IMM Indirect Material Management
Data classification: GM_Confidential
Domain: Finance Data Engineering - Indirect Material Management / OTD-RTP Analytics
Application / data product ID: 171513 - Indirect Material Management (IMM)
Primary business capability: Indirect material request, procurement, inventory, crib, repair, and compliance analytics
Catalog schema: finance_prod.gold_indirect_material_gbl
Overview
IMM (Indirect Material Management) is GM's data and reporting foundation for managing indirect materials and related services across the lifecycle of request, receipt, storage, disbursement, replenishment, purchasing, payment, inventory control, crib operations, repair handling, and disposition.
Indirect materials are the non-production materials that support GM operations but do not become part of a finished vehicle, such as PPE, cleaning supplies, perishable tools, stocked maintenance items, repairable parts, and other operational supplies. IMM helps business teams understand how those materials are requested, purchased, stocked, issued, moved, repaired, and controlled.
The IMM application curates and transforms material, inventory, purchasing, usage, repairable-part, and spend data into reporting views that help GM manage plant indirect material inventory. Current training material describes IMM as supporting plant-designated critical operational items and gives historical scale markers of 68 plants, 3 corporate Share the Spare / distribution sites, approximately 509,000 unique materials, and roughly $810M annual spend / $809M inventory value at the time those metrics were gathered.
IMM is designed to answer practical business questions such as:
- What indirect materials are being requested, purchased, stocked, issued, transferred, scrapped, or repaired?
- Which plants, storage locations, point-of-use areas, cost objects, or material groups are driving demand?
- Where are there delays or exceptions in the reservation, requisition, purchase order, contract, or buyer-resolution process?
- Are purchases and payments aligned with GM policy, including pre-commitment, receipt, approval, and invoice controls?
- Which items are excess, obsolete, high-theft, repaired, or otherwise require inventory and accountability attention?
- Do inventory levels need to be adjusted to reduce shortages, overages, or avoidable future purchases?
- How is current SAP/S4 and FinCore migration work affecting IMM downstream reporting and support readiness?
At a business level, IMM supports operational continuity. Plants and support organizations need the right indirect material available at the right time, with enough financial and policy control to protect GM from poor purchasing, inventory, payment, and compliance outcomes.
Key benefits
Indirect material management is a high-volume operating process that touches requestors, planners, buyers, crib attendants, maintenance teams, finance users, and compliance stakeholders. A single item can move through reservation, requisition, purchase order, goods receipt, storage, issue, repair, transfer, scrapping, or disposition steps before the business question is resolved.
IMM reduces fragmentation by bringing those activities into a common Finance Data Engineering data product. It supports reporting, migration, reconciliation, operational analytics, support readiness, and policy monitoring for indirect material processes that otherwise span SAP, S/4 HANA, Fiori, purchasing workflows, Finance reporting zones, and user-maintained reference data.
