Hi again! My company and I have some growing pains. We are primarily make to order. Our production schedule is geared up for this and our folks are all used to processing Make to Order jobs, etc. The issue we are running into is that we have multiple sites… and typically we could just ship out of the site where the part is produced. However, we have a growing Factory Installation center where we take our own equipment that we produce and do customer installations on site. As you can imagine, this site doesn’t always align with the site where we produce the product that gets installed. So it must show up on the schedule to be built in one site but must then be transferred to another site where it will ultimately be “shipped” as it’s installed on our customer’s truck. Is there a way to setup the part/order/job so we get Make Direct visibility in the production site but also able to be transferred to another site without a bunch of manual intervention and babysitting? We do use MRP nightly.
As a bonus, one of our products is configured to order, therefore must be Make Direct. How do I set this up so that it retains a relationship to the order but I can process a transfer order or what have you to get it to the correct site?
Could you accomplish something if we were multi-company and the second company was the Factory Install center? So for instance, the Factory Install company could buy the product from the main company at cost and then the main company could ship as usual like we would to any customer but then essentially the folks in the Factory Install center would just use the Factory Install company and would see that they have to buy certain products from the Main company and issue POs that would get turned into orders in the main company? Does this make sense to anyone?
If you manually run the multi-level pegging process for both sites does it know enough to link all the way back to the sales order on the other site? There is a multi level pegging display that will show you how it lines up.
If it does then you can use the PegDmdMst, PegLink and PegSupMst in a baq and set mlp to run on a schedule.
We use mlp to show what orders a job is fulfilling since we are all make to stock.
I’ll check it out. Thanks!
It does not show up like I was hoping. The demand shows as a transfer order in one south and then a sales order in the other site… but the reference columns for job reference/TO reference are blank. I was really hoping they would be filled in but alas, they do not.
Hi Dan,
Yeah, we have the same problems. MLP data is useful for our planning but we haven’t been able to make it good enough for general use yet.
Do you use configured part numbers on your sales orders? We do and we put a suffix of the transferring plant on the one to the other. For example our Ohio mfd pump that requires a bit more work in Pennsylvania before customer shipment is called GVE-10K-S-54626-1OH coming from Ohio and then GVE-10K-S-54626-1 leaving PA for sales order 54626 line 1. We also use UD fields on transfer order lines and job prod data to note associated job and customer. This is displayed in Timephase, dashboard and some reports and has proven useful to our operations folks, though definitely not most elegant solution.
Nancy
We primarily use regular part numbers. We could make to stock but we don’t. Mostly because of the variation between part numbers for the most part it doesn’t make sense to stock any finished goods.
I have been considering using a UD field (or a few) to associate stock jobs back to an order/customer. I wish I could figure out how to make a job to order from a different site - even if I can’t ship it from there. Then maybe the transfer order could transfer the job to our other plant. That’s what would make sense to me.
We’re single site (and multi company), so I don’t have direct experience with multiple sites… But I’ll ask anyways! Can Epicor jobs travel across sites, with Mfg Ops 10-100 in Site 1, then Install Op 110 in Site 2?
Can you have a line item on the order for ‘Site 2 Install’, and have MRP kick out a separate job for that, consuming the main mfg’d part? It might need to be make to stock, though… But either should give you visibility of load in the 2nd site…
Great questions. They are the kind of questions that should help unlock whatever tricks we can do. I will see what I can find out. I’m not sure for either.
Are all of the order and jobs for both sites in PartDtl? Before we used pegging I did my own timephase from PartDtl to show which jobs are going to supply an order.
Yes they all show up in Time Phase… but that’s the rub. A person needs to review it to figure things out. So yes, I agree I may be able to reverse engineer something to “calculate” which order the job is being created for. But I have concerns that it may not work well in our current situation where we are heavily backlogged so Time Phase always looks a little off as things are in the past. It’s definitely worth a try, though. Thanks @gpayne
What if I put a UD field on OrderRel for Job Number. Rather than always pull through JobProd, we could keep that field updated… maybe a BPM keeps it updated for any make direct lines but for the stock shipments, we could specify a job in that field so that we could associate that job to the order (even though it’s a stock job). Any thoughts on that? Crazy? Overlooking something? Let me know what you think.
I’m running into a similar problem with a new customer. They do all the manufacturing at the main site, but have 9 other sites as sales locations that hold FG inventory. The split between custom build and off-the-lot sales is about 50/50… and the reps at the sales locations will place orders to stock their locations (although they are also “custom” items, they’re customized with the most popular options). There is one person at the main site who creates all the orders in Epicor (both Sales Orders and Transfer Orders).
SO FAR (and I’ve only done some preliminary testing), it seems that I need to set the FG items as NOT Non-Stock (default setting on Part master) so that when a Transfer Order is created for a sales location “order” MRP will create a MTS job. This then means that the actual Sales Orders placed will have to have the Make Direct flag manually (or preferably automagically) selected so that an MTO job gets created.
MRP doesn’t see a Transfer Order for a Non-Stock manufactured item as a “demand” that triggers it to create a job.
I follow what you’re saying for the most part. The ending is what was unclear to me. I have an order in Site A that is Make Direct but it cannot be made in site A. It must come from site B. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t a “clean” way in Epicor to setup the parts/orders to make it happen automatically. I know transfer orders have a way to transfer a job… but I’ve just never messed with it. I’m guessing it’s intended for transferring WIP from one building to another? So does your method mentioned above solve this issue? Or are you saying you’re facing the same issue and haven’t yet worked out a plan?
I can only get it to work in the part is set as Non-Stock FALSE. For Make Direct, Non-Stock has to be TRUE.
I’m facing a very similar issue and am still working out the plan. Not yet solved. Stay tuned.
@Ernie did you find a solution for this?
I am trying to do something similar. Our secondary site makes a component for our primary site’s finished good. If I set up the component at our primary site as non-stock, the make direct check box will be auto checked upon creating a job, but the job does not choose the secondary site.
I would schedule the finished good out of the site that’s “shipping” the product, then mark that finished good as non-stock at that same site so it has to go to the job. This would auto-check the make direct box for the part. The only issue I have with this, is it requires manual intervention to choose the site that will be making the item. But after it’s scheduled and MRP runs, MRP will automatically create and schedule firm jobs for the site that is doing the manufacturing. Upon production completion, you perform a job receipt to job, and MRP will automatically create a transfer order and packID to ship to the site that has the job calling for the end product. All you have to do is systematically receive that transfer order at the end site.
I didn’t read everything listed here, so maybe this was already covered, but if not I hope it helps.
So some of the “difficulty” is automated if you get the setup right. That’s good to know. What do you mean MRP will automatically create a transfer order and pack ID? I’ve never tried to actually process the make to job type job. That does make sense because I know with subcontract operations, it’s smart enough to complete the operation when a PO is received with the subcontract line. I’ll have a look myself. I see the fields in the Transfer Order tables so it seemed like it was possible to transfer a job… just hadn’t figured it out.
I think I worded it incorrectly. If the part is marked as make direct at one site, but another site is manufacturing it, the job receipt to job action will create a transfer order and transfer order shipment to transfer to the end site without having to do it manually. All you’d have to do is physically ship the product to the end site.
This would auto-issue the components to the job at the end site once the transfer order is received.
That’s really promising. Thanks for that info!