Material Requirements Planning

Lessons in this topic

• MM MRP Part 1: How Material Requirements Planning WorksMRP makes sure materials are available on time without excess stock. Learn net requirements calculation (requirements vs stock and receipts), lot sizing, scheduling back from the requirement date, procurement proposals (planned orders, purchase requisitions, schedule lines), and where planners see the result.
• MM MRP Part 2: MRP Live (MD01N) — HANA-Optimized Planning and ScopeRun MRP in S/4HANA with MRP Live: planning scope (plants, materials, product groups), performance on HANA, planning file and net change, what happens with materials not planned in HANA, logs and performance checks, and how MD01N replaces classic mass runs.
• MM MRP Part 3: MRP Types, Lot Sizing, Safety Stock and Reorder PointChoose planning procedures per material: MRP types (PD MRP, VB/VM reorder point, VV forecast, ND no planning), lot-sizing procedures (EX, FX, HB, WB/MB periodic), rounding and minimum lot size, safety stock and range of coverage — and their effects on inventory and service level.
• MM MRP Part 4: Planning Time Fence, Firming and Procurement ProposalsStabilize near-term plans: firming of planned orders and requisitions (manual or by planning time fence), MRP types for time fences, creation indicators for PRs vs planned orders vs schedule lines, conversion of proposals, and how firming interacts with MRP runs.
• MM MRP Part 5: Troubleshooting MRP — Exception Messages, Dates, Sources and Missing ProposalsDiagnose MRP problems: no proposal created, wrong quantity or dates, proposals from the wrong source, excessive proposals, and how to read exception messages (reschedule in/out, cancel, start date in past) — with a master data first analysis path.

Interview questions covered

• During hypercare after go-live, production planners report that a custom extension field added to the purchase requisition (used to trigger a PP-MRP relevant flag) is not being picked up in MRP runs, though it displays correctly on the PR screen. How do you troubleshoot this integration issue involving extensibility and PP?
• How would you apply Material Requirements Planning in a real SAP project? Walk through the design or implementation approach.
• A production issue is reported in Material Requirements Planning. What would you check first, and how would you troubleshoot it systematically?
• What are the most important design decisions, trade-offs, and best practices in Material Requirements Planning?
• Suppose you inherit an existing Material Requirements Planning solution. How would you review it before making a change?
• Suppliers complain that requisitions and schedule lines change daily in the near term. How do you stabilize the plan?
• Planners report missing proposals, wrong dates and wrong suppliers from MRP. How do you troubleshoot systematically?
• Explain how MRP calculates a purchase requisition for an externally procured material.
• After moving to S/4HANA, the nightly MRP job takes too long and some materials behave differently. How do you optimize MRP Live?
• Inventory is high for cheap items and shortages occur for critical ones. How do you set MRP types and lot sizes?

Related topics

Interview questions on this topic

• SAP MM / P2P Material Requirements Planning interview questions
• SAP MM / P2P interview questions