Customer requests are becoming more and more individual. Complex variants are in demand in place of off-the-shelf solutions. At the same time, orders need to be executed promptly and at prices similar to mass production, starting from batch size 1.
There are software solutions for variant configuration available to ensure you are able to do justice to this apparent contradiction. They ensure maximum efficiency in production even with the smallest order quantities. Individual customer inquiries for special variants can thus be answered precisely. Employees can quickly find out which prices, expenses, materials and profit opportunities are associated with a product variant using variant configuration.
The SAP Variant Configuration (SAP VC) has always been available as a separate solution for SAP landscapes. It supports the development of so-called configurable products in order to simplify handling in production and sales. With the introduction of SAP S/4HANA, SAP is providing a new solution with SAP Advanced Variant Configuration (SAP AVC), which has many innovations. For example, it offers optimizations in the area of relationship knowledge, a completely new Fiori interface for feature evaluation and the first options to directly create material variants.
top VC is an add-on for SAP ERP and SAP S/4 HANA that offers great benefits for variant configuration. Like top MES and top xRM, it can also be integrated into both ERP systems without interfaces. As an outspoken specialist for industries of variant-rich production and procurement, top flow has developed the top VC software, a unique product based on the SAP variant configuration.
Using top VC, the persons responsible can manage a range of different products in daily business without major effort and create individual offers for product variants in a matter of seconds. top VC combines SAP variant configuration with the option of generating master data ready for series production at the push of a button. As a result, processes can be started with both individual customer production and anonymous production.
The starting point of the variant engine from top VC is the sales document line with configuration. It is now possible to trigger the start of the variant engine – either manually or in the background – and thus also a multi-stage system for material variants. The software solution also offers automated follow-up processing when creating a new variant, such as calculations, pricing systems, master data in purchasing. Manual activities are eliminated, at the same time, the data quality of the generated master data increases.
These follow-up processes are also possible with SAP AVC, i.e. SAP generates the material variant when it jumps back from the configuration, which is then immediately extended by the additional steps defined in top VC (see below).
Certain activities can be supported by customizing using top flow variant configuration:
All company departments can benefit from the consistent use of material variants – from sales to purchasing and service to production and manufacturing. The material variants that are generated help to ensure that the information chain is seamless and always up to date.
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