The most common business themes are:
| Theme | Typical questions |
|---|---|
| Material availability | Which indirect materials are available, low, excess, obsolete, or pending replenishment? |
| Request and requisition flow | Which reservations, shopping carts, purchase requisitions, or purchase orders are open, delayed, corrected, or cancelled? |
| Crib and storage operations | What material is being issued, returned, transferred, scrapped, or moved between storage locations and points of use? |
| Purchasing and buyer resolution | Which requests require buyer action, contract decisions, emergency handling, or 7RP clarification? |
| Repair and warranty administration | Which repairable parts or WRA-related items are moving through repair, supplier, or return processes? |
| Compliance and control | Where do pre-commitment, PO-for-every-invoice, receipt, approval, segregation-of-duty, or high-theft-material risks need attention? |
| Inventory optimization | Which plants can reduce excess stock, avoid future purchases, or increase stocking where shortage risk is emerging? |
| Share the Spare / distribution center optimization | Which parts are candidates for central stocking or sharing based on plant count, usage rate, cost, MRP values, and lead time? |
| Source modernization | Which IMM flows are affected by SAP, S/4 HANA, FinCore, and cloud migration work? |
Who uses it
| Team / persona | How they use IMM |
|---|---|
| Plant requestors and area controllers | Request indirect materials, create reservations, track fulfillment, and confirm material need |
| IMM planners and controllers | Monitor demand, stock levels, replenishment, cycle count activity, and material availability |
| Crib attendants and warehouse users | Execute goods issue, return, transfer, storage, scrapping, receiving, and point-of-use transactions |
| Buyers and indirect purchasing teams | Resolve requisitions, contracts, supplier questions, 7RP exceptions, and emergency purchasing paths |
| Maintenance, PDM, GBS, and WRA teams | Manage repairable parts, warranty/repair administration, supplier repair flows, and related logistics |
| Finance and compliance stakeholders | Review spend, receipt, payment, pre-commitment, policy, and inventory-control reporting |
| GPSC Strategy and Innovation / Corporate Services | Use IMM metrics, recommendations, and reporting to guide indirect material operations and transformation decisions |
| Plant cost councils and plant leadership | Review plant spend, account-class cost drivers, open PO exposure, stocking decisions, and inventory optimization opportunities |
Core business scope
IMM organizes indirect material data around the operational lifecycle from request through disposition.
| Subject | What it captures |
|---|---|
| Material and catalog reference | Indirect material identifiers, common codes, Kardex-style local records, repairable parts, plant-material relationships, and material classification context |
| Demand and request | Shopping carts, reservations, purchase requisitions, material need, reorder signals, emergency requests, and requestor context |
| Procurement execution | Purchase orders, contracts, buyer handoffs, 7RP resolution, supplier selection, and purchasing workflow status |
| Inventory and storage | Balance on hand, storage location, point of use, stock movements, goods issue, returns, transfers, scrapping, and cycle count activity |
| Financial and cost object context | Cost centers, WBS, internal orders, CONEX concepts, valuation areas, account classification, and controlled-expense context |
| Receipt, invoice, and payment controls | Material receipt, invoice verification, PO alignment, payment authorization, and policy compliance signals |
| Repair and disposition | WRA / repairable part activity, excess and obsolete handling, bailment, miscellaneous shipping, and material disposition |
| Migration and support context | SAP, S/4 HANA, FinCore, user-maintained file, Databricks, and reporting-zone modernization work |
Source systems by business subject
IMM combines SAP-centered operational data, Finance source modernization assets, and user-maintained reference data.
| Subject area | Key source patterns |
|---|---|
| Core IMM operations | SAP PE0 / S/4 HANA material management transactions for reservations, requisitions, purchasing, goods movement, storage, and receiving |
| Material master | SAP material master patterns such as MARA, MARC, MARD, and related plant/material master data used for stocking, planning, and storage-location reporting |
| Crib and point-of-use activity | Fiori and tablet-scanning flows used by crib attendants for issue, return, transfer, and scrapping activity |
| Procurement and buyer workflow | SAP and Ariba purchase requisition, purchase order, contract, buyer-resolution, 7RP, emergency purchasing, and related Z-process patterns, including source families such as EKKO, EKPO, and EBAN |
| Pricing and stocking | SAP pricing, valuation, stocking, and usage sources such as MBEW, S032, S031, material documents, and physical inventory documents |
| Kanban and point of use | Kanban / POU source patterns such as PKHD, PKCH, control cycles, control-cycle items, and related point-of-use turns data |
| DCC part detail | DCC part and plant designation sources used for current program and plant designation detail reporting |
| MAXIMO work orders | MAXIMO work order sources used for repair, maintenance, lost-opportunity, and work-order detail reporting |
| Finance source modernization | FinCore sourcing and integrated-core tables used in current migration and downstream testing |
| Repair and warranty administration | WRA and GBS-related repair, supplier, shipping, and return flows for repairable indirect material |
| Reference and exception data | User-maintained files and reference tables for plant codes, cost-center exceptions, plant material, repairable parts, legacy usage, and related reporting rules |
Business measures and rules
IMM reporting is most useful when the user is clear about the lifecycle stage being analyzed. A material request, purchase requisition, purchase order, goods receipt, stock movement, invoice, and payment do not all answer the same question.
