Material Determination in ERP SAP SD

Material Determination uses condition technique to swap one material for another in a sales order when certain conditions apply. Substituting one product with another product is called material determination. The product is only substituted during the specific period.

You can use material determination if you want the system to automatically substitute, for e.g.:

• Customer specific product numbers with your own material numbers.
• International article numbers (EAN's) with your own material numbers.
• Substituting discontinued materials with newer materials
• Seasonal products.

SPRO- IMG- SD- Basic Functions- Material Determination-

• Maintain prerequisites for material determination
• Assign procedure to sales doc types: determination rule

Condition Technique

• Create Condition Table
• Maintain Access Sequence
• Maintain Condition Type
• Maintain Procedure
• Assign Procedure to Doc Type

Define substitute reasons: OVRQ

 Define Substitution Reasons: go to new entries, define 4-digit code with description. In substitution reasons, you will also find an entry, warning, strategy & outcome.

• Entry: check this field if you want the original material and not substitutes to be printed in the output.
• Warning: check this field & a warning message is displayed before material is substituted
• Substitution Strategy: controls whether product selection should occur automatically in the background or whether the alternative materials should be offered for selection in a dialog box.
• Outcome of substitution: controls whether the outcome of product selection should replace the original entry or whether it should be recorded as a sub-item of the original entry
• Outcome control pricing during material determination i.e., header or item level pricing
• If original material need to be printed along with the substituted material then Print checkbox needs to be enabled

Item Category Determination

Header level pricing 

OR + NORM + PSHP + [Item Usage]   = TAX  (Main Item)

OR + NORM+PSEL+TAX  = TAPS (Sub Item)

Item level pricing 

OR + NORM + PSA1 + [Item Usage]   = TAPA  (Main Item)

OR + NORM+PSA2+TAPA  = TAN (Sub Item)

Master data Maintenance

Condition Records: VB11, enter original material, substitute material, substitution reason & validity. For multiple items select product & click on 'Alternative Materials Button'.

Leave the warning & strategy indicators blank, or you will not be able to perform automatic product selection based on ATP.

In the outcome of Substitution, you must choose either A or B. Do not leave this field blank. One of the most important decisions that you have to make about the product selection process is whether or not substitutions determined in the order are to be redetermined in the delivery.

	Outcome A	Outcome B
Create as sub items	Yes	Yes
New Product Selection in Delivery	Yes	No

Outcome A

• Product substitution redetermined when copying them from sales order to del.
• Rush order not supported
• Main items & subitems must be carried through from the sales doc's to the delivery, to the billing doc.
• If you use listing & exclusion in the sales doc process, the system does not take them into account while re determining substitutions in the delivery.

Outcome B

• The system does not re determining product substitution when copying them from sales docs to the deliveries. All items are copied directly.
• Rush orders fully supported
• Main items & sub items do not have to be carried through from the sales doc to the delivery, to the billing document
• If listings & exclusions are used in the sales doc process, the changes made as a result influence the delivery documents.