Knowledge Management

Question:
Hi release experts!
In my current project we have the following setup. All departments can create PRs. In the case that no source of supply can automatically be assigned, the admin department will centrally request quotations out of SAP and then update the valuation prices according to the quotation for departments.
The manager should actually release the PR only if the valuation price is final in order to prevent multiple releases. But how can we let him know that the valuation price is final? It should be field which is a selection criterion under TR ME55 in order to exclude PRs w/o source of supply that have no final valuation price yet.
We thought about using the ‘fixed indicator’ or some PR text field in order to inform the releaser that the valuation price is final. However under TR ME55 you can’t select either the ‘fixed indicator’ or the PR text fields. The PR status field is not updated, if the valuation price is changed and I don’t think it is possible to create more process statuses.
Do you have any idea to limit the PR selection in TR ME55 to the ones with a fixed valuation price? Or any work around.
Any advice is highly appreciated!
Answer:
Hi Garry,
First of all, I think that there might be a confusion between PR and RFQ because in respect of PRs, the valuation price is copied from the MAP of the material master. Moreover, since PR is the internal documents created by end users, the release of PRs is purely for quantity approval and not for the value. Therefore, it is not important to look at the revision of the PR valuation price as the final value. The revised value got from RFQ will be updated in the PO when you convert PR. In this case, if you are setting up the PO release strategy, then you can control it.
Cheers,
HT
Answer:
Hi HT,
sorry to be not specific enough. Our business process does only contain release steps at PR stage. We don't use RFQ in SAP as it is, from point of view, not really practible. We directly create PO's via account assignment list. No further release procedure at PO level, as there are no chances allowed. PO is created and printed that's it. The reason for this that we wan't to prevent that someone has to rwelease twice.
My question only concerns for PRs with account assignments 'K' or 'A' and which don't refer to a contract. E.g. procurement of air tickets or new consumables or assets. In thsi case teh user put in a valuation price. Th epurchasing department calls for quotations (out of SAP) and then updates the valuation price. A process which works fine so far.
Only issue we have is that the ME55 does not allow the 'releaser' to distinguish between PRs where the valuation price has been updated (with the real price) from teh ones that still have the estimated valuation price.
Any way or workaround to let the manager distinguish between those? As otherwise we have the problem of double releases again, which we wanted to eridicate.
Thanks for your help!!
Answer:
Hi Garry,
First of all, I would say that you are correct in saying it is not logical to let the same authorizer releases the purchasing document twice for the same requirement and it is very much subject to the company's purchasing and financial policies. However, the process that your company is currently putting in place is only effective as long as either contract or info record are available which are true for the case of MRO items (ie. all items being stocked and having the material master). What do actually concern me (and this is the outstanding problem you are encountering) is what would be the process to be applied for non-stock and/or non-material id items. Of course, in this particular case, you do not have any refererence document and therefore, the assignment of source of supply via assignment list processing can not be made and due to the fact that the RFQ process is maintained outside SAP (which is not recommendable), it is true that purchasing will have to do the same job for the same material for a certain period of time.
OK, come back to what we are discussing at present, am I correct to say that in respect of account assigned PRs (with 'K' and 'A' account assignment category), all of these PRs will be going through RFQ? who is going to maintain the revised price? and when is it - at PR or PO stage?, what were the release characteristics that you have used for your PR release strategy? was the account assignment category included?.
Cheers,
HT
Answer:
Hi HT,
thanks a lot for your efforts and you are absolutely right in your statement. As this is a 'greenfield project' (a new company has been set up) we had hardly any input from customer side (no key users were available) and I implemented the processes based on my experience. In all of my projects I recommend not to use the RFQ functianality as it is definetely not the strongest in SAP.
