Well, for my latest engagement, one of my homework assignments was to find out if the ERP 6.0 enhancement packs did anything for SAP Variant Configuration (VC). After digging through the documentation, I was able to find one new piece that is worthwhile, if you have EHP5 in your SAP system. There is now a new version of the PMEVC called PLM_PMEVC_1 that includes some additional functions, including the following:
New functions with respect to Bill of Materials:
o Display of BOM header data on detail screen
o Display of BOM items on detail screen
o Assign and create global and local dependencies to BOM items in the Product Modeling Environment
o Create selection conditions for BOM items with Drag&Drop functionality for characteristic values
New functions with respect to Characteristics:
o Add new values for characteristics
o Change the descriptions and long texts for characteristics and values
o Assign document info records to characteristics and values
New functions with respect to overwritten characteristics
You can copy changes from the global characteristics to the overwritten characteristic by the function Adapt to global characteristic which you access by a right mouse click on a characteristic in the model tree.
New functions with respect to Simulation:
o Assign values to reference characteristics
When starting the simulation, you can assign values to reference characteristics according to the selected scenario. This improves the quality of simulating configuration models because reference characteristics can have the same values as in sales order or material variants.
o Assignment of a Configurator
You have a new option, IPC in Production/VC Optional in Simulation, for selecting the configurator in the basic data for the header material.
With this setting, you can use variant configuration for the simulation although you use IPC in your productive system.
In the Product Modeling Environment, under Extras -> Settings, depending on the settings on the header material you can define if you want to use IPC or VC for the simulation or if you want to select the configurator when starting the simulation.
These are some cool new additions… so give it a shot if your system has this package (if you don’t have the txn yet, talk to your IT/Basis person and ask them to activate it for you). Happy configuring.
As always, thanks for reading and don't forget to check out our SAP Service Management Products at my other company JaveLLin Solutions,
Mike