'Simplified Sourcing' simplification in S/4HANA

[former_member202064]

This blog is to gain further clarity on the simplification list item 'Simplified Sourcing' in S/4HANA 1511 and 1610. Below is the extract from the simplification list of 1610.

Business Suite Logic	SAP S/4HANA Logic	Reason
MRP only selects purchasing info records if a source list entry exists that references the supplier referenced in the info record	Purchasing info records are a source of supply in their own right. MRP selects purchasing info records if the "relevant for automatic sourcing“ indicator is set in the purchasing info record.	Simplification of the sourcing logic: It is not required to create a source list entry on top of the purchasing info record
MRP uses source lists to determine vendors, contracts, or delivery schedules	Source lists are not considered in the S/4HANA onpremise edition 1511 until SP01. In later releases source lists can be used to provide additional information for sources of supply. For example, the source list may be used to block a source of supply or MRP-enable it only for a limited period of time. Alternatively quota arrangements can be used as a workaround.	Optionally, source lists can be used to temporarily block a source of supply or MRP-enable it only for a limited period of time.
MRP only considers quota arrangements if the material master attribute MARC-USEQU is set	MRP considers quota arrangements always. It is not required to switch it on in the material master	In the early days of MRP, reading and considering quota arrangements was expensive. MARC-USEQU was a performance measure, with which you could switch off quota arrangements in MRP to improve performance. MRP in HANA does not suffer much from considering quota arrangements.

In S/4HANA, a new field  for automatic sourcing in info record - purchasing organization data view is introduced as shown below:



As you can read from the simplification list a slight confusion is raised with the sentence “In later releases source lists can be used to provide additional information for sources of supply”.

So now what happens when all the 3 objects exists i.e. 1. Quota arrangement  2. Source list 3. Auto Sourcing indicator in info record. Moreover if in the source list there exists 2 valid scheduling agreements then which one will MRP choose?

In order to get this crystal clear we created following scenarios in S/4HANA 1610 system:

• For demo case: Material : MAT1 has 2 scheduling agreements 5500000005 (with vendor VEND1) and 5500000006 (with vendor VEND2) and Info record 5300000001 (with say vendor VEND3)

 

Info record relevant for automatic sourcing flagged	Quota arrangement in use	Source list in use	Result
No	No	No	MRP chooses  5500000005. The default logic is applied as mentioned in SAP Note 2268069 (i.e. ‘If sourcing determines several valid sources of supply for the same material, plant, quantity, and date, but does not find any quota arrangements, then it prefers production versions over delivery schedules, delivery schedules over purchasing contracts, and purchasing contracts over purchasing info records’)
Yes	No	No	MRP chooses  5500000005 (oldest scheduling agreement)
Yes	No	Yes (Blocked  5500000005)	MRP chooses  5500000006
Yes	No	Yes (Blocked both SA)	MRP Creates Purchase Requisition with Vendor determined from info record marked relevant for automatic sourcing
No	No	Yes (Blocked both SA)	MRP Creates Purchase Requisition with no source i.e. Vendor is blank
Yes	No	Yes (Both SA made MRP not relevant)	MRP Creates Purchase Requisition with Vendor from Info record
Yes	Yes (Vendor VEND1 assigned 100% quota)	Yes (Both SA made MRP relevant)	Creates schedule lines for vendor VEND1 i.e. 5500000005
Yes	Yes (Vendor VEND2 assigned 100% quota)	Yes (Both SA made MRP relevant)	Creates schedule lines for vendor VEND2 i.e. 5500000006
Yes	Yes (Vendor VEND2 assigned 100% quota)	Yes (Both agreement blocked)	MRP creates PR with Vendor VEND2
Yes	Yes (made quota to zero for both)	Yes (Both agreement blocked)	MRP creates PR with vendor VEND3 for which the info record is marked as relevant for automatic sourcing
Yes	Yes (made quota to zero for both)	Yes (Both unblocked and MRP relevant)	MRP chooses  5500000005 (oldest scheduling agreement)

 

Additional test case: What if 2 info records for the same material are marked as auto sourcing relevant? Which one will MRP choose?

For this we created 2 Info records with numbers say 5300000084 (with VEND1)  and 5300000086 (with VEND3). MRP chooses the vendor with the oldest info record i.e. VEND1 for PR creation.

How to influence it? Ans: By using source list and temporary blocking Or untick the auto sourcing indicator in the info record.

So in summary:

• If a quota arrangement exists for a material, it has the highest priority during source determination.


• In S/4HANA 1610, Source lists can be used to temporarily block a source of supply or MRP-enable it only for a limited period of time.

Refer Note 2268069 S4TWL - Simplified Sourcing for further information.

Note: In addition to above, BAdI PPH_MRP_SOURCING_BADI can be used to deactivate the simplified sourcing and bring back the old logic to select the vendor based on the source list.

Let me know your comments and feedback and in case you would like me to add any other particular scenario in the table above.

 

Thanks and Regards,

Manan Gupta

SAP DBS CoE

(Thanks to Caetano Almeida for additional inputs)

[rajendrakumar_patel10]

Thanks Manan

Very informative.

[ktundia]

Manan -

For the last scenario in your table what do you mean when you say as Result - MRP chooses  5500000005 (oldest scheduling agreement). Does it mean this SA is created first in systemand that's why it got picked OR do you mean this SA is created as 1st line item in Source list hence it got picked.

We have a somewhat similar scenario for which we are developing a solution S/4 1610.  I am particularly interested in knowing the system behavior if i have following setup

1. Info record relevant for automatic sourcing flagged - Yes


2. Quota arrangement in use - No


3. Source list in use - Yes. We are using multiple MPN's associated to the same Internal material.

In this case if we set MRP relevant - 1 for all the MPN's in source list which one will be picked up by MRP? I don't seem to get consistent results and cannot definitively say which one will be picked up. (see screenshot)



 

Other question - Is maintenance of Quota arrangement mandatory if we are going to use source list in S/4 1610.

Appreciate your inputs on this.

Thanks,

Kunal

 

[former_member262849]

Thanks Mann. Very useful blog.

[former_member41251]

Hello MANAN ,

 

In S4 , Can you pls explain result , if we are not using both Quota and Source list and using Info record Auto sourcing , Scheduling Agreement , Purchasing Contract and delivery schedule ?

 

Thanks in advance .

[senthilraja_ramasamy2]

Hi Manan,

 

What if two vendors are available in Quota arrangement with 60% and 40% Quota. Will every requirement split between two vendors with the defined % respectively?

 

Regards,

Senthil

[former_member360733]

Thanks for the informative blog, Manan

[siowfong_chen]

Hi Kunal, did you reach a conclusion with the setup you mentioned? I am testing similar scenario with just multiple inforecord (different vendors) and controlling which should be selected in the source list and the system does not seem to be selecting the entry from the source list.

[gharrison]

Kunar,

 

Did you reach any conclusion?

Would like understand MRP source determination logic where the source lists have multiple vendor set to MRP relevant – 1 (as above)

I hear there is a difference between ECC 6.0 and S/4 HANA,

 

We suspect the vendor number is used, either taking the first (ascending) or last (descending)....