We are using backward scheduling and decided to hold of on Advanced Planning and Scheduling license/module and it was merely a future consideration until now. I am curious as to other peoples suggestions or experience with the planning and scheduling capabilities when you do not have constrained materials box checked. I have both a Vendor and LT applied to all of our stock materials used in the MOM. A consultant stated yesterday that the planning/scheduling would not work properly without this box checked and the planning is ignoring the material LT on the site tab in the part master. I have seen other suggestions from previous years posts saying a pricelist LT is effective or using a date from the PO itself will circumvent this issue, and that the constrained material function itself can present a whole new set of issues. Can someone please help me to determine if we HAVE to use this feature “Constrained Material”?? What have you put into the place that helps to plan and schedule correctly without advanced planning and scheduling?
Scheduling is one of the Dark Arts, because you’re trying to predict the future. There are LOTS of variables.
You do NOT “have to” use the Constrained Materials checkbox to successfully use the Scheduling engine. If that flag is not selected at the Part level, Epicor will merrily schedule your job to begin on the date that it needs to start to meet it’s Due Date, EVEN IF the materials won’t be there in time. It will ALSO give you a Change PO Suggestion telling you to call the vendor and EXPEDITE the materials so they DO get there in time… but it’s only a Suggestion and Epicor can’t make magic like that actually happen in the real world. If you do mark a part as Constrained, then the Scheduling Engine won’t schedule the operation it’s related to until the material is actually available.
If you haven’t downloaded the Scheduling Technical Reference manual from EpicWeb yet, that would be a GREAT resource to have (hint hint).
We looked at testing constrained parts in run up to our go-live but moved away from it. It didn’t work for us and crashed MRP. Our BOMs have hundreds of assemblies and parts and I think that was stopping it from functioning. Also, when it did work on small jobs the dates moved out to meet when the material was here but we could never find out what part caused the delay. Odd since Epicor knew but wouldn’t tell us. We didn’t explore in full but those two items caused us to not use constrained materials and use other tools to highlight part shortages to expedite.
Leadtime on the part is the key value. Note that Leadtime exists in three places. Partplant, Supplier price list and Supplier Price list - supplier part number. It is one of Epicor’s hierarchies. From our implementation they are undocumented/undefined and we’ve found via trial and error.
SPL - Supplier Partnum
SPL
Partplant
Above is if they exist. 1 overides 2, 2 overides 3
PO Suggestions are the best tool. New PO Suggestions & Change Suggestions