Numeric vs Alphanumeric numbering
Hi
I am currently working on a project where the material numbering has become a big issue of discussion. Half the people support numeric numbering for the material masters and the other half want alphanumeric numbering for the materials. Please could someone tell me the pro's and cons of each type of numbering conventions based on their experience.
Thanks
Hi,
This is a frequent debate in implementations but it normalkly is a question of meaningful numbers opposed to meaningless numbers.
Most people want to have some meaning in the material number so that they can recognise the material or at least some hint at what the material is by looking at its number. A wrapper for instance might be stored as material number WRAP001, a box as BX001 etc.
There really is no right or wrong as to the two options but there are things to consider.
If you decide to use meaningful numbers, as in thye examples above, what happens when you have been live for a while and now have more than 999 wrappers or boxes? how can you fit this in?
So the main problem with meaningful numbers is they may need revising and they will be extremely difficult to revise.
They are also prone to keying errors and so what happens if someone keys the wrong characters etc.
They can also have big gaps because people are not always sure if the last "wrapper" was wrap099 0r wrap100, so they enter wrap110 just to make sure and before you know it you have used up all of the available range and you then have to try to find and fill the "gaps".
SAP does give you the option of using meaningless material numbers because it has so many ways of finding the number by using matchcodes, hierarchies, classification etc.
The system generates them so gaps and keying errors are removed.
Either way some people in the organisation will want one approach and the others will want the other approach.
My personal preferrence is the meaningless numeric numbers, this is safer especially long term and people do get used to them after a while and they are no longer a problem.
So I would suggest that you try numerics?
Steve B
_________________
Author of "SAP - A map of the minefield"
available from www.helpsap.com
Thanks, Birchall for the reply. I would like to know as well, if the material numbers are currently assigned 7 characters, will it be advisable to change it to more and what impact will it have on SAP?
Thanks
Hi,
you can choose how many characters you want to use (up to 1 but I would leave that at the maximum.
If you then decide to use number ranges of 7 characters in length then a setting of the maximum will not stop you from having less. You can then at a later stage use a number range with more characters if you want. But changing the default number of characters on the material master database is best avoided, just start out with the maximum and control it by the number ranges (which are specific to the material type used and there is a user exit in there if you want to have different number ranges for different reasons within a material type)
To have a full range of seven characters just set the number range for the material type to 0000000 to 9999999
Leave the flag for leading zeros set to off or you will find that you will often have to have 11 leading zeroes.
Importantly if you want to have a material master record number that starts with a zero then SAP will "strip off" the zero with the "leading zeroes" flag set off. If you don't want 11 leading zeroes but you do want to have some materials starting with a zero (07894 for example) then you need to flag the material numbers as "Lexicographical" but you MUST make this setting before you create ANY material masters or you will have problems.
It is very important that you get these settingss right at the very begining or you will be stuck with them for the life of the system (apart from number ranges which are very flexible and relatively easy to change)
Good luck
Hi,
Sorry about the typo I seemed to pick up a smiley instead of an 8. The maximum is 18 (some people have modified their systems to take more than this but PLEASE do not even consider doing this.
Steve Birchall
What a great topic for debate! We have gone round and round this subject at our company for years.
In the end, with the search features in SAP, there really is no system need for a meaningful part number, it is mostly a matter of comfort factor for the users.
Meaningful numbers stem from pre-computer days and are a crutch that many users feel they can't live without.
In my mind, the bottom line is this:
You are spending a ton of money to use SAP to run your business (hopefully with a return for this investment), so why do need part numbers structured so that you can operate from a cocktail napkin???
DD
Hello,
I agree that numerical material numbers keep problems off in some way because you don't have to thinck about what is the next name for the next material!
But this is not our case, in our company, where it is quite important to have the lists, the analisys,... sorted by the material number as I explained now:
Our material are for example:
Tube with diameter 1 mm
Tube with diameter 2 mm
Tube with diameter 2,5 mm
...
