Continuous Cycle Counts vs. Full Physical Inventory

Yahoo Archive
1
Julie, this is excellent wisdom. Thanks for sharing this. We're going to cogitate on this and hopefully this will get us into making cycle counts work better for us.

--
Brian W. Spolarich ~ Manager, Information Services ~ Advanced Photonix / Picometrix
    bspolarich@... ~ 734-864-5618 ~ www.advancedphotonix.com

-----Original Message-----
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Julie Lehmann
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 1:31 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Vantage] Continuous Cycle Counts vs. Full Physical Inventory

Brian -
This is how things were for us in setting it up in 6.1 - again, I'm under the assumption that not much as changed in the 8.x versions...
2
I have been asked if we can continuously cycle count inventry items rather than shutting production down once a year to do full physical inventory. Is anyone else doing this and, if so, how do you deal with parts that are in WIP?
3
Related to that, how do folks deal with ABC codes in Vantage. At least in 8.03 we're not getting very good results with what the ABC Code calculator. It seems like we get the same parts over and over, and not the stuff we're interested in, despite the fact that the ABC codes are setup the way we want them.

Are folks having success with this? We'd like to go to a certified cycle count system (where accounting certifies the result of the cycle count, and get away from annual shutdowns), but we have to trust what Vantage is doing a bit more than we are now.

-bws

--
Brian W. Spolarich ~ Manager, Information Services ~ Advanced Photonix / Picometrix
    bspolarich@... ~ 734-864-5618 ~ www.advancedphotonix.com


-----Original Message-----
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of schmangy20000
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 11:08 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Continuous Cycle Counts vs. Full Physical Inventory

I have been asked if we can continuously cycle count inventry items rather than shutting production down once a year to do full physical inventory. Is anyone else doing this and, if so, how do you deal with parts that are in WIP?



------------------------------------

Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
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4
We eliminated full physical inventories (YEAH!!), several years ago, after we were able to prove to our auditors that our cycle count accuracy was very high.
We knew that physical inventories messed up as much as they caught, so we are extremely happy that we don't have to do them anymore - not to mention that we were doing them on a quarterly basis - so shutting down production for a full day every quarter, entering those cards, etc. etc. - we do not miss that!

We try to clean up jobs as much as possible prior to the quarter end to keep WIP low, then we use the WIP report for WIP values, which the Inventory Control Mgr goes through thoroughly at the end of the day, before production starts again.

Hope that helps,
Julie Lehmann
Mercury Minnesota Inc.

----- Original Message -----
From: schmangy20000
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 10:08 AM
Subject: [Vantage] Continuous Cycle Counts vs. Full Physical Inventory



I have been asked if we can continuously cycle count inventry items rather than shutting production down once a year to do full physical inventory. Is anyone else doing this and, if so, how do you deal with parts that are in WIP?





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
5
We want to get to that point as well. So, you're using the cycle count features in Vantage then is what you're saying?

Also, does anyone know if you first are required to perform a full physical in Vantage before it lets you then move onto cycle counting? For some reason, I thought you needed to initialized the inventory with all the counts before cycle counting could begin.

--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Julie Lehmann" <jlehmann@...> wrote:
>
> We eliminated full physical inventories (YEAH!!), several years ago, after we were able to prove to our auditors that our cycle count accuracy was very high.
> We knew that physical inventories messed up as much as they caught, so we are extremely happy that we don't have to do them anymore - not to mention that we were doing them on a quarterly basis - so shutting down production for a full day every quarter, entering those cards, etc. etc. - we do not miss that!
>
> We try to clean up jobs as much as possible prior to the quarter end to keep WIP low, then we use the WIP report for WIP values, which the Inventory Control Mgr goes through thoroughly at the end of the day, before production starts again.
>
> Hope that helps,
> Julie Lehmann
> Mercury Minnesota Inc.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: schmangy20000
> To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 10:08 AM
> Subject: [Vantage] Continuous Cycle Counts vs. Full Physical Inventory
>
>
>
> I have been asked if we can continuously cycle count inventry items rather than shutting production down once a year to do full physical inventory. Is anyone else doing this and, if so, how do you deal with parts that are in WIP?
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
6
Julie, have you found that the cycle counts give you complete coverage? My sense in talking with my planner here is that we're getting the same parts over and over, and they're not the parts we're interested in. Is there something outside of the ABCCode definitions that we need to pay attention to to make sure we get what we want?

-bws

--
Brian W. Spolarich ~ Manager, Information Services ~ Advanced Photonix / Picometrix
    bspolarich@... ~ 734-864-5618 ~ www.advancedphotonix.com


-----Original Message-----
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Julie Lehmann
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 11:57 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Vantage] Continuous Cycle Counts vs. Full Physical Inventory

We eliminated full physical inventories (YEAH!!), several years ago, after we were able to prove to our auditors that our cycle count accuracy was very high.
We knew that physical inventories messed up as much as they caught, so we are extremely happy that we don't have to do them anymore - not to mention that we were doing them on a quarterly basis - so shutting down production for a full day every quarter, entering those cards, etc. etc. - we do not miss that!

