SAP Variant configuration

SAP Variant Configuration

Purpose

SAP Variant configuration is intended for the manufacturing of complex products, where the
manufacturer often offers new variants of products. The product configurator improves
communication between the sales, manufacturing, and production departments. Variant
configuration helps the customer to acquire the product of his specification economically.

Variant configuration serves the following key purposes:

• Configuring complex products on customer’s request

• Making expert knowledge interactively available

• Product information management

• Price calculation for product variants

SAP Variant configuration is used in various industries such as the manufacture of aeronautical,
automobiles, hydraulic elevators, PCs, pumps, furniture, motorcycles, cables, endoscopes, chemical
adhesives, and so on.

Benefits

• Optimized usability

• Cost reduction

• Quick response to customers’ requirements

• User-friendly classification capabilities

• Improved sales and product engineering performance

• Enhanced profits and revenue growth with better product personalization

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SAP Variant configuration

• Better customer satisfaction

• Lesser time to create a configured quote

• No need to create a separate material master for each variant combination

• More flexible to customer’s requirements

• More power to the salespeople to offer customized products

• Supplier benefits include - determining their classes, setting conditions, and creating a product
master to serve as a prototype

• End-user benefits include - ease of using the application and getting a chance to test the
possible modification to find the right product

Features

With variant configuration, there would not be any need to create a separate material for each variant
of the product. We can use one configurable material to cover all the variants. We can create a Super
Bill of Material (BOM) and Super Routing for the configurable material. Super BOM and Super Routing
contain all the components and operations for all the product variants.

For example, consider a car whose characteristics are engine, extras, transmission, paintwork, and
wheels. If the customer orders the final product with 2500 engine, 5-gear transmission, steel wheels,
and red color, we can produce the variant product based on select characteristics value present in the
sales order. The variant product has a different probability; hence the price also varies.

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SAP Variant configuration

Configurable Material

Characteristics describe the properties of objects. Values like Single/Multiple/Table must be assigned.
Create a variant class of class type 300 and assign the characteristics. This class holds the characteristics
that describe the configuration material. Assign configurable material of type KMAT to the class.
Otherwise check the indicator configurable in the material master.

In the Material Requirement Planning (MRP) data, enter the parameters for configurable material that
control the transfer of requirement and availability checks. Each configurable object must have a
configuration profile. The configuration profile for a material controls the configuration process in a
sales order. Use dependencies to allow all the combinations of features. Dependencies select exactly
the right BOM components and operation to produce a variant product.

We can calculate the price of a variant depending on the characteristic’s values assigned. We can use
variant conditions to determine sales order prices like surcharges or discounts for a variant.

Configuration of Material

➢ Transaction code MM01

➢ Basic Data -> Select Material is configurable checkbox (client-specific configuration sub screen)

➢ Sales Data -> Item category group type - 0002/0004

➢ MRP Data -> MRP1 -> MRP Type – ND, MRP Lot Size - EX

➢ MRP2 -> Availability check – 02

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Scenario

Consider a scenario where a supplier needs to know the packaging material needed to be based on
the customer’s order quantity at the sales order level. The price varies depending upon the packaging
material.

Create a sales order for cable material with characteristics like factor, individual length, and so on. Then
calculate the order quantity and determine the package material category. Package material is
automatically selected based on order quantity.

Use object dependency for calculating order quantity using CU01 and assign it to configuration
material.

Prerequisites for determining the packaging material:

Logistics – General -> Reel Calculation -> Set plant data

Create object dependence using the procedure below sample code.

PFUNCTION Z_PACK_DEP

(SAP_MILLCA_PACKAGING_CAT = $SELF.SAP_MILLCA_PACKAGING_CAT,

SAP_MILLCA_PACKAGING = $SELF.SAP_MILLCA_PACKAGING,

SAP_MILLCA_LENGTH = $SELF.SAP_MILLCA_LENGTH,

SAP_MILLCA_MATNR = $SELF.SAP_MILLCA_MATNR,

SAP_MILLCA_WERKS = $SELF.SAP_MILLCA_WERKS)

Create a variant function module using CU65.

Import Parameter: GLOBAL TYPE CUOV_00

Table Parameters: QUERY LIKE CUOV_01, MATCH LIKE CUOV_01

Exception: FAIL, INTERNAL_ERROR

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Integration

The following application variant configuration is integrated:

• CA Classification

• LO Material Master

• MM Purchasing

• SD Sales and Conditions

• PP Bill of Material, Routings, Material Requirement Planning and Production Orders

• PI Masters Recipes and CO Costing

Useful Transaction codes

CT01 Create Characteristics

CL01 Create Class
CU41 Create Configuration Profile
CU50 Configuration
CU01 Create Object dependencies
CU21 Dependency Net
CU65 Create Variant Function
CU61 Create Variant table

References

1. https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=198741653
2. https://blogs.sap.com/2019/06/07/sap-vc-all-blog-post/

Contact for further details

Durga Vinta
Sr. Technical Architect - ERP SAP Technical

durgav.in@mouritech.com

MOURI Tech

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