allow Goods receipt posting of Co-Product along with main product.

You can easily integrate this feature to SAP EWM where confirmation will create single  Inbound delivery for main product and Co product. This allow to pack both CO Product and Main Product in a single Handling unit. I will write more on this Integration of SAP Mills Product to SAP EWM in my future blogs.

Appreciate your reply and feedback to make this blog more useful

Regards

Shailesh Mishra