I've been using the NAVY's implementation of SAP ERP. We procure 100's of thousands of materials. We ported our National Stock Numbers into ERP as a large portion of our material masters, and create new material masters daily for commercial off the shelf items as they are identified as needed. We have built a shadow system outside of ERP to deal with this problem:
End user (scientist, engineer, technician) with no access to ERP identifies the need for a #10 wood screw. He communicates this need to a procurement team on a post it note or an e-mail, or a paper form. The procurement team (with ERP access) then performs a number of functions. One person with Project System roles verifies and validates funding use. Another person with Materials Management knowledge attempts to find a Material Master in ERP for the wood screw, and if not then has a new Material Master created. Finally after the fund and material validation a third person has the PR Creator role and creates the PR manually with workflow that auto's to a PO.
I've dug around and cannot find a method to automate this process within ERP. Everything I find requires the Material Number to be known at the beginning step of the end user/requestor.
I would like to find a mechanism that would allow a clerk to take the post it notes and enter a "Request" for "#10 Wood Screws" paid for by "Project X". This is what the end user knows.
This "Request" could then be routed via workflow to the PS person and the Material person to collect and add what the end user does not know, but what the ERP people can know, finally resulting in a PR that can be work flowed.
Am I missing some understanding of ERP functionality that comes before PR creation that could address this? We are expending crazy resources building parallel systems outside of ERP to process a "Request" for "#10 Wood Screws" funded by "Project X" from an end user into Material=000000001017409248, WBS=OP-000484.01331 that a PR Creator can then enter into ERP.
The NAVY has a mind set that one person will do PS, a 2nd will do MM screening, a third will do PR Create, a 4th will execute the actual purchase with the vendor, a fifth will do Receipt/Acceptance and a sixth will do WM. Obviously if we trained a small cadre of people in all these roles they could take the post it note and do the whole thing in ERP, but with the ERP roles segregated to different groups we have to communicate outside of ERP between the groups until we lock down the Material number and the WBS.
Conceptually I need to create a PR unfunded with unknown material number, workflow it to PS, have PS team add the funding information, then workflow it to MM, have them add the material number, and finally workflow it for management approval to then auto PO.