Sunday, 15 November 2015

SAP AFS Master data

AFS stands for Apparel and Footwear Solutions. 

SAP AFS is the SAP solution focused on the Apparel and Footwear Industry .
Its deliver SAP Core functionality as well as valuable extra functionality to support the specific needs of the apparel and footwear industry.

Apparel and Footwear industries mainly have the following critical requirements.

Handling materials in various colors and sizes (handle with characteristics of an article).
To sell the products only in specific periods (seasonal products).
To categorize the products based on its quality.
To have size wise pricing, date wise pricing (price will be high only during the seasons).
Mapping the customer’s requirement to the available stocks 

SAP AFS valuable extra functionality are given below :
  • AFS specific Master Data
  • Category
  • AFS Season
  • Order scheduling
  • Allocation run 
Allocation run 


Allocation Run (ARUN)used to assign stocks to requirements in an optimal manner even in shortage of stock.
Better control of stock allocation .ARun distributes the currently available stock to sales orders according to certain calculation logics at a specific time.

ARUN Key Benefits

  • Allocation tools will allow for more flexibility in managing the allocation process.
  • Proactive identification of orders requiring exception management.
  • Ability to view the sequence of orders allocating prior to force allocation




AFS Material Master

The industry sector determines to which industry the material applies. The industry sector decides: Which views are displayed and in which order What industry-specific data is displayed.







The material master is the foundation for all logistics functions of the Core SAP R/3 System. One material master is created for each material in the R/3 system.

 Five views have been added for AFS materials.
       AFS Basic Data.
       AFS Sales Data.
       AFS MRP.
       AFS Warehouse Management 1.
       AFS  Valuation.

AFS Grid functionality

Provides the capacity to handle sizes, and has been conceptualized keeping in mind the complexities involved in production, procurement, sales & distribution and materials management in an Apparel environment. This is defined in the system as Grids. AFS grids are three dimensional in nature.




There are three types of material grids:

 (1) Master grid : Part of the material master.
 (2) Purchase grid : An application grid that is a subset of a master grid.
 (3) Sales grid : An application grid that is a subset of a master grid


Grid Configuration 

Define one master grid for each of the AFS material in the AFS Basic Data view in the material master. 
The above assignment once confirmed , the master grid cannot be replaced with another master grid.
The master grid is valid across all plants for the material.You can create one grid and then use it for several materials.

Create an initial grid and use it as a reference grid for creating new grids. The relationship between the grids is to be maintained.

Once a master grid has been saved it is possible to add more dimension values at any time

Three variables maintained in the grid value ( e.g.: size, Color, inseam length)

Grids no longer used in any material may be deleted.


Using the master grid you mast specify following details :

Which dimensions characterize the material.
How many dimensions are contained in a grid value.
Which combinations of dimension values you want to allow as grid values.
You can add grid values to the master grid any time. These values then be applied  for all referenced materials







Categories

Material master maintenance for this industry involves huge amount of data, for which concept of categories has evolved to logically segment materials. These categories are usually maintained in the AFS Industry based on the quality level, type of customer and regional requirements Defines the characteristics of the products.


Seasonality


Season plays a very important role in the product life cycle of the apparel industry and planning and production carried out needs to be aligned with the demand of the individual seasons.
It Represents the  seasonality of business (spring, summer, fall, winter, back-to-school, and (Christmas)requires that certain products be available for their corresponding season, with the special need to “mark down” or “move” inventory that will soon be out of season. Price lists, reports, inventory displays, and so on, are all necessary for seasons, not the usual calendar periods.
Each season can be broken split into a collection and then further in a theme.
Each Season\Collection\Theme needs to be defined:
On-going materials can have multiple season/collection/themes applied


AFS order entry

AFS offers two “time windows”: order entry date and delivery date. In AFS, seasonal processing is possible at the material, dimension and category levels. Material ‘TS-POLO’ can only be sold and delivered during the winter 2000 and summer 2000 seasons.
Material TS-SHIRT has no valid season. In AFS, you can define a season at the following levels:
• Sales organization.
• Country.
• Region.
• Customer group.
• Customer

AFS Pricing

The AFS-specific pricing is based on the standard condition technique.
Group grid values and create condition records according to these groups. To do this, you can use AFS-specific condition types. Based on the R/3 condition technique the following illustration shows which factors influence the AFS pricing in the AFS sales and distribution processing.

Price determination indicator.

A price determination indicator is assigned to the AFS material in the AFS sales view of the material master . 

You must choose the following price determination indicators:

00: All grid values have the same price .
01: Different price per grid value .
02: Price determination at grid value group level .
03: Factor pricing .
04: Two-date pricing .



There are several types of prices in AFS that can also operate at the grid dimension and category level.
The regular sales price (J3AP) is the base price of a product. It can be maintained at size, size  group, and material level.Two-date pricing is based on grid value groups. Assign these grid value groups to the AFS material by means of the grid control data.In two-date pricing with (condition type J3A2) the determination of the sales price takes place based on two time frames.

Usually the time of the incoming order and The expected (or actual) delivery date .
        
Provide long time periods between the incoming order and delivery date with affordable sales prices.

Factors influencing the price determined in the sales order are:

 1.Condition record: Condition type, e.g. J3A2 and Rules.
2. Customer master data (Sales data),
                 Example: special customer pricing procedure (J -AFS Standard).
3. Material master data (AFS Sales data), to indicate at which level to carry out the search,
                Example: Pricing indicator (01 - Size-specific Pricing).
4. Grid information, to determine the available sizes for pricing.