The SAP for Mill Products solution portfolio delivers the best-run business applications tailored to the cable and wire industry for optimizing logistics business processes. Production and inventory processes must distinguish between standard and variable cable and wire lengths. Sales orders include quantity, length, packaging, and quality data. Variable market prices for copper or aluminum influence cable prices. The industry requires software that enables these factors in supply chain management.

SAP for Mill Products includes the SAP ERP application for length-based logistic processes and SAP Supply Chain Management (SAP SCM) for material requirements planning. Scalable to changing business process requirements, SAP for Mill Products supports these key functional areas:

• Length handling – Traces cables, wires, and other length-based materials throughout the entire logistics cycle. This ensures a complete, up-to-date view of current inventory, replenishment, and demand.
• Product variations – Maintains different product variants such as length and quality or the same material – keeping the volume of master data low. You can plan on the basis of variable or standard lengths.
• Length optimization in material requirements planning (MRP) – Helps you deliver optimal, real-time allocation of requirements – such as length-based items in sales orders – to available stock and production.
• Cutting processes – Allocates stock to requirements and minimizes cable cutting using MRP functionality. Triggers physical cutting during outbound delivery creation with automatic updates.
• Length calculation – Considers production related data using length-based MRP, based on parameters in bill of materials and routings to calculate length to optimize reel capacity. Defines length-based allowances on all levels to enable stranding, lead-in and lead-out loss, and quality control.
• Reel determination and management – Determines automatically a suitable reel for a particular product of a given length. Assigns unique identification numbers to reels for tracing through the entire logistical cycle. You can also process returnable or rental reels and manage rental fees.
• Cable tracing – Records automatically all movements of materials and components procured internally or externally and used in production. Traces the makeup and configuration of a cable from delivery back to procurement of components.
• Nonferrous metal pricing – Uses different price strategies to calculate sales prices based on current exchange prices for nonferrous metals, such as copper or aluminum. Large amounts of capital are tied to these metals, whose prices are subject to daily fluctuation.