SAP PP MASTER DATA: INTRODUCTION

SAP PP Master Data : Master data is important component in PP modules like the other SAP modules. Master data tends to remain constant and used in same way. Master data helps to maintain integration of business processes/objects. Following are vital master data elements related to SAP Production Planning (PP)Material master (MM01) - The material master contains information on all the materials that a company procures or produces, stores, and sells. It is the companys essential source for retrieving material-specific data. This information is stored in individual material master records. There are different views for user departments i.e. Purchasing, Sales, Quality Management, Accounting, costing, MRP, forecasting etc. Major settings related to production planning are available in MRP and Work scheduling views of material master. Individual departments users are responsible for material master maintenance activity as per requirements. Routing (CA01) - Sequence of operations (i.e. Work Steps) needed to make up product or assembly. A routing is used as a source for creating a production order or a run schedule header by copying. It describes production process. Routing also contained information like place of work to be performed, time required to carry out work, material or component requirement along with equipment need if any. Bill of Material (BOM) (CS01)A list of components that make up product or assembly along with quantity and unit of measures. BOM is basis for number of activities in many areas like CAD Department, MRP Department, Work Scheduling Department and production order management department, Sales Order activities and in product costing department. Work Centers (CR01) -is a place where work (operations) is carried out. A work center is created for a plant and is assigned to operations in routing. Data in work centers is used for scheduling, Costing, Capacity Planning etc. Work centers are capacity collectors for internal and external processing. Production Resource Tools (PRTs) (CF01) - Production Resource/Tool (PRT) is a moveable operating resource used in production planning to perform an activity repeatedly. Examples of PRTs are Drawings, jigs and fixtures and measuring instruments. The header screen of the header/operations component displays the main order elements of production order and once required master data elements are maintained, then data Related to production order elements will automatically copied from master data which saves lot of data entry time of users and helps for planning accuracy. So proper maintenance of master data is again having high importance. Changes to master data are strictly controlled by authorizations and automatically under a Change Management. For specific production order, change of master data if any is controlled by the function Read Master Data. One can elect to read a different BOM, a different routing or both if production order is not still processed further ahead.