The spare bearing nobody can order
What the user reports
Monday 2 November at Rockford. The aftermarket team sold 40 spare bearings to distributors and asked the buyer to order them from Ridgeline Bearing Supply at 64.00 each. The master data team created the bearing last week. The purchase order is refused.
The error: Purchase order for 40 CP-BRG6310 refused: CP-BRG6310 has no plant data for CP11.
What you'll do
- See the problem as the buyer: On Purchase orders, create a purchase order for supplier 20000003 Ridgeline, purchasing organization PUUS, group P01: 40
CP-BRG6310for plant CP11 at 64.00. - Find the cause: The bearing shows on Materials, and Ridgeline is set up for CP10 and PUUS. What is missing?
- Fix it as the master data specialist.
- Prove it: run the step that failed again.
The drill runs in the lab on its own prepared copy of the fictional Calder Pumpworks, saved in this browser apart from your company. All codes and values are fictional course labels.
Answer and explanation (open after the drill)
The fix: The bearing's plant data for CP11: how it is procured, planned and stored there.
A material has general data (what it is) and plant data for each plant that uses it (bought or made, how it's planned, delivery time, where it's stored). A purchase order item for CP11 needs the CP11 layer, and the bearing has none. The price is typed on this order, so no info record is needed yet, and a standard price matters at goods receipt, not here.
Why it broke
Creating a material and extending it to a plant are separate steps, often done by different people on different days. Until the plant layer exists, the plant can't buy, plan, receive or store the material. Planning type and delivery time belong to this layer too, so a material without it is also invisible to MRP in that plant: no shortage would ever have been proposed for it.
How teams prevent it
Create a new material from a request that names every plant and organization it needs, and close the request only when each layer exists. A daily list of materials with general data but no plant data catches the ones that slip through. For a spare part, decide how it is planned when it is extended (here by MRP from the distributors' demand) and write down why.
Across teams
The aftermarket team sold the bearings, the buyer hit the error, and the gap sits in master data. Each team saw its own part as done. An end-to-end check (can this material be sold, bought, planned and received in every place it will be used?) is the cross-team view that finds it.
Where AI fits
Finding materials with missing layers is plain automation. Where an assistant adds value is the proposal: drafting the plant data from similar materials (the impeller and seal kit are bought, planned by MRP, stored in RM01) for the master data specialist to review (retrieve, then a person decides). Planning values copied without thought are a common source of later MRP exceptions.
Learn more: Master data that every module depends on