Automatic Goods Movement Errors - importance of timely error management
“A plant running on SAP will go in to a tailspin at about one thousand COGI errors”
Say your factory assembles furniture. A specific work center always gets a table top, then a worker installs four table legs on it. SAP tracks a table top and each leg individually until they are all put together. The moment that table is fully assembled is when SAP adds the end item to factory inventory. System is usually set to automatically remove the assembly items (table top & four legs) at the same time it adds the finished good to the warehouse inventory. SAP lingo for this task is “backflushing”. In cases when manufacturing components are missing in SAP (for example, table top shows up at a work center but SAP is not aware of it because material handling clerk had a doctor’s appointment and wasn’t present to tell SAP) a goods movement error is silently sent to a COGI log (COntrolling Goods Issue). Purpose of this design is simple: system should not stop factory production. It should rather make a note of a problem so it can be resolved later.
And that is an example of how a COGI error gets created. Remember this logic is plant specific, each factory on a particular SAP instance has its own subset in the main error list.
Why is this important to consider? Because automatic goods movement errors are inevitable. It is perfectly normal for system users to take lunch breaks and attend doctor’s appointments. However, the COGI error list should be tended to timely. Acceptable number of errors generated per day will vary depending on the size or your enterprise. As a general rule, about one thousand COGI errors will cause significant performance issues at the facility running on SAP. It is critical that error resolution process is well-defined and implemented before a facility goes live on SAP.
Reach out if your enterprise needs help in this area.
Best, SAP10x
— Proverbs 19:21