Introduction

In SAP Digital Manufacturing, Data Fields and Data Types can be used to enhance manufacturing processes by improving traceability, by collecting and storing custom attribute values during the manufacturing process. Once Data Fields and Data Types are created, they can be configured in Manage Materials app, to be collected during relevant production processes steps like component assembly or floor stock receipt, for example.

In addition to that, a little known custom field configuration is available in Order POD Goods Receipt plugin, to collect a custom attribute value during Goods Receipt posting.

In this blog, I will show in detail some very specific ways of using those custom attributes during Inventory ID handling and Goods Receipt posting, that can be very useful to enhance the overall traceability strategy.

Data to Collect on Floor Stock Receipt

This functionality is used to store additional information for inventory management purposes.

After ‘Data to Collect on Floor Stock Receipt‘ mapping is done to a Data Type in Manage Materials app:

you can maintain values for the the Inventory ID data fields assigned to the data type specified for the material through the PATCH /inventories/{inventoryId} API:

or via Production Process:

* Before updating the Inventory ID, first you must read it as shown above, to retrieve modifiedDateTime value, which is a required input in order to update it.

Once Inventory ID data is updated, it looks like this:

You can also maintain these values by manually editing the Inventory ID itself, directly via Manage Floor Stock app.

Enrich Manage Floor Stock app to display Data Fields as Filters and Results

In Manage Business Settings app > Inventories section, you can adjust ‘Display Data Fields‘ setting to include up to 4 Data Fields:

These Data Fields will then be added as options to Manage Floor Stock app filters and results.

To display them, in Manage Floor Stocks app, click ‘Adapt Filters‘ and select the Data Field(s) to enable them as filters:

Click ‘Table Settings' and select the Data Field(s), to add them as columns to the results table:

This will allow filtering and viewing the Data Field values:

Custom Field during Goods Receipt Posting in Order POD

For Order POD Goods Receipt plugin, in both POD 1.0 and POD 2.0, you can define a Custom Field as shown above, that will be displayed during goods receipt posting and can be viewed when clicking on ‘Postings‘ button, within Goods Receipt plugin itself, or retrieved via /quantityConfirmation/v1/postings API.

Setup in POD Designer (for POD 1.0):

Setup in Manage PODs 2.0 (for POD 2.0):

Results in POD 1.0

Results in POD 2.0

Besides ‘Postings', the Goods Receipt Custom Field value can also be retrieved via /quantityConfirmation/v1/postings API.

Keep in mind that, the Data to Collect on Floor Stock Receipt strategy shown above is related to Inventory IDs, and the Order POD Goods Receipt Custom Field strategy to Goods Receipt postings, and they are not connected to each other. However, out of the box capabilities like Automatic Triggers, Production Processes and API calls, together with POD custom developments or custom extensions can be evaluated to further enhance these capabilities and their impact on the overall traceability strategy.

Conclusion

Data Fields and Data Types provide a flexible foundation for extending standard SAP Digital Manufacturing processes with customer-specific traceability information. As demonstrated in this blog, they can be leveraged to enrich Inventory IDs with additional attributes that support inventory management and floor stock traceability. In addition, a Custom Field can be used to capture additional contextual information during Goods Receipt posting in Order POD.

While these capabilities address different business objects and are maintained independently, they open interesting possibilities for creating more comprehensive traceability strategies across manufacturing operations. By combining standard capabilities such as Production Processes, Automatic Triggers, APIs, and custom extensions, organizations can further automate the collection, synchronization, and collection of critical manufacturing and traceability data.

Understanding and leveraging these lesser-known configuration options can help improve visibility, reporting, compliance, and operational decision-making, while maximizing the value of the traceability data captured throughout the production lifecycle.

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If you have any questions, please check SAP Community Q&A Area, or comment down below.

Thanks,
Manoel Costa