Work Center in SAP

 

WORK CENTER

A Work Center can be a place or a machine or a labor where production operations/activities are performed. In SAP PP, Work Center is used in routing operations and production orders. Work centers also used in other applications (SAP modules) like Plant Maintenance, Project System, and Quality Management.

Work center is an organization unit where manufacturing activities are performed. In other words, Work Centers are the master data which represent real machines, Production Lines, Assembly Work Center, etc.

Work center can be an individual or a group of same resources (machines or labors etc.)

 

In production planning, data in work center can be used for the following operations:

1. Capacity Calculation

As you may know that Work centers are used in recipe/routing. So after the confirmations posted in process/production orders, the utilized capacity of a work center will be calculated as it was defined in recipe/routing as per the UOM (unit of measure). This capacity utilization can be seen/calculated in different transactions.

2. Scheduling of Operations/Orders

When a process/production order is created, system will automatically schedule the duration of an operation as per the order quantity. This calculation is based on the defined recipe/routing and the formulas which are entered in a work center.

3. Calculate Operation Costs

As we have got the utilization of a work center on the basis of postings in process/production orders, so the operation costs of this particular order will be calculated as per the defined formulas in this work center.

Let’s go to the procedure of creating a new work center in SAP.

Step 1:

Starting from ->SAP menu ->Logistics ->Production ->Master Data ->Work centers ->Work center ->Create

Or you can simply type the transaction code CR01.

1. Enter the Plant (on which you are going to create a new resource.
2. Enter the resource (you can define resource name as you want, here I am creating as “MACHINE1”)
3. Enter the resource category (it can be Machine, Labor, Production line etc.)

As we are creating a Work center for a machine, so we will choose “0001” as the resource category and press ENTER to go to the next screen.

Note: You can also copy a Work center, simply by providing a reference Work center code of the same type. It can spare your time and mostly things (which are common in an organization/Plant) will be auto filled.

Step 2:

Now we are going to fill the “Basic data” of our new Work center,

1. Define your Work center in description easily understandable to you and others.
2. Enter the person responsible defined for this work center. It can be an individual or a group of people or any particular department.
3. Enter the defined physical location number for this work center (if defined and required).
4. Enter the supply area (if defined and required).
5. Enter the shift type (if applicable). It can be 8hrs shift, Day/Night shift etc. as defined in your Plant.
6. Check mark on “Backflush” (if applicable).
7. Enter Standard value key (it contains different activity types used for standard cost calculation).

Step 3:

Go to the “Default values” tab,

1. Enter the Control Key.
2. Enter the other required fields if required.
3. Enter “Unit of Measurement of standard values (it can be HR/MIN/DAY etc.), your standard values can be:

• Direct Labor
• Variable Overhead
• Fixed Overhead
• Factory Overhead
• Utilities Overhead

Press ENTER.

Step 4:

Go to the “Capacities” tab,

1. Enter capacity category (here it is machine).
2. Enter the Processing formula. It is used to calculate the available capacity of Work Center.
3. After filling above details, click on the Capacity button below, it will get you to the next screen.

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4. Enter the capacity description.
5. Enter “Capacity responsible/ capacity planner group”, responsible for machine capacity.
6. Under “Available capacity” heading, fill up the below details,
• Factory calendar ID (region). Your regional calendar is listed with public holidays which helps the work center to exclude these day from available capacity.
• Active version (different versions of calendar may be available as per Plant needs).
• Capacity Base unit of measure (we’ve selected HR (hours) here).
7. Enter the time duration in which the work center will be operational, it will calculate the available capacity (in terms of time) for your work center. You can define breaks also.
8. Enter the capacity utilization, this number is basically percent of total capacity (available time*available days). Also enter Number of individual capacity (here it is a single machine).
9. Now, Planning details. Check mark “Relevant for finite scheduling and “Long term planning” which allows system to show capacity constraints (if available).
10. Press “Back” to exit this screen.

Step 5:

Go to the “Scheduling” tab,

1. Enter the capacity category, in this case it is machine (001). It is used in scheduling time in process/production orders.
2. Enter Processing formula as defined in your plant.

Press ENTER.

Step 6:

Go to the “Costing” tab,

1. Enter the Validity start and end dates. This work center will be non-functional after the end date.
2. Enter the cost center on which this work center will be costed.
3. Under Activities overview heading, you have already defined activity types in Step 3.3. Enter the defined formulas for activity costs calculation.

Click the SAVE button on your screen, and your work center has been created.

You can make changes in work center using transaction CRC2 and display in CRC3.