SAP Material Master: How to Avoid Pitfalls through Normal Documentation Tailored to your Organization?

At the heart of SAP Materials Management is the material master. From forecasting requirements to post-sales distribution and every little thing in between, the setups you make in the material master, together with your organization’s specialized features that are created in SAP customization to control the certain guidelines of those settings, will control just about every action connected with each material your Inventory.

The creation, customization, and maintenance of this data can be a difficult task. If your company is set up into functional silos, as several are, it will be tough to appropriate an individual or team to be responsible for the maintenance of all material master data. To assign a person or team from one functional silo to handle the data for another would certainly be irresponsible and ineffective. How likely is it that your sales manager is an expert in requirements planning, or that your buyer is a master of organizing distribution channels?

Moreover, how are those that are named to be responsible for material master creation and maintenance to know what setups are in line with business goals and objectives?

Many mistakes can be made and opportunities missed when Material Master responsibility within the organization is ambiguous. That is why I recommend a formally documented procedure for material master creation and maintenance at your facility. This procedure should be developed in a cross-functional team format containing both senior leadership and end-user representatives from each functional silo in your business.

By defining who is responsible for the maintenance of each section of the material master, along with some organizationally defined rules referring to each essential setting, you can avoid certain failings of an uncertain procedure. In this manner, when new products are introduced to your system, each party involved will know when and how to create master data.

After developing and distributing your documented procedure, It is recommended that you incorporate the process as a checklist in your sales and operations planning meetings. This will ensure that necessary and accurate data remains in place before requirements are introduced into MRP. This activity will save you from having to correct systematic materials management errors after planning data has been generated. It will help you to avoid the sinister finger-pointing that will arise if these blunders are allowed to occur.

Bottomline

Thus, From forecasting requirements to post-sales distribution and everything in between, the setups you make in the material master, along with your company’s specialized features that are created in SAP customization to control the particular guidelines of those settings, will regulate just about every action connected with each material your inventory.

If you are planning to boost your skills, choose our best online training platform, and learn from industry experts. So what are you waiting for? Visit ZaranTech, to skyrocket your career with the unique learning needs because Learning Never Exhausts The Mind.