We try to clean up jobs as much as possible prior to the quarter end to keep WIP low, then we use the WIP report for WIP values, which the Inventory Control Mgr goes through thoroughly at the end of the day, before production starts again.

Hope that helps,
Julie Lehmann
Mercury Minnesota Inc.

----- Original Message -----
From: schmangy20000
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 10:08 AM
Subject: [Vantage] Continuous Cycle Counts vs. Full Physical Inventory



I have been asked if we can continuously cycle count inventry items rather than shutting production down once a year to do full physical inventory. Is anyone else doing this and, if so, how do you deal with parts that are in WIP?





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



------------------------------------

Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/linksYahoo! Groups Links
7
Yes, we are using the cycle count feature through Vantage. (We are on 6.1, but from what I've gathered, it hasn't changed much in 8.x).
Vantage doesn't require you to do a full physical before you would start cycle counting, but it does make sense to start at a point when you feel your inventory is at it's highest level of accuracy - makes a great starting point to trace errors back to.
But there is definitely some setup to it (correct setup of ABC Codes). And it takes some patience and understanding to get cycle counting started successfully. We also used to have our cycle counter come in at 3:00 a.m. in order to perform the counts long before production started and things changed quicker than he could count and enter the numbers.




----- Original Message -----
From: pbparker
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 11:15 AM
Subject: [Vantage] Re: Continuous Cycle Counts vs. Full Physical Inventory



We want to get to that point as well. So, you're using the cycle count features in Vantage then is what you're saying?

Also, does anyone know if you first are required to perform a full physical in Vantage before it lets you then move onto cycle counting? For some reason, I thought you needed to initialized the inventory with all the counts before cycle counting could begin.

--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Julie Lehmann" <jlehmann@...> wrote:
>
> We eliminated full physical inventories (YEAH!!), several years ago, after we were able to prove to our auditors that our cycle count accuracy was very high.
> We knew that physical inventories messed up as much as they caught, so we are extremely happy that we don't have to do them anymore - not to mention that we were doing them on a quarterly basis - so shutting down production for a full day every quarter, entering those cards, etc. etc. - we do not miss that!
>
> We try to clean up jobs as much as possible prior to the quarter end to keep WIP low, then we use the WIP report for WIP values, which the Inventory Control Mgr goes through thoroughly at the end of the day, before production starts again.
>
> Hope that helps,
> Julie Lehmann
> Mercury Minnesota Inc.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: schmangy20000
> To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 10:08 AM
> Subject: [Vantage] Continuous Cycle Counts vs. Full Physical Inventory
>
>
>
> I have been asked if we can continuously cycle count inventry items rather than shutting production down once a year to do full physical inventory. Is anyone else doing this and, if so, how do you deal with parts that are in WIP?
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
8
I am most concerned with counting parts while they are being used. I
considered cycle counting only the parts without open jobs but of our most
active parts usually have open jobs.



Can anyone think of a way to deal with WIP materials without shutting down
production?



Gerry Loranger

Systems Administrator

Preformed Line Products

1711 Bishop St. East

Cambridge, ON N1T 1N5

519-740-6666 Ext. 224

Email: <mailto:gloranger@...> gloranger@...

Visit our website at <http://www.preformed.on.ca> www.preformed.on.ca







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
9
Brian -
This is how things were for us in setting it up in 6.1 - again, I'm under the assumption that not much as changed in the 8.x versions.
Not to sound too basic - but maybe help with some other questions - For starters - it doesn't matter what the part's ABC code is, cycle counting starts at the beginning of your part master and in pulls every part in part # order (limited by the quantity you choose). It will continue to do this until you get a "count date" entered - after that it will start pulling those parts in at the proper count frequency based on the ABC code. So, it does take some time and patience to get it going in an organized manner. We didn't even start with taking what the system pulled in to count at first. We took our list of parts in their ABC groups and choose which parts to count, until everything was done (6 months)
So we divided the A's by 28 days, B's by 84 & C's by 175, so we could get a good even split of each of these groups each day - knowing that after we got through all of them, the schedule would just repeat itself. We also were then able to make decisions like - we don't want even 3-4 of the most active, busy "A"s all in one day, so we tried to spread them out over the 28 days as evenly as possible.

I think the biggest hurdle to overcome (and my guess of what you are seeing/experiencing) is that the system won't recognize a part as "counted" unless you "count" every single warehouse location the part has - including those with 0 quantity. And the system won't generate a tag for the 0 quantities - you have to manually enter them. So, for example if you have a receiving warehouse location that incoming purchased parts default to (ours is RECV) and even though they really are only waiting for a move to their stock location - you MUST enter a tag with the RECV location at "0", in order to have the system recognize that that part was "counted". To make it easier for our inventory people, I added the field
"Counteddate" to part tracker. Then it's really obvious if a warehouse location was missed during a count - making it come up for cycle count when it shouldn't have.

Another tip that we've used is, if a cycle counter is asked to count anything (production control or purchasing need a double check on a part), we create a count group for that part, just to keep it in a cycle, otherwise he may be counting it again in a few days. Since he took the time to count it, might as well enter it.

