Unit of Measure

Purpose of document

This document is intended to serve as a guideline for creation of a new unit of measure and its related issues.

Introduction: Unit of Measure 

Definition - Unit of Measure is the criterion based on which you measure the quantity of the material. Unit of measure is a value for a physical size.

Examples:

• Length dimension includes meter, centimeter and inch

• Time dimension includes second, minute and hour

There are 4 different Unit of Measures used

1. Base Unit of Measure: This is the unit of measure in which the stocks of a material are managed. The system converts all quantities entered in other units to the base unit of measure. All material postings will occur with respect to base unit of measure.
2. Sales Unit of Measure: Allows a material to be sold in a unit differing from the base unit of measure. The sales unit is proposed automatically in the sales order, where it can be changed.
3. (Purchase)Ordering Unit of Measure: Allows a material to be purchase in a unit differing from the base unit of measure. The purchase order unit is proposed automatically in a purchase order, where it can be changed.
4. Unit of Issue: Unit of measure in which the material is issued from the warehouse. It allows consumption, stock transfers, transfer postings, and physical inventories to be recorded in a unit differing from the base unit of measure.

These UoM's are linked with each other for every material by conversation table which is explained below in section - IV-alternative unit of measure 

I. Creation of Unit of Measure

Unit of measure can be created using transaction CUNI (SPRO-> SAP Net Weaver-> General Settings ->Check units of measurement).

Units of measurement are held centrally in the SAP R/3 System for all applications. It's a onetime creation during the project phase and it used across all modules.

Creation/change of new unit of measure is a Global Impact change in the system.

Go to CUNI transaction


  1. Decide under which dimension unit has to be created:

There are seven base dimensions, to which all other dimensions can be traced: Length, weight, time, electrical current, temperature, molecular mass and brightness.

Whenever unit of measurement is to be created first decide to which dimension it belongs to or otherwise UOM is created under no dimensions. Dimension helps us to group the UOMs. System will allow to create business specific dimensions but always it is advisable to create UOM under the above 7 dimensions.
  

2. Decide which ISO code should be assigned to the unit:

An ISO code can be assigned to several internal measurement units.

The ISO code is important for Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). It is used for converting the SAP-internal units of measurement into standard units of measurement. Converting the internal units of measurement into the ISO code is required for exchanging data using EDI. So it is always advised to assign ISO code to UOM. A list of the current international ISO codes for units of measurement is available on the Internet at:

http://www.unece.org/etrades/codesindex.htm

Business specific ISO codes can be created in the system if not available in the system and assigned to UOM.


3.Select the particular dimension under which you want create the unit as shown below

Ex:TIME

4. Select TIME and then click on Units of measurement All other units under the dimension TIME is defined with respect to S (second).S is the SI unit in this dimension

5. Click on create button

6. Maintain the details like Measurement text, commercial name and technical name.

7. Maintain the conversion factor with respect to SI unit. For example here In H unit of measure, conversion is defined with respect to S second.

I.e. 1 H = 3600 sec

8. Maintain the decimal places (up to which decimal value should display) and decimal place rounding (up to which the value should be rounded off)

9. Maintain the tick for commercial unit check box if that unit is used commercially. It will make this unit get displayed in F4 help for unit of measure.

10. Maintain the tick for Value based check box if that unit will be derived based on value. If it is based on quantity, check box should not have a tick.

10. Select the ISO code for the unit and maintain Tick for primary code if that is primary unit for the ISO code.

If the same ISO code is used for more than one unit of measure, you can only flag one unit of measure as a primary unit for one ISO code. Rest of unit of measure will be the secondary unit for this ISO code.

11. Save.

12. Maintain UOM in different languages by logging to the system with different logon language 

Customizing of UOM in SAP is basically stored in two tables:

T006 - Language Independent attributes

T006A - language dépendent attributes + description 

II.     Change in the Unit of Measure:

 Changes in the unit of measure may be for

1.       Change in commercial name

2.       Change in Technical name

3.       Change in Measurement text

4.       Assignment of ISO code/changing ISO code

5.       Change in Decimal Place Rounding.

6.       UOM not maintained in other languages(create UOM in login language) 

As Unit of measurement is held centrally in the SAP R/3 System for all applications, any change will have impact in all modules.

III.  Deletion of Unit of Measure:

Deletion of unit of measure is not advisable as it used centrally in all applications.

Instead of deleting Unit of measure, In CUNI transaction Commercial measuring unit tick is removed so that it will not be displayed in F4 search help for UOM and also whenever it is used in any transaction it will give an Error as "unit is not defined as commercial unit"(SAP always go by commercial name)  

Example: "HR" unit with commercial measuring unit ticked in CUNI transaction

Go to MM02, in sales view check search help (F4) in sales unit field for HR with search criteria H*,you will find the Unit" HR"  

 Go to CUNI transaction and remove the tick of commercial measuring unit Go to MM02, in sales view check search help (F4) in sales unit field for HR with search criteria H* ,here you will not find the unit "HR"  .Try to maintain HR unit directly in Sales unit field ,system will throw the error.



    

IV.  Alternative Unit of Measure:

Individual departments may have their own units of measure. For example, Purchasing may use a different unit than Sales and production may issue a material which is different than the base unit of measure. All units of measure other than the base unit of measure are referred to as alternative units of measure.

Base unit of measure

It is defined in Basic data view in material master. All other units defined, conversion should be maintained with respect to unit of measure in Material master additional data.

Base unit of measure once defined and processed cannot be changed to other unit of measure.

Purchase Order unit

It is defined in purchasing view of material master.

Sales unit

It is defined in sales view of material master.

Unit of issue
It is defined in work scheduling view of the material master.

Alternate unit of measure conversion is maintained with respect to base unit of measure in additional data of material master

All these conversion can be obtained from the table MARM