| Measure / rule | Business meaning |
|---|---|
| Balance on hand | Inventory quantity available for an indirect material at a plant, storage location, or point of use |
| Minimum / maximum / reorder logic | Replenishment controls used to trigger or guide restocking decisions |
| Reservation and requisition aging | Open demand that may require IMM planner, buyer, requestor, or approval follow-up |
| 7RP exception flow | Clarification path between requestor and buyer when technical, economic, contract, or requisition details need correction |
| PO-for-every-invoice control | Policy expectation that invoices are supported by appropriate purchasing authorization |
| Pre-commitment | Risk pattern where goods or services are ordered, delivered, started, or invoiced before purchasing is properly involved |
| Receipt and invoice verification | Controls used to confirm material or service receipt before payment activity proceeds |
| Excess and obsolete material | Stock that is above business need, no longer required, expired, or otherwise eligible for disposition review |
| Repairable material handling | Repairable parts and warranty/repair administration activity that may move through supplier repair, return, and logistics flows |
When comparing totals, confirm whether the report is showing requested quantity, ordered quantity, received quantity, inventory quantity, issued quantity, invoice amount, or payment amount. IMM questions often cross operational and financial grains.
Reporting and analytics interfaces
IMM is exposed through business and engineering surfaces that serve different audiences.
| Interface | View of the data | Primary use cases |
|---|---|---|
| SAP / S/4 HANA / Fiori | Transactional process entry and operational status | Reservations, requisitions, purchase orders, goods movements, storage, receiving, and crib activity |
| Tablet scanning and crib workflows | Shop-floor execution layer for material movement | Goods issue, return, transfer, scrapping, and point-of-use support |
| Finance reporting-zone assets | Curated reporting data for indirect material analytics | Standardized reporting, migration support, data quality, reconciliation, and downstream publishing |
| Power BI reporting layer | Business dashboards built on gold-layer IMM reporting assets | Monthly metrics, MRP recommendations, SLOC and POU recommendations, purchase order analysis, PR-to-PO conversion, open commitments, cycle count, Share the Spare, and shipping reporting |
| Cognos reporting layer | Packaged reporting for trained business users | Master Report and Material Master Exceptions reporting |
| Databricks / direct-query access | Technical exploration of curated IMM data | Advanced analytics, pipeline support, validation, and controlled data exploration |
| Finance360 and UMF-related workflows | Finance application and file-intake ecosystem connected to IMM reference and support processes | User-maintained reference intake, finance application support, and broader Finance modernization context |
| GitHub / Databricks Asset Bundles | Engineering implementation and deployment assets | Pipeline changes, job deployment, source migration, and support readiness |
Business users should usually start in the operational application, standard report, or Finance-facing experience that matches the question. Data engineers should use the curated gold schema before moving into lower-level source, integrated-core, or migration-specific tables.
Common IMM Power BI experiences include IMM Monthly Metrics, Global Open Commitments, Bulk Chemical and MRP Receipt Audit, Cycle Count Tracking, Excess Burn Through, New Part Setup, Part Stocking, Plant Analytics - Inventory, SLOC Recommendations, POU Recommendations, Trending Usage, Open PO Spend, PO Analysis, PO Risk Analysis, PR to PO Conversion Analysis, Supplier Spend Part Ordering Analysis, STS-DC Reports, and IMM Shipping Reports.
The Cognos Master Report uses plant-level MRP recommendation logic and is used today as an input to automation that updates MRP controller codes for shareable parts. The Material Master Exceptions report identifies SAP configuration exceptions at plant, storage-location, and valuation-type levels.