However regarding to the purchasing of consumables I actually wanted to implement the rule that no release before source assignment, e.g. the purchaser has to create PIR or maintain the contracts before he changes the valuation price. Then the releaser will go via ME55 where I entererd all vendors in the fixed vendor and set it to display. This worked fine in several projects however this time the customer does not want to create PIR all the time. There's the problem origin. Of course it is now too late to redesign the processes and use RFQ.
Does anyone knows a solution that let selcect the releaser only those PRs that have an updated valuation price?
Answer:
Hi Garry
we are applying the same concept. In order to prevent double releases, we made the fixed vendor field in the PR as a required field (not in SAP sense, but in the business process flow) and changed Message no. 06 334 from error to warning. Then the person in charge of release will only release PRs that have the fixed vendor field maintained. Further more we do not give authorization for ME21N; all PO are created via ME58, which works fine.
Answer:
Hi Bernd,
I would not much convinced that this is working for all scenarios. What will be the case of MRP running where PR is created. The other cases were for Work Order PRs. Of course, you can say that with the setting of 'Source Determination' indicator via either 'Default Setting' or Transaction OMFI, the automatic source of supply assignment is made. Yet, if no source of supply is found out, no vendor was defaulted in the 'Fixed vendor' field.
BTW, do you have any MSN messenger account so that we can talk further on this matter.
Cheers,
HT
Answer:
Hi HT,
MRP does not post any issue, as for material with master data we maintained always a PIR and source list. Most have a fixed vendor due to warranty for the next 3 years, so the source determination can be done already during the MRP execution. For the case that multiple vendors are allowed in the source list, the material controller will assign a source of supply during the check of the created PRs
Work orders for stock materials (with master data) are handled the same way. In the case of work orders for non stock item (w/o material master data), the material controller has to specify a fixed vendor manually in the procurement proposal. This isn’t the most comfortable way, but I don’t know a better. If you have any better solution available, I would be very happy if you would tell me.
But it has the advantages that we do not need another release at PO level and PO can be easily created via ME58 or ME59 and will be immediately printed.
Thanks
Bernd
Answer:
Hi Bernd,
This is exactly what I am mostly concerned for the case of non-stock items. First of all, there have been so many risky factors that can happen to your problem - the end users define 'L' Item Category for the material item in the Component Item View of the Work Order. Secondly, the warehouse/Material Master Controller shall be liable to make sure that all items used in the Work Order shall be maintained in the material master and more importantly, the purchasing/material controller can not know when he/she should get into W/Order-based PRs to modify it. Again, don't forget that the W/Order maintainer is the engineer who is not knowing anything about purchasing.
In respect of stock items which are controlled by MRP. I do agree upon your statement that with the setting of info record and source list, we are able to let the system default automatically the vendor in the 'fixed vendor' field of the PR. However, given the total number of items to be purchased (for my client it is approximately 70,000 items), are you completely sure that you can define the vendors for all these items and maintain 70,000 source records for all items.
Of course, I fully understand that it is ideal if we can set up in advance the vendor arrangement so that the particular vendors can be contracted prior to PO maintenance. However, given the practical business operations, I would not be convinced that this can be achievable.
Cheers,
HT
Answer:
Hi Garry and HT,
I was testing this morning a way to always use contracts for the procurement of consumables. This is my solution that I will propose to our customer:
Create a contract for each vendor based on material group. Enter one item line for each material for which you have a real deal with the vendor (you determined a quantity and or a price). Enter an additional line with item category ‘W’ for material group.
In source determination during purchase requisition creation or change you assign a specific item of the contract, if for the to be ordered material a deal exists. For the case that no deal exists just enter the line item with item category ‘W’. Thus a vendor and contract is always assigned for all PR items. The contract with item category ‘W’ for material group just defines the vendor and groups the PR items together in ME58. You still have to determine a final valuation price by negotiating with vendor.
The release will only happen if a fixed vendor has been maintained (in ME55 will display the fixed vendor field with the range over all vendors). PR without a fixed vendor won’t be selected this way.
Hope this helps you Garry. HT let me know about the weak points you see in this solution!