Understanding Strategy 60 in SAP PP: Planning with a Planning Material

In SAP Production Planning (PP), choosing the right planning strategy is crucial for efficient inventory management and production scheduling. Strategy 60, also known as “Planning with a Planning Material,” offers a unique approach to planning for products with variants.

What is Strategy 60?

Strategy 60 allows you to manage the planning process for a group of similar products under a single umbrella, called a planning material. This is particularly useful for scenarios where variants share most components but differ in specific features.

Here’s how it works:

1. Define a Planning Material: You create a material record specifically for planning purposes. This material represents the generic product category.
2. Assign Variant Products: You link the finished good (FG) variants to the planning material. These variants have their material masters but inherit the planning logic from the planning material.
3. Bill of Materials (BOM): You create a BOM for the planning material, outlining the standard components required for all variants.
4. Demand Management: Since Strategy 60 is Make-to-Order (MTO), the system only generates planned orders for the planning material based on actual sales orders for the variant products.

Benefits of Strategy 60

• Simplified Planning: This strategy streamlines planning by managing a single BOM for similar products, reducing data redundancy.
• Efficient Forecasting: Forecasting demand becomes more manageable as you focus on the overall category represented by the planning material.
• Improved Flexibility: Changes to the standard components in the BOM only need to be made to the planning material, impacting all variants.

Things to Consider with Strategy 60

• Limited Variant Complexity: Strategy 60 best suits variants with a high commonality. Products with highly customized features better suit Strategy 25 (Variant Configuration).
• Non-Convertible Planned Orders: The planned orders generated for the planning material are non-convertible to production orders directly. It would help if you converted them to planned orders for the specific variant after receiving a sales order.
• Collective Requirement for Components: The planning material BOM components are typically set to “Collective requirements only” in the MRP 4 view. This ensures sufficient stock for all variants without overplanning individual components.

In Conclusion

Strategy 60 offers a valuable tool for planning and managing the production of similar products in SAP PP. Understanding its functionalities and limitations lets you determine if this strategy aligns with your specific production needs. Exploring Strategy 25 might be a better option for more complex product variants.