Finance360 relationship
IMM is part of the broader Finance Data Engineering ecosystem that supports Finance360 modernization, user-maintained file intake, application inventory, SRE readiness, and cloud migration. It is not only a stand-alone material-management data product; it also participates in Finance platform work that moves data products from legacy Hadoop and older Databricks patterns into governed Finance gold-layer and Databricks Asset Bundle deployments.
Finance360-related material identifies IMM reference intake for cost-center exceptions and related Finance360 project access patterns. Current Finance engineering reviews also list IMM among Finance applications and data products in scope for support readiness, PRR foundations, Databricks migration, and source modernization.
Downstream consumers
| Consumer | How IMM contributes |
|---|---|
| Plant and crib operations | Provides material availability, stock movement, storage location, and fulfillment context |
| Indirect purchasing and buyer teams | Provides requisition, purchase order, contract, 7RP, and supplier-resolution context |
| Maintenance / PDM / WRA processes | Provides repairable part, repair, warranty, supplier, and logistics context |
| Finance and compliance reporting | Provides policy, pre-commitment, receipt, invoice, payment, cost object, and controlled-expense context |
| IMM Power BI reporting | Provides monthly metrics, recommendations, purchasing, inventory, cycle count, Share the Spare, and shipping report datasets |
| IMM Cognos reporting | Provides Master Report and Material Master Exceptions reporting for plant-level MRP and SAP master-data exception review |
| Finance Data Engineering operations | Supports pipeline migration, source validation, reporting-zone publishing, DAB deployment, and SRE readiness |
| Finance360 / UMF processes | Supports selected user-maintained reference data and Finance application modernization patterns |
Security and access model
IMM is handled as a controlled enterprise Finance data product. Current engineering references show formal access, compliance, and governance considerations, including personal-data and export-control indicators on related engineering work. Business-side governance is anchored in GM indirect material, service, purchasing, receipt, invoice, and payment policies.
| Access pattern | Intended audience | Typical capability |
|---|---|---|
| Operational SAP / S/4 access | Requestors, planners, crib attendants, buyers, and plant users | Execute or review transactions allowed by business role and segregation-of-duty rules |
| Finance reporting access | Finance, compliance, and approved analytics users | Consume approved reporting outputs and indirect material metrics |
| Direct query / Databricks access | Finance Data Engineering, support, and approved technical users | Query curated IMM data for analytics, validation, migration, or support work |
| UMF writer / support access | Approved Finance360 or IMM support users | Maintain controlled reference or exception inputs used by IMM-related processes |
Getting access
Report access starts from the Finance360 access page.
- Open
https://gmone.gm.com/programs/finance/global/en/gm/home/finance360-get-access.html. - For What Do You Need Access To?, select Spend Analytics. For Which Type?, select IMM Reports.
- Select the report of interest.
- Follow the displayed steps to continue to the required myGMAccess request.
- Provide a business justification that explains the indirect material analysis or reporting work being performed.
- After approval, validate access in the target reporting interface or dashboard.
For direct query access, use the IMM Indirect Material Management data product in Immuta: https://app.immutacloud.com/marketplace/data-product/ccf08688-8be6-4436-b78b-6251208712d5/details.
Current IMM operating references identify Brad Cromwell as program lead, Hayley Hui as engineering lead, and Ethan Pauwels as product lead. For current business, Finance IT, Finance Data Engineering, or support contacts, use the IMM Executive Summary, Finance SRE review material, current operating pages, and the Finance Data Engineering support channels.
Where the data lives
The Databricks gold serving layer is:
finance_prod.gold_indirect_material_gbl
This schema is the best starting point for curated IMM analysis in Databricks. It contains indirect material facts, reporting measures, plant-material reference, repairable-part reference, storage/location context, WBS and valuation reference, legacy usage, and user-maintained exception data used by the IMM reporting ecosystem.