Codo
When we make an statistical analisys we want to see the materials sorted by its diameter. If we create the new Tube dimension material 1,5 we want it to be sorted after the Tube wiht diamter 1 mm and the Tube with diameter 2mm.
I mean like this
Tube with diameter 1 mm
Tube with diameter 1,5 mm
Tube with diameter 2 mm
Tube with diameter 2,5 mm
a NOT LIKE THIS
Tube with diameter 1 mm
Tube with diameter 2 mm
Tube with diameter 2,5 mm
Tube with diameter 1,5 mm
And We know the SAP sorts all its lists analisys be the material code.
Have you got any other idea in this case?
We have also problems with the the purchasing requisitions that the MRP generates. They are sorted not by the material number but the requisitions number. So when the users try to generates automatically the purchase order using transaction ME57 to buy the HAWA material, the order of the materials that we inserted in the same purchase order are not sorted in the good way. For example:
Tube with diameter 1,5 mm
Codo
Tube with diameter 2,5 mm
....
Tube with diameter 1,5 mm
Tube with diameter 1 mm
Imagine you that the purchase order is of 150 lines of materials!!!! THIS IS A MESS FOR OUR SUPPLIERS.
I thinck SAP has this issue not well solved? allready?
Has anybody found same problems in projects? Which solution did you consider?
I would like to hear your opinion. Thanks.
Marta
Most reports these days use ALV (ABAP List Viewer or something similar).
This allows you to sort the lists by any column, all you have to do is to structure the descriptions as you would normally and sort the list by description.
You can do this even in the PO display/change and create.
Just select the column "description" and then click on the sort icon.
This should suit most purposes?
Steve Birchall
_________________
Author of "SAP - A map of the minefield"
available from www.helpsap.com
Hi All
I tend to agree with all of the above - however I do think that we are overlooking the original question. To the original question, I would answer the following :
1. What is your strategy with these numbers ?
2. Have you considered UNSPSC, ECCMA, eCLASS, etc. ?
3. Are there different material types being uploaded - do they require different number ranges ?
Remember, master data is the make or break of any implementation - so it is important to get it right first time.
Thanx
DonnyJ
_________________
Thanx
DonnyJ
Dear Birchall,
But what do you do with the formulars that you print from the purchase order!
May be you will tell that we can control the material order from the program which prints the formular. But what we do if it is a quotation requisition and then recive the quotation and we have to update the prices. Have we got to look for each line?
Anyway, I think that may be you could solve some problems but there's others that cause that the work of our users are not so quick and confortable.
And Dear DonnyJ,
What do you mean about using UNSPSC, ECCMA eCLASS? Are these material types? Which? Does they solve this problem?
I agree that master data is the most important thing of the project. It determines the problems that may be you will find in the project.
Thanks for your answers.
Marta
Hi,
In the cases you mention (PO printing and the keying of prices on a quote) the system will not sort them into Material number sequence so there is no advantage of having a structure to the material numbers.
In each of the above cases the sequence will be the line item numbers and so even if ou use meaningful numbers you will have the same problem. In all of these cases you should try to sort the lines into description sequence or enter them into the quotation/requisition/PO in the sequence you want and it will stay in that sequence.
There will always be examples where one approach is better than the other no matter which you decide to use but on balance the non structured numbers do have an overall advantage in the long term.
But please don't think I am saying that you must therefore use them in this way, every implementation is different and it is quite probable that some companies will benefit more from structured numbers.
I hope that you have found our discussions useful.
Steve Birchall
_________________
Author of "SAP - A map of the minefield"
available from www.helpsap.com
These are internationally recognised codification/cataloguing standards. This could provide you with some insight on how to structure material numbers if you wish, ie. there is some intelligence in the numbering. However, please note that these are numbers per comodity, and is useful for classification. You would still need to add preceding or succeeding numbers/characteristics to differentiate inter the different material numbers within the same codification/class. Visit these sites for additional info :
www.unspsc.org
www.eotd.org
Thanx
DonnyJ
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Thanx
DonnyJ