Material Master in SAP QM

 What is a material?

- Material is a substance or a commodity that can be procured, sold, produced ion a commercial basis. A material can also be a service.

What is a material master record?

- A material master record contains all the data required to manage a material. It represents the central source of truth of a material for a company. Every area of responsibility can have different views and they are responsible for managing the data in their respective area.

What are the different views in the material master?

- Some of the views in the material master are

• Purchasing - Managed by MM team
• Sales - Managed by SD team
• Quality Management - Managed by QM team
• MRP - Managed by PP team
• Accounting - Managed by FI team
• Basic data - Applicable for all the departments
• Warehouse Management - Managed by WM team

Other than these there are Work scheduling, Classification, Costing etc

What are material types?

- All the materials with similar basic attributes form a material type. They determine what views are required to manage the material and what are the business process and functions allowed for a material.

They are also determine the number ranges, account determination, procurement types and user fields

Examples of material types

1. Raw material (ROH) - Raw materials are usually procured, used in production but are not sold. Hence they will have procurement and production related views but the sales view will be missing
2. Finished Products (FERT) - Finished products are not procured but they are produced and sold. Hence they will have production and sales related views but the procurement related view will be missing
3. Semi finished Products (HALB) - They are not procured but they are produced and not sold. Hence they will have production  related views but the procurement and sales related view will be missing.

Other material types are : Packaging material (VERP), Trading goods (HAWA), Services (DIEN)

To create material group go to OMSF tcode

Creation of a material (MM01 - Creation / MM02 - Change / MM03 - Display)

Steps to create a material

• Go to tcode MM01 to create a material. Enter Industry sector, material type and if you have a reference material from which the data has to be copied that can be entered in the copy material tab

• There are two types of material numbering, 1. Internal 2. External

1. Internal numbering - The material number will be assigned automatically by the system. This can be possible by assigning number ranges using tcode MMNR. And once the number ranges are configured then go to simg - > logistics general ->Material master ->Basic settings -> Material types -> Assign number ranges to material types

     2. External numbering - We can manually enter the material number while creating one. The settings       required to configure this is in tcode MMNR. 

• Using tcode OMS2 other settings related to material type can be configured. Make sure to update quantity and value settings for your plant 

After entering the details in MM01 initial screen press enter and select the views that needs to be updated

• Enter the org data
  
  
  
• This is the material master QM view

Some of the important fields in the QM view

• Base Unit of measure - Primary unit in which the materials are managed.
• Unit of issue - Unit of measure in which the materials are issued from the inventory
• QM Material Auth - Restricts the access for the users to perform critical tasks related to QM. Tcode to create is OMAM
• Post to inspection stock - When the materials are received, the stock directly moves under quality stock that are later inspected.
• Documentation required - Specifies that certain documents are required as a part of inspection process.
• GR Processing time - GR Processing Time is the number of calendar days required after Goods Receipt (GR) to make the material available in the warehouse or stock.
• Inspection interval - Specifies how frequently the inspection has to be carried out for the material.
• Material status - Controls whether the quality process are allowed for the material. The material can be blocked, or used, or can be obsolete.
• QM in procurement active - This indicator activates QM process for the materials that are procured externally
• QM Control key - Controls quality-related steps during inspections
• Target QM System - System where the QM setup and process are implemented. It is mostly Production system
• There are different types of inspections all for different activities or movements

1. 01 - When the goods are received w.r.t purchase order
2. 08 - When there is a stock transfer from different stock types to QI
3. 05 - Goods received without purchase order
4. 09 - Recurring inspection that happens based on inspection interval
5. 89 - Audit inspection, does not involve any stock
6. 04 - GR w.r.t process order. Used in process mfg industries

• Preferred inspection type - If there are more than one inspection types with same origin, then this field has to be checked
• Active - If the inspection type has to be in use then this has to be checked, if not uncheck this field
• Inspection for HU - Handling unit is nothing but a packed unit containing same or different materials or batches. Each HU will have a unique id number. And the system allows inspection for HU along with inspection w.r.t batches or materials.
• Inspection with material specification - Material specification acts as basis for inspection process. You can either choose material specification or task list
• Inspection with task list - Task lists that are defined in the inspection plan acts as basis for inspection
• Automatic inspection - Inspection plan will be assigned automatically without human intervention
• Inspect characteristics - Characteristics describes what parameters are to be measured in the material
• Sampling procedure - Specifies how samples are taken for inspection process. It is mostly assigned in inspection plan
• Automatic UD - Specifies whether the material can be UD-ed automatically. Some of the criteria for Auto UD are - Auto UD has to be checked in MM, Auto UD job has to be created for the plant, the material should be assigned to only one inspection plan, characteristics should be optional in MIC, QM material auth should not include any digital signature.
• Average inspection duration - When the ilot is created, the creation date will be the start date and to calculate the end date, average inspection duration is used i.e. start date + avg insp duration = end date
• Control lot creation - Controls how and when the lots are created. It could be whenever the material document is posted etc
• Q Score procedure - Procedure to calculate the quality score