Popular tables and views
These objects are the most active Databricks starting points in the IMM gold schema based on recent lineage activity. They are listed for orientation, not as a complete schema guide.
| Object | What it is used for |
|---|---|
mtl_doc_f | Material document fact for goods movements such as issue, receipt, transfer, return, and scrapping; use it when the question is about what physically moved, when, from which plant/storage location, and under which movement type. |
indr_plant_mtl_d | Plant-material dimension for the current planning view of an indirect material at a plant, including MRP controller/type, reorder point, max stock level, lot sizing, planned delivery time, and legacy-part context. |
u_pimr_plant_sctr | User-maintained plant-sector reference used to group plants by region, sector, parent plant, role type, and support contact; useful for aligning reporting to IMM operating ownership. |
indr_mtl_po_dtl_fs | Final purchase-order detail reporting table for indirect material, with PO number/item, supplier, plant, material, country/region, purchase dates, quantities, currencies, and line-level PO context. |
indr_mtl_anlyt_f | Core indirect material analytics fact for plant/material/storage-location analysis, combining balance on hand, moving average price, planned delivery time, MRP controller, usage class, inventory class, and average usage measures. |
indr_mtl_anlyt_fs | Final analytics reporting surface for material-sharing and inventory-health views, with plant/country stock counts, status indicators, repair-part flags, value class, MRP attributes, usage, and balance measures. |
indr_mtl_point_of_use_turns_fs | Final point-of-use turns reporting table for crib and point-of-use analysis, including control-cycle identifiers, storage location, material stock counts, status indicators, repair-part flags, and value-class context. |
plant_mtl | SAP plant-material base table for plant-level material status, deletion flags, purchasing group, batch management, issue unit of measure, and other master-data attributes. |
mtl_val_f | Material valuation fact for inventory value and pricing context, including valuation area/type, total stock, total value, moving average price, standard price, price control, and valuation class. |
mtl_stor_loc | Material storage-location table for unrestricted, transfer, quality inspection, restricted, and blocked stock quantities by material, plant, and storage location. |
point_of_use_turns_f | Point-of-use turns fact for control-cycle and turnover analysis, including prior 12-month usage, turnover rate, latest action type, supplier area, and year-by-year usage. |
u_imm_cost_ctr_excp | User-maintained cost-center exception reference by plant and cost-center prefix; use it when IMM cost-object logic or reporting exceptions need to be applied. |
u_pimr_reprable_parts_list | User-maintained repairable parts list that flags active repairable indirect materials; useful for WRA, repair, and shared-spare analysis. |
work_brkdn_strc_elmnt_mstr | WBS master reference for project/cost-object reporting, including WBS code, name, short description, plant, project manager, object number, and change dates. |
u_imm_tgt_vndr | User-maintained target-vendor reference for material/country reporting, including target vendor account, vendor name, vendor type, and exception type. |
mtl_rqmt_plng_area | Material requirements planning area table for MRP area, controller, group, type, reorder point, planning cycle, planning time fence, lot size, and planned order quantity context. |
phys_inv_doc_f | Physical inventory document fact for cycle count and inventory verification analysis by document, fiscal year, line, plant, material, storage location, batch, and stock type. |
u_imm_mtl_consol_lvl | User-maintained material consolidation reference for linking potential duplicate or related material numbers and tracking review, approval, and classification levels. |
indr_mtl_stor_loc_f | Indirect material storage-location fact for balance on hand, moving average price, planning area, MRP controller/type, reorder point, max stock level, and storage-location-level inventory status. |
plant_mtl_exc_f | Plant-material exception fact for data-quality and master-data follow-up, including missing MRP controller, wrong MRP type, missing material group, missing purchasing group, corrected purchasing group, zero-day lead time, and valuation-class count issues. |
mtl_stor_loc_exc_f | Material storage-location exception fact for storage-level cleanup, including no-bin balance, deleted-with-balance, not-reviewed balance, zero-day lead time, missing purchasing group, and wrong MRP type indicators. |
