Basel, CH – October 2023
Determination Applications
In today’s food industry, accurate data management is critical. A key challenge faced by companies in this sector is to store and effectively manage extensive master data at various levels – be it plant, terminal or application dependent – so that it can be retrieved at the appropriate time. The determination applications were developed for this purpose.
The access sequences for determinations determine the order in which differently characterized search accesses to master data records of a determination procedure are checked, whereby the field group with the most search criteria is searched first, the one with the least last.
Each master data record or determination data record is provided with a time interval for which it is exclusively valid. If you access the determination record with a date outside the defined time interval, no result will be output.
Within the scope of a determination procedure, the accesses (field groups) with different characteristics are arranged in a sequence. An access (field group) consists of at least one key (field), e.g. the plant. The first valid determination record in the determination procedure is searched for on the basis of the field group. The field group sequence of the determination procedure is searched sequentially in descending order when searching for a valid determination record. Since the field groups are searched sequentially from top to bottom, the field group with the most search criteria (fields) must be first in the sequence in the determination procedure. The access (field group) with the fewest search criteria must be at the last position in the sequence of the determination procedure.
If you have experience in pricing in S/4HANA, you are most likely familiar with access sequences. The determination procedure, an essential part of the determination applications, works in an analogous way.
Schematic structure of a determination application and a determination schema
Here the calling process works its way through from top to bottom. If a data record is found at level 10, it is returned. If not, a suitable entry is searched for at level 20, and if nothing is found there again, at level 30.
In the following example, the appropriate label layout is determined on a terminal and then printed.
Determination records on the level – sequence 10
|
Plant |
Terminal |
Storage location |
From date |
To date |
Label |
|
1710 |
1710_FP_01 |
1000 |
01.01.2023 |
31.12.9999 |
1710_FP |
|
1710 |
1710_GR_01 |
1000 |
01.01.2023 |
31.12.9999 |
1710_GR |
Determination records on the level – sequence 20
|
Plant |
Terminal |
From date |
To date |
Label |
|
1710 |
1710_DA_01 |
01.01.2023 |
31.12.9999 |
1710_FP |
|
1710 |
1710_SL_01 |
01.01.2023 |
31.12.9999 |
1710_GR |
Determination records on the level – sequence 30
|
Plant |
From date |
To date |
Label |
|
1710 |
01.01.2023 |
31.12.9999 |
1710_GENERAL |
If you make an entry in plant 1710 on terminal 1710_GR_01 at storage location 2000, the system will print label 1710_GENERAL because there is no matching entry at any other level. If you then select storage location 1000, the system will print label 1710_GR because a record exists on sequence 10.
From a technical point of view, the determination applications are “generated”. The determination application gets a name, the input and output fields as well as the sequences are defined, and the tables and relevant functions are created more or less automatically. This does not require any technical knowledge!
Determination applications have a wide range of areas of application and can also be easily integrated into the DPS-RAF shopfloor templates. In customer projects where a large number of stock types have to be implemented, determination applications are used, among other things, to switch the functionalities on and off on the terminal. This means that the same application can be used for beef, pork, sheep, chicken, turkey or other products, as the terminals can be parameterized via the master data.
If this article has piqued your interest, please do not hesitate to contact Stephan Kronbichler (Business Development) for further information E-mail, phone +41 (0)61 508 21 42.