AMM - WIP, Replenishment, MRP All Rolled Into 1

Kinetic ERP
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Morning All,
Im slowly growing into Pull as assembly, its taking some convincing on moving the WIP but if we do use sub assembly, yes its making sense all round and we can really leverage the use of the system vs the Plan as assembly, also it helps with this issue im discussing in anothe topic: MRP looks like its not considering the BoM - #48 by Mitch_B

I am however a novice on the WIP Movements, what essentially we are trying to acheive is:
We have machinery that can cut thousands of parts automated, we want to cut these in Min lots, but in Multiples of so we can load 1 pack of material in, and get the rounding right at that machine

we want to then consider the over-run quantity here, and our onhand inventory to generate pull quantities from stock and the movement requests “pick” but then the over run on the job we have just done, be considered as a material request to inventory

However, we cannot always move to the job quantity to the next job, as there is limited space, and we would like to then move the wip “periodically” or “trigger a request” to move WIP from 1 location (where its stored temporarly) and trigger movement requests as required to the machine thats requiring the matieral

so 3 things happening, our thousands of, are going to be some for job, some for stock, some pulled from stock,

Then 2 things, we put the WIP in our “holding area” as a movement request, we then start the job, and replenish the materials through movement requests, from the “Job WIP”, but the over-run quantity was put into inventory, that way we can move over-run to 1 area, and WIP items to another.

we want to trigger it all through MRP, Lots, Multiples, Movement Requests and keep it slick on that side of things, so shop floor users can do the doing, logitstics teams do the moving, as prompted… all in WIP materials…

I hope thats clear enough, and hope someone out there is experiencing the same thing to give us a hand :smiley:

Thanks all as always!

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Not sure if the below flow could be of benefit to analyse what we think might happen?

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@Mitch_B , not sure what your question is?

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Hi, thanks for looking. We are trying to find the best way to reconcile the desires of the production management and efficient use of something new to us entirely (re: a cetralised schedule).

Production have formerly (still currently as we’re in implementation phase), worked the resources (machines) to whatever “batch” sizes suit those machines, so we will have large amounts of what in Kinetic terms looks like “overrun”, and sometimes even without demand :frowning: . With a secondary of minimalising tooling/machine setups/changeovers. Primary example being a tube laser.

This has led us to do a lot of system planning for implementation which revolves around “Plan as assembly” for everything we do, as we can continue to operate in a simlar way, and let MRP net off the inventory and push out more jobs to the right multiples for each machine and keep everyone on that side satisfied.

However, there are multiple issues with this as I’m sure experienced people will already know.
So what we’re trying to get some help understanding is has anyone overcome this, and used “pull as assembly” and dealt with that process, what does that look like for you (if you match (or matched in the past) our process and machine efficiency desires), so we can make informed choices about what’s the best way to proceed here.

What we’re struggling to understand is, if we use “Pull”, and the jobs are released linked, but then we want to still make more than the demand (because that machine takes bundles of material which is more efficient to make larger quantities of the part from that material), how has anyone else dealt with that?
Does it all go into WIP, can MRP be set up to still release the job, but split that to fulfil the following job, push the remainder to overrun, and still nett off “pull from stock” if there’s some left from the last overrun.
That kind of thing.
Sorry if we’re asking everyone too much here. it’s a lot to try and take in/on. Our consultants are also very good, but hopefully there’s no harm in seeking out the “I’ve done that, don’t ask for trouble” or “I’ve done that, it’s a breeze” stories!
Thanks all! :slight_smile:

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Welcome @Jezreel62 !

Have you tested the Auto Consume Stock modifier on the Part/Site record for one of your subassemblies? That flag is only valid if you use Pull As Assembly. What it does is use the ATP calculation to see what quantity should be available at the time it is needed, and if there is available inventory, it will change the requirement from an in line subassembly to a material to be issued. It should even split the requirement if a partial amount is available. If you need 500 and there will be a balance of 100 in stock, it will change the job to pull 100 from stock and make 400.

