Tag Archives: Replenishment Order

Supplier Managed Inventory (SMI) with Replenishment Order

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Pre-requisites: I am assuming for the purpose of this post that you are familiar with the normal SMI process (without RO)
This post is a jumble of sorts to talk about all the little mysteries we uncovered while implementing SMI with RO process:

(1) Maintaining Numbers ranges
The Replenishment Order in standard SNC does 2 actions (i)sends a message to the Customer back-end to create a Purchase Order and (ii) sends a message to the Supplier back-end to create a Sales Order [this can be turned off]. Hence, in order for RO to be created number ranges need to be maintained.

  • Number Range Attributes for PO & SO to define Prefixes/Suffixes in SNC WebUI > Master Data > Number Ranges > Number Range Attributes
  • Purchase Order number range intervals – Has to be the same as ECC PO number range intervals (for the POs to be created via SMI)
  • Sales Order Number Range intervals

(2) How do you turn off the Sales Order message to the vendor back-end system?

  • In SPRO>Supply Network Collaboration>Basic Settings>Validation>Maintain Settings in Validation Profiles: Define Validation check “RO_NO_XML_TO_SUPPLIER” as Active for Validation Profile POS2

(3) How do you create the Replenishment Order in SNC?

  • We start with Planned Receipts in SNC. You create Planned Receipts in the SMI Details Monitor (No Ship From Location view). These planned receipts generated Projected stock based on available stock information.
  • The Menu > Delivery > Receipts and Requirements > Due List for Planned Receipts (SMI) will take you to the Due list screen. Filtering on Product, you can see the saved Planned Receipts in the Due List table. Select the Planned Receipt you want to replenish and click on the “Create RO” button. This will take you to the RO Creation Screen
  • Since all the data is already pre-populated (you can ignore the SO number field if you have turned off messages to supplier back end), you can directly check & Save the RO. You will see the Delivery Date & Shipping date also populated based on Planned Receipt date & Transportation Duration based on MoT
  • Next, “Publish” the RO which will generate the VendorGeneratedOrderNotification_Out message to the customer back-end (ECC).

(4) How does the Purchase Order get created in ECC?
Though all the SAP links talk about the VGON_Out mapping to the ORDERS05.ORDRSP idoc, its a bit frustrating when your PO steadfastly refuses to be created. Here’s where it gets interesting. These are settings that need to be maintained:

  • Vendor Master: In the Purchasing Data tab of the vendor master (MK02) you need to check the box next to “Order Entry by Vendor”. “The system checks this indicator if a purchase order is created in the background as a result of an EDI order confirmation being received from the vendor (e.g. as part of a VMI scenario).”
  • For the material – maintain the MRP Type in MRP1 View as “RE” (Replenishment plnd externally)
  • In SAP Easy Access > Logistics >Purchasing >Environment >Order Entry by Vendor [WVM7]: Maintain the POrg/Plant/Purch Grp/PO doc type for when a particular vendor create a PO via EDI
  • For the Partner Profile, maintain a Inbound parameter for ORDRSP. This should be an additional parameter if you are already using ORDRSP for PO Collaboration confirmations. For SMI, maintain ORDRSP with Message Code “SMI” and process code as ORDS (ORDRSP SMI Generate/Confirm Purchase Order)

(5) How does the VGON_Out xml get mapped to the correct ORDRSP [SMI] idoc type

Map the VGON_Out to idoc ORDERS05.ORDRSP with message code/message variant SMI. This should make the idoc process in ECC with the correct message variant [We still need to check this.. will be updated]