Variant Configuration - Basics Variant configuration is for manufacturing complex products.

. The manufacturer is always having to offer new variants of its products. Often, new variants are created by modifying existing product designs as you process the order. The customer determines the features of the product. A customer buying a car, for example, can choose the features of the car and combine these features as required. Variant configuration helps the customer or salesperson to put together specifications for the product and ensure that the product can be produced from these specifications. It also ensures that production costs do not overstep the mark. You do not need to create a separate material for each variant of a product in your company. You can use one configurable material to cover all variants. You create a super BOM and a super routing for this material, containing all the components and operations for producing all variants of the product.

Variant configuration is integrated in the following applications: CA Classification LO Material Master PP Bill of Material PP Routings PPPI Master Recipes SD Sales SD Conditions MM Purchasing CO Costing PP Material Requirements Planning (MRP) PP Production Orders

You can configure the following objects: Materials Standard networks in the Project System. PM General maintenance task lists

Model service specifications Defining a Material as Configurable

Before you can configure a material, the material master record must have the Material is configurable indicator selected in its Basic data. Material type KMAT is defined for this purpose. Characteristics

To define the features of a configurable material, you use characteristics. To enable you to use characteristics to configure a material, you assign the material to a class of class type 300. Possible characteristics of a car, for example, are model, country, color, and engine. The customer can choose from among different options for each characteristic (values). Configuration profile

Each configurable object must have a configuration profile. The configuration profile for a material controls the configuration process in the sales order. Variant conditions

You can make the price of a variant dependent on the characteristic values assigned (Pricing). You can use variant conditions to define surcharges and discounts for a variant. Dependencies

In Variant Configuration, you use dependencies to control the combinations of options that are allowed and not allowed. Dependencies also select exactly the right BOM components and operations to produce a variant. Classification Maintaining Characteristics for Configuration

When you create a sales order for a configurable material, this sales order must describe precisely how the product being ordered is to look. This description comes from characteristics and characteristic values. You can assign object dependencies to characteristics and characteristic values, to ensure that the values assigned are complete and consistent Defining Variant Classes

In variant configuration, a class is used to hold the characteristics that describe a configurable material. By linking the class to the configurable material, you allow the material to be configured using the characteristics of the class. You can only use a class in variant configuration if the class has a class type that supports variant configuration. Eg. Class type 300.

Configuration Profile

You maintain configuration profiles for configurable objects to define central settings for configuring the object. You can create several configuration profiles with different settings for an object. If an object has several configuration profiles, you must select a profile during configuration. You use the configuration profile to assign the configurable object to one or more variant classes. This links the object to the characteristics of the class for configuration. You can define settings that affect the display options and scope of characteristics on the value assignment screen. You define these settings for each object, and they apply to the object wherever it is used. You can use an interface design to group characteristics together and define a sequence on the value assignment screen. You need to assign a name to an interface design to enable further maintenance in the configuration simulation. You can use the configuration profile to assign dependencies to a configurable object. For materials, you must also maintain configuration parameters for BOM explosion. Depending on the configuration parameters you set, other fields in the configuration profile are hidden or shown.