I played around with it at one of my companies and seemed to work pretty well. But their MOMs were not the best, so I would definitely test it out to see if it meets your needs.

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What an intriguing question… and a great answer by @jkane to start playing with!

On a different tack, though, you seem to be asking if somehow a subassembly can be built to a different production quantity than the parent assembly, with the “excess” quantity on the subassembly received to stock… AND have MRP do this all automagically. If I’m not reading your question right, feel free to ignore the rest of this post!

When Epicor sees the “Pull As Assembly” flag on a subassembly, it is effectively planning the entire production around the parent part; all subassemblies will ONLY have a production quantity that fulfills what the parent assembly needs.

If you want to be able to plan from the bottom up, then the subassembly part has to be on its own job… meaning you’d use the :“View As Assembly” flag. When that flag is enabled, the parent part considers it as a material and creates a stock demand.

In this scenario, you set the lower level assembly with Lot Sizing parameters (on the Sites > Planning card) so that when stock demands trigger new jobs, they are only created for specific production quantities. Although this removes the direct link between jobs, it can significantly increase your efficiency. The parent part just looks at the warehouse for its parts. If the part isn’t there, MRP creates a job suggestion to build them.

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Plan As Assembly?

Good points @Ernie , I did not pick up on that. One thing to note with all of this is that at the end of the day, you can do whatever you want. It may not be automatic like you want, but if you over-produce, you can just receive the extra quantity to stock.

Thinking even more on this, if you are letting MRP run your supply/demand, it might just update the demand on the job based on what is needed. That is to say, if you use Plan As Assembly, it will create a Job to Job link for demand and when you make more, it might create an Inventory requirement. I have never gotten to that level of set-up, but @Ernie might have, or someone else on here.

I think your best bet might just be to come up with your scenarios and test all options at once. Set up the same part with different numbers and different approaches and see what happens.

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Brill, that’s a good place to start thanks @jkane !
We’ll have a play around with that and probably come back cap in hand when we run out of skill again :sweat_smile:

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No worries. We’ll be here.

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Thanks Ernie, yes that’s what I’m asking, and undoubtedly there will be more questions once we piece it together a bit further.
Thanks for those suggestions, we’re going to need some more people in different places than we do today, and part of the task during implementaion is definitely going to be advising my business what that might look like, depending on the outcome of these sorts of decisions.
I want to appease everyone but it’s not going to be possible, so I want to make the mop that people end up sucking as tasty as possible :rofl:

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hehehe… I was the IT guy for 30 years before moving to the Dark Side… I feel your pain.

Keep those cards and letters coming, we’ll answer 'em! Good luck!

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Hi buddy,
just on this, we are struggling with the “100 in stock” i am under the impression that if you have pull as assembly set, you are in essence saying make direct any demand for this part

so we have a min stock on the finished item of 250, and we use 1, we will get a pull as assembly demand for 1 item, and it work its way backwards through sub assemblies for the 1 of.

we want to get that over production to our min multiple or lot (whatever box drives the job quantity) and force that in to give us the “100 in stock” that we wouldnt get if we used pull and let it make 1 for 1 or “as many as its demand needed”

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Sorry for the late reply.

If you are at the 0 level assembly and want to drive a lot size, I would just set up the part to have a Min Lot Size and Multiple the same quantity. This way, if you have a Min Lot Size of 250 and there are 249 in stock, the 1 needed to fulfill the order will create a job for 250.

If you are talking about a subassembly, you would have to make those Plan As Assembly and set a Min Lot Size and Multiple the same quantity to always manufacture that quantity.

Also, I just learned about Multi-Job today. I know absolutely nothing about it, but it has to do with Plan As Assembly and Scheduling. I am about to dive in to learn it, if you wanted to take a look too, the Help files are generally pretty good.