Article Hierarchy

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Agenda

Introduction to Article Hierarchy

Features of Article Hierarchy
Example of Article Hierarchy
Article Hierarchy in SAP
Uses of Article Hierarchy

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What is Article Hierarchy

Article hierarchy maintenance enables you to group your articles hierarchies
around the customer and the customers needs.
Article hierarchy is grouping of articles with sales oriented approach
Article hierarchy maintenance specifically supports the definition of a category
hierarchy that is used in Category Management.
The articles of a category should be similar or interchangeable.
Examples of criteria for defining different structure levels (for example,
subcategories, segments, sub segments) are different product forms
There are no restrictions as to the depth of an article hierarchy. However,
structure depth of a maximum of seven levels is recommended.

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Some of the features

SAP allows you to define several different article hierarchies at the same time.
You can define distribution chain-dependent article hierarchies. Articles can then
be assigned to several article hierarchies.
You can have hierarchies with time-dependent structure and article assignments.
You can define article hierarchies with multiple article assignments
Within an article hierarchy or a sub tree of the hierarchy it is possible to reassign
nodes for example, to reassign a subcategory to a category.
The maintenance of the article hierarchy can be controlled by the authorization
concept.
To support analysis and reporting for categories, it is possible to export the article
hierarchy to SAP BW.
It is possible for article hierarchy information to be sent to POS through the
assortment list idoc.
You can copy substructures from one article hierarchy to another article hierarchy.

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Merchandise Category Hierarchy VS Article

Hierarchy

Articles such as Iron Box, Ironing Board, Iron Board Cover & Wrinkle
Releaser Spray would be spread across several Merchandise Categories

However they can all be grouped under one Sub segment Ironing Needs in
an article hierarchy.

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Article Hierarchy example

Retail Company

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Article Hierarchy in Article Master

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Uses of Article Hierarchy

The following are some of the functions in which you can use the article hierarchy:
Open-to-buy
Planning
Reporting
Promotions
Article creation
Operational Assortment Planning and Control

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