SAP Material Management Module
The Materials Management module in SAP consists of several components and subcomponents. The most used are the master data, purchases and inventory. All of these components have their essential subcomponents in specific business processes, and all of these processes are executed using transactions. Transactions involve the processing of certain information to complement the requirements of the business process. For example, if you bought 10 pieces of buckets, you can perform a particular transaction code that will reflect those changes in SAP. Most business processes involve multiple SAP transactions to be accomplished and distributed across one or more modules.
Various sub-modules in SAP MM are
Data stored in SAP R/3 is categorized as
- Master Data:
The master data is used as the basis for any transaction. If you produce, transfer inventory, sell, buy, and make a physical inventory, whatever your activity, certain basic data must be retained.
Example of basic data
- Hardware Master Data
- Customer Master Data
- Supplier Master Data
- Basic price / conditions data
- Warehouse management data (capital storage data)
Those that we will concentrate in the MM module are the hardware master and the recording of purchase information.
- Purchasing
Purchasing is a component of SAP MM module, and its process can be roughly depicted in below diagram.
MRP (material resource planning) creates procurement proposal and later gets converted into Purchase Requisition. Next step is to assign a source to Purchase Requisition, and release of Purchase Requisition. The PR gets converted to Purchase Order, and upon goods receipt, an invoice receipt can be done to complete the purchasing process. Additionally, payment is processed (in FI module).
- Inventory Management
Inventory management is used to manage the inventory of the goods. It is based on several key processes like
- Definition of movement types
- Reservations
- Goods issue
- Goods receipt
There are a number of functions and transactions used in the Inventory management processes.
- Pricing Procedure
The pricing procedure in the MM module is a way of determining prices in purchase documents. It allows us to assign different types of calculation for different needs. The definition of a pricing procedure can be performed by creating an access sequence and assigning it to the condition types. The access sequence tells the system where to look for condition values.
Features of SAP MM
The features of SAP MM system are as follows:
SAP MM is one of the SAP modules that handles materials management and inventory management. The material management process ensures that there has never been a shortage of materials or gaps in the organization’s supply chain process. SAP MM accelerates the procurement and material management activities, making the company more fluid with complete time and profitability. It deals with the management of an organization’s material resources (products and services) in order to accelerate productivity, reduce costs and improve improvement, and at a similar time be versatile to account for Changes in everyday life. It deals with the procurement process, master data (vendor hardware and equipment), Account Determination and Equipment Assessment, Inventory Management, Invoice Verification, Material Requirements Planning, and more.
What is material master?
The material in SAP is a logical representation of certain goods or services that are an object of production, sale, purchase, inventory management, etc. It can be a car, a gasoline, a transportation service or a consulting service, for example.
All information for all materials on their potential use and characteristics in SAP are called hardware master. This is considered as the most important basic data in SAP (there is also customer master data, vendor master data, pricing base conditions / data, etc.) and all material processing Is influenced by the hardware master. This is why it is crucial to have a precise and well-maintained hardware master.
In order to be confident in your actions, you must understand the main views of materials and its implications on processes in other modules, business transactions and some useful information, such as tables that store material master data, Transactions for the maintenance of mass materials (to change certain characteristics for a large number of materials at a time).
Conclusion:
The material management module helps you to take care of the inventories and data of the organization, as well as purchasing of the company.
