Can anyone tell me what is backflushing for? When is it use?

Backflushing is nothing but automatic goods issue. System will automatically posts the goods
issue when you confirm the operations. You have no need to make manual issue. It will reduce
the effort.
Backflushing is automatic accounting (Goods issues - 261 mvt) of material consumed for
production, at the time of confirmation. Eg. When a 4 wheeler automobile is rolled out from assy
line, 4 wheels & Tyres are deemed to be consumed and issued to production order
automatically by way of backflushing by the system.
Assy line picks the material from stores/ Assy line and use.
No Physical issue & Manual posting (Goods Issue) by Stores.
Backflush is used for material which are a must and having fixed relationship.
This can be configured in MRP2 Screen, Work center, Routing and production order.
Each has some special function.
If you configure this in routing or production order you have no need to activate this in MRP2 or
Work center screen.
MRP2 Screen defines whether materials components are backflushed are to be made at the
work center.

When we do the back flush the backlogs are being created for the BOM components and
we are getting the message "Backlogs from backflush were created or changed" - its just
an informative message. Do you think this has got something to do with the negative
postings ?

Sometimes Backlogs are created due to different reasons

if Backflush is active
This message tells that "there is no sufficient stocks for the BOM component/not able to
backflush all the material due to plant data locked etc. " at the time of backflushing the BOM
Material and hence the Post-processing list is created that you have to Re-process for stock
updation of each material.
To avoid this you can confirm the following things.
1. Ensure that sufficient stock is available in the backflushing locations of each material.
2. To prevent the generation of "post-processing list" you can block the BOM from getting
backflushed if sufficient stock is not available in specified location for the BOM COMPONENTS.
To do this change the "REM profile" to "002"in MRP4 view for the BOM MATERIAL (if the profile
is not available you can crate it through SPRO).
3. To clear the existing Backlog use transaction MF47 and re-process (be ensure that
required stocks is available for each BOM component)
Use SAP Backflush functionality to automate
production processes
Companies save themselves headaches by automating production processes
using SAP Backflush and Automatic Goods Receipt functions,
As they mature, companies begin considering automating functions in an effort to bring
greater organizational efficiencies to their business processes, especially as process
owners get used to performing their routine business transactions in SAP ERP.
Automating processes usually combines two or more business transactions and
therefore eliminates the need to perform manual transactional steps. Two such
common manufacturing production processes within the SAP ERP system that can be
deployed in order to cut down on the number of manual production steps are SAP
Backflushing and SAP Automatic Goods Receipt functions.
Before we discuss how SAP backflushing or the SAP Automatic Goods Receipt function
can optimize business processes, let us first quickly look at the four business processes
that process owners involved in production execution routinely perform:

1. Production Order: Determine which type to create and issue.

2. Goods Issue: Occurs when the materials required to produce a product are sent
from the storage location where they're kept.
3. Confirmation: The production supervisor records the actual quantity of the product
that has been produced.
4. Goods Receipt: The production supervisor delivers the produced good to the semi-
finished or finished goods storage locations. The warehouse person enters the
"goods receipt" in the system, indicating that the goods have been delivered.

Backflushing

Backflushing provides the option to perform Goods Issuance automatically (step 2,

above), as soon as the person overseeing production records confirms that the product
has been produced (step 3). When this happens, the process owner is able to perform
two business transactions in at once. Once production has been confirmed, the process
owner utilizes backflushing to automatically update and record the quantity of the
 materials used in producing the order as well as their associated financial values under
the Cost of Goods Manufactured (COGM).

Automatic Goods Receipt

The Automatic Goods Receipt function in SAP enables the production supervisor to
perform Goods Receipt automatically (step 4, above) on recording Confirmation (step
3). The Automatic Goods Receipt functionality finds greater usage when several
intermediate production steps are involved in the manufacturing process, such as in the
discrete manufacturing industries, and business process requires intermediate storage
of semi-finished or finished goods.
Depending on the level of automation that a company wants, it can implement one or
both of these automated functionalities. Implementing both automated functionalities
reduces the manual transactional steps from four to two, thus bringing greater
organizational efficiency to the entire production execution process.

How to Best Perform Backflushing in

SAP
June 28, 2012 by Shaun Snapp
Click Link to Jump to Section
 Executive Summary
 Introduction
 What is Backflushing?
 Issuing Material After Production
 Postproduction Goods Issue
 Backflushing in SAP ERP and SAP APO
 Backflush Accounting
 Conclusion
 Interested in Accessing Our Supply Planning Research?
 Tuning ERP and External Planning Systems with Brightwork Explorer
 References
 Repairing your MRP System
Executive Summary
 Backflushing, which can be described as postproduction issuing, is the
method of issuing materials to production orders when production of a
specific operation is completed.
 Backflushing often works well when production runs are long, and in
repetitive manufacturing environments.
 As backflushing is an execution task, you will perform it in SAP ERP.
In SAP ERP, backflushing is set in three places: 1) the material, 2) the
BOM, and 3) the routing.

