MRP does not create required dates for parts within Jobs

We run Net Change MRP nightly here. Yesterday, we noticed that there were many Jobs, both firm and unfirmed, that had required dates but none of the parts in those jobs showed any demand. As a result, we got dozens of PO and Job cancellation messages. We ran a full regen MRP last night, but the issue persists. There are no errors in the log files and MRP completed normally, although it took 5 1/2 hours to finish. Below are a couple of screenshots from one job that has this issue.

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I have opened a case with Epicor Support, but I am asking if anyone has seen this already and solved it. We are on E10.1.600.8 and for the past 4 months we have had no issues with MRP.

Thanks.

VERY interested in this topic. We are going live with purchasing from suggestions on Monday of next week. Have not seen this ever. Weā€™re on release 8, but considering upgrading.

Did the demand change between the last MRP run and the current one? As an aside, we run MRP regeneratively every time we run it. We cannot find a valid reason to run it any other way.

Let me ask the folks here a simple question - is the planning engine in V9 or V10 actually worse than the planning engine in V8?

We really donā€™t want to take a step backwards at this point.

Hello Gil,

No change in demand. The planning engine in E10 is more complicated in E10 and looks at a lot more information. We migrated from Vantage to E10.0.700 and then up to E10.1.600.8. In my opinion, the planning results are more consistent in E10 than they were in Vantage. We have not had any issues with MRP failing or not completing in E10.1.600 and we had those problems every few weeks while we were on Vantage.

Rick Stannard

IT Project Manager

860-599-6203

860-405-4430

Any chance someone has created a master production schedule for the items that are planning without demand? In V8 that is readily visible, unsure about V10.

Although I donā€™t know why that would not show demand for the itemā€™s children - that really doesnā€™t make any sense at all.

Do you see demand for these parts in Time Phase Inquiry? If so, are there any due dates?

Hello Jason,

We see the demand in Time Phase but there are no required dates. Hereā€™s an example.

This is really very strangeā€¦ā€¦

Rick Stannard

IT Project Manager

860-599-6203

860-405-4430

I have seen this happen when materials are added to a job after it is firmed and engineered (and global scheduling is not run). What ends up happening is that there is demand but there is no schedule so MRP doesnā€™t know when to plan the purchase order. Maybe try manually rescheduling the job and then see if there are any due dates in Time Phase for the material parts.

However, this does not explain the issue for the unfirmed jobs.

Iā€™ve also seen that if there is an error in the resource/resource group construction. If an operation calls out an op on a resource that is not in the resource group, the jobs will not schedule. In some cases, unfirm jobs donā€™t even get created. Still trying to understand the difference on that.

We are on V8 but have seen this happen if the BOM contains a Resource \ Resource Group that is Inactive.

I have seen this also where parts have been added after the job has been scheduled (whether engineered or not), we do not use global scheduling and do not want to reschedule after adding parts. There is a field available on the Job Details > Materials > List View called ā€˜Required Dateā€™ which can be displayed and edited by customizing or personalising the List View ā€˜Collectionā€™. We have not tested this yet but plan to see if this is the date used by MRP/Time Phase by editing it after adding the parts.

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Also if any component of any assembly uses revision tracking but does not have an approved revision for the time period in which manufacturing should occur, demand for the entire assembly will be ignored by MRP. Iā€™ve seen it happen just from an engineering person forgetting to check a part back in after opening it in Engineering Workbench.

I have just tested adding a subassembly after the job was scheduled and running ā€˜Get Detailsā€™ to pull the method of manufacture through, the materials within the assembly had no required date, by using the above field I was able to add a date to the material, this date auto updated based on the Job Start dateā€¦perhaps a ā€˜bugā€™?
If I add a material directly into the job rather than a subassembly then ā€˜Get Detailsā€™ it appears to work ok

Monty - for that very reason, we created temporary revisions. This allows procurement to proceed, and also allowed us to block printing of travelers in the event the temporary revision sits around unchanged until job release.

Our product has huge lead times, it is more critical that we procure on time then anything else. Once material is in the building, we have full control of the schedule. Until that time? Not so muchā€¦

What we have found is that when we find a Job where the parts have no required dates but the Job does, all we have to do is go through the manual scheduling process. Once that process is completed, the parts within that Job have required dates!

We will run the Global Scheduling Process tonight to try and fix the problem. In the meantime, Epicor Support is looking into the issue and I hope they can find a reason for this. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and comments!

Rick Stannard

IT Project Manager

860-599-6203

860-405-4430

Perfect, thank you. Manually filling out the ā€œrequired dateā€ field when adding materials to a job is a simple way to fix it!

I am troubleshooting an issue that sound A LOT like what has been described above, and I am interested what came back in terms of resolution from Epicor. Is there a fix besides the above workarounds?

Thanks!

Paul

Iā€™m going to second Paulā€™s request for update.

We run into the issue when the job is unengineered and re-released after itā€™s first scheduled. Iā€™ve instructed users to remove from schedule and manually reschedule each time but itā€™s a little ridiculous (and yet better than running out of material). Iā€™d love to know the actual fix rather than the workaround.