Alternative materials in BOMs

Some items are interchangeable even when these are purchased from various vendors. You can use any of these items as material in a bill of material (BOM). If a shortage of a standard material is expected to delay a production order, LN can automatically select one of the alternative materials. You can define up to nine alternative materials for any material in a BOM.

The use of alternative materials has the following advantages:

  • LN can handle material shortages for some items without user intervention.
  • The use of alternative items can reduce the average inventory level.
Note
Restrictions
  • Use-up materials and alternative materials have the same net quantity as the standard material.
  • Use-up materials and alternative materials have exactly the same values of characteristics such as the scrap and yield as the standard material.
  • Use-up materials and alternative materials have the same material-routing relationships as the standard item.
  • If a component on a BOM line is a standard item, that is, an item with an empty project segment, the associated use-up and alternative materials must also be standard components.

  • If a component on a BOM line is a project item, that is, an item with a filled project segment, the associated use-up and alternative materials' project segments must be either:

    • Filled with the same project as the main item's project segment.
    • Empty (the alternative is a standard item)
  • If a component on a BOM line is a phantom, you cannot define a use-up material or alternative material for that component.
Priority of an alternative material

You can specify the priority of each alternative material. If the standard material is out of stock, LN first tries the highest-priority alternative. If that material is also unavailable, LN tries the alternative that has the next priority.

To distribute a material requirement over multiple items

If, on a BOM line in the Bill of Material (tibom1110m000) session, the Allow Multiple Items check box is selected, LN can split a material requirement over multiple alternative materials or partly fulfilled by the materials.

Example

If ten pieces are needed and only six pieces of the requested material are available, first the six pieces of the original are used then four pieces of the alternative to fill the full quota.

Checks for alternative materials

At one or more of the following points in a production order's life cycle, depending on parameter settings, LN can check whether an alternative material must be used:

  • When you generate planned production orders in Enterprise Planning.
  • When a production order is created in Shop Floor Control (SFC).
  • When you run the Generate Alternatives for Estimated Materials (ticst0216m000) session for existing production orders.
  • When you generate an outbound advice in Warehousing.

For more details, refer to the Searching for alternative and use-up materials. topic.

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