SD / O2Cintermediate

SD Availability Check Part 3: Scope of Check and Replenishment Lead Time

Key takeaway

Define what ATP considers (OVZ9): stock types, receipts (POs, requisitions, planned and production orders), issues, checking horizon and replenishment lead time — and how these choices trade reliable promises against optimistic confirmations.

Explanation

📌 KEY POINTS
✅ Scope of check (OVZ9) per checking group + checking rule decides which stocks, receipts and issues count.
✅ Including planned receipts (planned orders, purchase requisitions) gives earlier but less reliable confirmations; including only firm receipts is safer.
✅ Replenishment lead time (RLT): beyond RLT the system assumes the material can be procured and confirms — unless "check without RLT" is set.
✅ Delivery checks (rule B) are usually stricter than order checks (rule A), e.g. excluding planned receipts.
⚠️ Checking with RLT but wrong lead times in the material master confirms dates that supply chain cannot meet.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ WHERE WE ARE
Part 2 configured checking groups and rules. Now the content of the check.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 1. STOCK TYPES

Unrestricted stock always; options: safety stock, stock in transfer, quality inspection, blocked stock, restricted-use.
Including safety stock consumes the buffer planners want to protect.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 2. RECEIPTS

Purchase orders, purchase requisitions, planned orders, production orders, shipping notifications, dependent receipts.
Firm receipts (POs, production orders) vs planned (PRs, planned orders).

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 3. ISSUES

Sales requirements, deliveries, reservations, dependent requirements.
Usually all included — otherwise stock is promised twice.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 4. REPLENISHMENT LEAD TIME

RLT from material: total replenishment lead time (MRP 2) or in-house production + GR processing / planned delivery time.
With RLT: after RLT, unlimited availability is assumed.
"Check without RLT": only real supply counts — typical for scarce or long-lead items.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 5. CHECKING HORIZON AND RULE B

Checking horizon limits how far receipts are considered (where configured).
Rule B at delivery: often only stock — you can't pick a planned order.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ STEP BY STEP

Decide stock types with supply chain (safety stock yes/no).
Decide receipt types per rule (A vs B).
Decide RLT behavior per checking group.
Maintain OVZ9 and test with CO09.

✅ CHECKPOINT: CO09 and an order give the same confirmation date and you can explain each receipt considered.

Code example

ABAP Code

===== STEP 1: scope of check (OVZ9) checking group 02 =====                          Rule A (order) | Rule B (delivery)Include safety stock      –              | –Stock in transfer         X              | –Quality inspection stock  –              | –Purchase orders           X              | –Purchase requisitions     X              | –Planned orders            X              | –Production orders         X              | –Sales requirements        X              | XDeliveries                X              | XReservations              X              | XCheck without RLT         –              | X ===== STEP 2: RLT in the material =====MM02 > MRP 2: in-house production time, GR processing time, planned delivery timeMM02 > MRP 3: total replenishment lead time (used if maintained) ===== STEP 3: verify =====CO09 with checking rule A and B → compare confirmation dates

Real project scenario

A pharma company included planned orders and purchase requisitions in the order check and used RLT. Orders confirmed dates based on planned orders that production later postponed, and customers received repeated date changes. The team excluded purchase requisitions and planned orders beyond the frozen horizon from rule A, switched scarce APIs to "check without RLT", and corrected lead times in the material master. Date changes after confirmation fell sharply.

Common mistakes

Including safety stock unintentionally.
Including planned receipts without planners' agreement.
Wrong RLT data leading to impossible confirmations.
Same scope for order and delivery.
Changing scope without rescheduling open orders.

Best practices

Define scope with supply chain per material segment.
Keep delivery checks strict.
Validate RLT master data regularly.
Reschedule open orders after scope changes.
Use CO09 to validate settings.

Interview angle

Questions: "What is the scope of check?", "What is replenishment lead time?", "Why should delivery and order checks differ?"
Strong answer: OVZ9 per checking group + rule selects stocks, receipts and issues; RLT assumes availability beyond lead time unless check without RLT; firm vs planned receipts; stricter delivery scope; validate with CO09 and reschedule after changes.

Practice this lesson

Quick check

1. Why do many companies exclude planned orders and purchase requisitions from the delivery-time check (rule B)?

2. Which two elements control the scope of the availability check?

3. What happens during the availability check when the indicator to include replenishment lead time is NOT set for the relevant checking rule/group combination?

Interview questions

1. During a make-to-order order entry, the availability check returns a confirmed date far beyond the requested delivery date, and the order still saves without any incompletion warning. What would you check to explain why incompletion did not flag this?

Answer it in your own words first, then compare.

2. Orders confirm based on planned orders that production later postpones, and customers get repeated date changes. How do you redesign the scope of check?

Answer it in your own words first, then compare.

Practice more with Interview AI →

Reference-verified: the steps are checked against official SAP documentation and tutorials, and object and field names in the sample code are checked for consistency. The code has not been compiled or run on an SAP system by ERPClimb. Syntax marked release-dependent varies by SAP release, so check it in your own system.