Introduction
One of the capabilities of repetitive manufacturing is backflushing. You will
learn how backflushing works in SAP.

What is Backflushing?
Backflushing is one of the most misleading terms.

Inventory ops has the following, helpful definition for backflushing:

“Backflushing is simply an inappropriate and misleading term

used to describe a method for issuing materials to production
orders at the point that production of a specific operation is
completed.”
I particularly like the way that Dave Piasecki essentially renames
backflushing as postproduction issuing, which is a much more descriptive
term, which of course is the purpose of picking a term, to begin with. He
then sets up the term of “preproduction issuing” as the normal way of
issuing, and the opposite of backflushing.
“To make things clearer, for a portion of this article I will refer
to backflushing as postproduction issuing. I will also use the
term preproduction issuing to describe the method(s) for
issuing material most people are familiar with. It’s important to
discuss the similarities in the programs used to execute
postproduction issuing and preproduction issuing to
demonstrate that the two methods are essentially small
variations of a single process.”

Issuing Material After Production

In other areas of his article, Dave gets into more detail.

“In postproduction issuing (backflushing) you are not issuing

the materials until production is posted (reported) against the
operation. The materials may be accumulated through whatever
means are most efficient for your operation. Once the operation
is completed, the operator will use a program to post the
production against the operation. The operator will generally
enter the production order number, operation, quantity good,
scrap quantity, and labor and machine information.”
There are several advantages to backflushing:

 The amount of scrap is not known until production is complete.

Therefore, for production operations with both significant and variable
scrap percentages, backflushing will provide better inventory accuracy.
 Backflushing is better for long production runs, such as for repetitive
manufacturing environments. As Dave points out “preproduction
posting takes the materials out of the on-hand inventory balance days
or weeks before they are used and puts the dollar value into a WIP
account.” However, WIP is hard to track. The assumption is that the
posting of quantities is performed periodically through the run rather
than at the end of the run.
 Again, for a repetitive manufacturing environment involving bulk
materials such as “bar stock, roll stock, sheet goods, and dry goods or
liquids in bulk containers, where the exact quantity cannot be picked,”
measuring the exact amount issued from inventory for preproduction
issuing is a complication that can be better managed with
postproduction issuing.
Postproduction Goods Issue

Something that is well pointed out by Dave is that backflushing or

postproduction issuing can be changed depending upon the level
in the bill of materials.

“Backflushing is generally not a global setting, which means you

can chose specific bills of materials to backflush and even specific
items within a bill of material. For example, you could backflush
only point-of-use items and perform preproduction issuing on
other items within the same production order.”
Something else interesting is that labor, as well as materials, can be
postproduction issued.

“Backflushing labor is simply using the quantity produced

information and the standard labor, machine, and setup hours in
the routing to calculate labor and machine time to apply against
the production order.”
Dave also makes a statement regarding postproduction issuing that I don’t
think would have occurred to me.

“Contract manufacturers and engineer-to-order manufacturers

may find system setup too extensive or bill of material accuracy
inadequate to support backflushing.”

Backflushing in SAP ERP and SAP APO

Backflushing is set in three places in SAP ERP. One place is the material, the
second is the BOM, and the third is the routing. This allows a company to set
backflushing for the entire BOM or for just the levels in the BOM (by setting
the backflush indicator at the material). In fact, it is misleading to think of
backflushing as an APO functionality as it is entirely performed in SAP ERP
because it is a feature of execution rather than planning.

Backflushing is something that is done more in repetitive manufacturing.

However, repetitive manufacturing on back-flushing does not present more
functionality. Instead, back-flushing is performed differently in a repetitive
setup in SAP ERP than it is when ERP is set up for discrete manufacturing.
Setting two delegates the back flush to the work center.
Here is the setup of backflush in the work center.
Repetitive manufacturing in SAP ERP does have something called separated
backflush, which is a separate transaction as can be seen from the Easy
Access Menu.

Which takes you to this screen.

Backflush Accounting
The needs for issuing postprocessing receipts is also reflected in something
called backflush accounting, which, like with issuing, the costing is delayed
until the production is complete.

Conclusion
Backflushing is a strangely named function for what is essentially post-
processing issues of material. Backflushing can be set in three different areas
in SAP ERP, and backflushing is in ERP and not APO because it is
an execution task. Backflushing is something that is frequently required in
repetitive manufacturing. However, repetitive manufacturing on backflushing
does not present more functionality in SAP ERP. Instead, backflushing is
 performed differently in a repetitive setup in SAP ERP than it is when ERP is
set up for discrete manufacturing.

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