Business Unit Specific Material Group Classification

Introduction

The topic is about having specific Material Groups (MG) for each Business Unit (BU) of a company, as the materials a company sells in different divisions, are different from each other. As an example, in one division of a company, there might be only plastics as Material Group, whereas in other division of the same company, there is only drinks as Material Groups and not plastics.

Settings

The BU Specific MG Classification settings is manageable through:

• Backoffice> Master Data>> Material Groups (which is the standard MG admin page)

In the main page, which is called “Material Group Management”, the dropdown on the top shows the “Corporate Business Unit” and contains all the BUs. In the internal systems of SynerTrade, the corporate is SynerTrade and for the customers that would be the name of the company. In “Material Group Management” main page, the "Corporate MG List" is visible, which includes all the MGs in the system.

How to know if the selected BU already has a MG classification?

By choosing a BU from the dropdown, the user sees another list, which is similar to the "Corporate MG List". If the number of MGs available are less than the MGs in Corporate MG List, then it is obvious that this BU already has MG elements, otherwise it would show all the MGs in the system. Moreover, there should be no “Create Business Unit Tree” button on the action bar. If the user chooses a business unit and sees a page similar to Corporate MG List with the exact records plus having the button "Create Business Unit Tree" on the action bar, it indicates that this BU does not have any MG elements.

Creation of a MG List

When "Create Business Unit Tree" is clicked, the user goes to the MG setting page. By “Back to overview” the user sees the newly created MG List, which is exactly similar to the Corporate MG List. Once a tree is created, the user can implement many actions to the MG list, by having single or multiple selection of the MGs. These actions are the same that exists in the Corporate MG List. If the user wants to create a new MG inside this list, it is possible by clicking on “New” on the action bar. The important thing is to set a new name for the new MG. Otherwise the name would be “new material group”, which would not be distinguishable. Naming can be done under “Definition and Management” tab and then the user should map it to the Corporate MG List. The mapping functionality is explained precisely in the next section.

Mapping MG Tree to the Corporate MG Tree

Every time a new MG is created for a specific BU, the user should map (refer) it to an existing MG. To be more precise, if the user creates a list and adds a new MG to it, then this new MG would not exist in "Corporate MG List". So the new MG should be mapped to another existing MG, because in the end the corporate needs reporting from Business Unit Specific MG Classifications. Each new MG can be mapped only to one existing MG.

To do this, the user should click on the new MG and then will go to a new page with all the settings for each MG. There are two important tabs in this page:

• Contacts User: All the contacts, which are assigned to the selected MG, are visible in this page. Contacts can be added from here to the MG or from the "Contacts" app can be assigned to the MG. When the user map a sub-element MG to the parent MG, the contacts need to be manually inserted into the sub-element MG.

• Definition and Management: when a new MG is added to a tree, the user should map it to the most relevant MG from the field “Mapping MG Corporate Tree” to have an accurate reporting on the corporate level.

Material Group Tree Settings in the Backoffice

After doing this management, the user can set the MG elements ornament as a tree and this would be visible in the Frontoffice. This setting is manageable through:

• Backoffice> Tender or Auction or Contract> General >> The BU Trees Setting

The user can select between "Client Tree" and "Specific BU Tree".

BU Specific MG Classification in the Frontoffice

When the setting for having the tree is selected, the material group is viewed as a tree with lots of branches. The shape of the MG tree depends on the MG elements.
In case of "Client Tree" selection in the Backoffice, the corporate MG tree, regardless of the project BU, and in case of "Specific BU Tree" selection, the MG tree of the selected BU in the project will be visible.

Companies use of BU Specific MG Tree

Currently, some companies that are using this functionality are:

• Lufthansa
• Promena
• Markant
• Somfy
• Windeln