mtl_val_exc_f | Material valuation exception fact for valuation cleanup, including blank valuation class, moving-average-price issues, low-price balance on hand, and broken one-cent valuation patterns. |
ctrl_cycl_f | Control-cycle fact for Kanban and replenishment analysis, including control cycle number, Kanban quantity, container counts, production supply area, replenishment strategy, warehouse, storage type, and bin. |
val_area_d | Valuation area dimension for finance and inventory valuation context, including company code, valuation group, material ledger indicators, price determination settings, and valuation area controls. |
u_imm_zmade_cycl_cnt | User-maintained cycle-count reference for ZMADE material counts, including plant, material, storage location, valuation type, MRP type/area, balance on hand, last count date, and active flag. |
indr_mtl_anlyt_sts_f | Share the Spare fact perspective used to identify material sharing and availability opportunities across plants, storage locations, balances, usage, inventory classes, and planning attributes. |
chng_doc_f | Change document fact for audit and source-change investigations, including changed object, table, field, change type, changed-by user, change date/time, and transaction references. |
indr_mtl_po_sum_fs | Final purchase-order summary reporting table for indirect material, with supplier, plant, material, country/region, document counts, and PO quantity trends across current and prior years. |
plant_mtl_buyer_hier_d | Buyer hierarchy dimension for purchasing group rollups, including buyer country, workstream, commodity, buyer, manager, director, and executive hierarchy fields. |
usml_mtl_nbrs_sts_f | USML material-number status fact used to identify plant/material combinations with controlled or status-sensitive material-number handling. |
indr_mtl_prcrmt_req_mth_fs | Final monthly procurement request reporting table used to analyze indirect material requisition volume and trends. |
ovrdue_po_mth_fs | Final monthly overdue purchase-order reporting table used to identify delayed PO activity and aging patterns. |
Practical guidance for engineers
- Start with the operational process or report that matches the business question before writing custom SQL.
- Use the curated gold schema before moving into lower-level source, integrated-core, or migration-specific tables.
- Confirm whether the analysis is about demand, purchase authorization, receipt, inventory movement, invoice, payment, or repair activity before comparing measures.
- Keep plant, storage location, point of use, cost object, material group, and process-status filters visible when explaining results.
- Use lower-level tables only when investigating reconciliation, source migration, pipeline behavior, or data quality issues.
Getting started path
Work through these steps to become productive with IMM:
- Read the business overview, core scope, business rules, reporting interfaces, and popular-table guidance in this document.
- Review the Indirect Material and Service Policy so reporting questions are interpreted in the context of GM purchasing, receipt, inventory, disposition, and payment controls.
- Review the Indirect Material Management Reporting Overview deck for data flow, Power BI/Cognos report inventory, report purpose, and key input orientation.
- Review the IMM Executive Summary for current program status, migration context, roadmap, and named support leads.
- For operational workflows, review the S/4 HANA / Fiori crib-attendant training and region-specific IMM training material that matches the process being analyzed.
- Confirm application, report, or direct-query access through the appropriate business and Finance Data Engineering path.
- Start with approved reports, SAP/S4/Fiori process views, or curated
finance_prod.gold_indirect_material_gblobjects before using lower-level source data. - Move into source-aligned, integrated-core, or migration-specific assets only when investigating reconciliation, pipeline behavior, data quality, or source-system cutover questions.
Reference links
| Resource | URL |
|---|---|
| Indirect Material Management Reporting Overview | https://generalmotors.sharepoint.com/sites/msteams_16a9d6/Shared%20Documents/Project%20Areas/RTP/TRAININGS/Indirect%20Material%20Management%20Overview%2010022025.pptx?web=1 |
| IMM Executive Summary | https://gm-sdv.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SSPMO/pages/619091257 |
| Databricks gold schema | finance_prod.gold_indirect_material_gbl |