Extended Catalog Item in Work Order

Outcome

An ECI is created. This facilitates the item management in the work order process.

Purpose

When you create a new item in M3 BE, you must manage a large amount of basic data, which is time consuming. The purpose of ECI is to facilitate the management of seldom used items for the material line of a work order. You can predefine an ECI to use as a template item instead of creating a new one.

When

An ECI is used in the work order process when the demand item is not normally kept in stock and therefore not available in the item master table.

How

An ECI is a predefined template item, and when you use an ECI during material line entry in the work order, a new item is created with the features of the template. An ECI is created in 'Item. Open' (MMS001).

There are two kinds of ECI:

• Item category 11-'Extended catalog item'.
• Item category 12-'Non-coded extended catalog item'.

Material line entry with item category 11:

During material line entry for a work order, a new item with a new item number is created automatically based on item master data from the template item. It functions like an ordinary item with item category 0 throughout the entire order process, such as work order, purchase order, goods receipt, picking list. You can set sales price and purchase price. The sales price uses the currency from the maintenance customer order header while the purchase price always shows the local currency. The numbering rule in the item type determines the layout of the automatically created item number.

Order line entry with item category 12:

The item number with item category 12 is used during the creation of the material line. The item name and description is only saved on the material line level and the master table is not updated. This enables you to use the same item number on two different material lines, representing two different items. Units of measure, weight, and volume must be predefined in the item master table and cannot be changed.

The ECI is always used together with line type 1-'Delivered to own stock' or line type 2-'Delivered directly to customer' during material line entry in a work order. The ECI is always processed through the panel in 'Work Order. Open Line' (MOS101) that is exclusive for ECI.