It's not perfect and we still have a glitch once in a while (activity during a count throws it off, getting behind due to absence, etc), but all in all, we're happy with it.

Sorry if that's more than anyone cares to know, and again we're on 6.1....

Julie
Mercury Minnesota Inc.







----- Original Message -----
From: Brian W. Spolarich
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 11:27 AM
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Continuous Cycle Counts vs. Full Physical Inventory



Julie, have you found that the cycle counts give you complete coverage? My sense in talking with my planner here is that we're getting the same parts over and over, and they're not the parts we're interested in. Is there something outside of the ABCCode definitions that we need to pay attention to to make sure we get what we want?

-bws

--
Brian W. Spolarich ~ Manager, Information Services ~ Advanced Photonix / Picometrix
bspolarich@... ~ 734-864-5618 ~ www.advancedphotonix.com

-----Original Message-----
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Julie Lehmann
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 11:57 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Vantage] Continuous Cycle Counts vs. Full Physical Inventory

We eliminated full physical inventories (YEAH!!), several years ago, after we were able to prove to our auditors that our cycle count accuracy was very high.
We knew that physical inventories messed up as much as they caught, so we are extremely happy that we don't have to do them anymore - not to mention that we were doing them on a quarterly basis - so shutting down production for a full day every quarter, entering those cards, etc. etc. - we do not miss that!

We try to clean up jobs as much as possible prior to the quarter end to keep WIP low, then we use the WIP report for WIP values, which the Inventory Control Mgr goes through thoroughly at the end of the day, before production starts again.

Hope that helps,
Julie Lehmann
Mercury Minnesota Inc.

----- Original Message -----
From: schmangy20000
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 10:08 AM
Subject: [Vantage] Continuous Cycle Counts vs. Full Physical Inventory

I have been asked if we can continuously cycle count inventry items rather than shutting production down once a year to do full physical inventory. Is anyone else doing this and, if so, how do you deal with parts that are in WIP?

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

------------------------------------

Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/linksYahoo! Groups Links





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
10
what has been done in past places i resided at is using a wip report and having cycle counters 'audit' work in process at 10% of the jobs. if you had 300 jobs released this week you would account for 30. this was looked at as a 'pass/fail', either the jobs were at the work center or not. as an adder the planner would be required to account for any job in excess of 30 days old so no jobs lived in the shop forever.


BILL R. KING
J&B Industrial Services
(806).776.4409 Office
(254).592.4397 Cell



________________________________
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Gerry Loranger
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 11:58 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Vantage] Re: Continuous Cycle Counts vs. Full Physical Inventory



I am most concerned with counting parts while they are being used. I
considered cycle counting only the parts without open jobs but of our most
active parts usually have open jobs.

Can anyone think of a way to deal with WIP materials without shutting down
production?

Gerry Loranger

Systems Administrator

Preformed Line Products

1711 Bishop St. East

Cambridge, ON N1T 1N5

519-740-6666 Ext. 224

Email: <mailto:gloranger@...<mailto:gloranger%40preformed.on.ca>> gloranger@...<mailto:gloranger%40preformed.on.ca>

Visit our website at <http://www.preformed.on.ca> www.preformed.on.ca

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




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11
We tried to use Cycle Count in Vantage 6.1 and found there were a lot of bugs. It has been a while so I can't remember the details but basically Epicor said, "Yeah we know it's there but we're not making any changes to 6.1. It's been fixed in 8.03." Seems like Vantage was not assigning the correct ABC codes when we went and manually verified them. For that and other reasons, including the requirement that you must count all warehouse locations for a part at one time, we decided to use a manual process to decide what to count and then enter them into Vantage.

I can't remember if this was a feature in 6.1, but in Vantage 8.03 when you start the count the systems saves a "snapshot" so to speak of the expected values. When you are entering the counts you can see any activity that has taken place since that snapshot so you can account for those discrepancies. If parts are issued to jobs (and into WIP) as they are pulled and you use this feature it should be pretty accurate.

As far as Cycle Counting of WIP goes, we had a report that showed all open jobs that had not had some sort of activity (labor, material issue, or subcontract) in the past 30 days and someone physically verified the accuracy of those jobs.

The Cycle Count codes were assigned at the beginning of the fiscal year based on the values at that point in time. Any new parts added during the year did not get assigned a value and counted until the next year. The WIP cycle count report was ran on the first day of every quarter.

--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Gerry Loranger" <gloranger@...> wrote:
>
> I am most concerned with counting parts while they are being used. I
> considered cycle counting only the parts without open jobs but of our most
> active parts usually have open jobs.
>
>
>
> Can anyone think of a way to deal with WIP materials without shutting down
> production?
>
>
>
> Gerry Loranger
>
> Systems Administrator
>
> Preformed Line Products
>
> 1711 Bishop St. East
>
> Cambridge, ON N1T 1N5
>
> 519-740-6666 Ext. 224
>
> Email: <mailto:gloranger@...> gloranger@...
>
> Visit our website at <http://www.preformed.on.ca> www.preformed.on.ca
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>