Our company is currently in the process of implementing Epicor Kinetic and have hit an issue: We are a custom manufacturer of HVAC units that also has a Service department that sells parts related to the units we sell. We currently maintain two “digital warehouses” in Sage 100, one for our Production which we issue parts from to our work tickets and a service warehouse to sell out of should a customer need something. Both warehouses use their own minimum on hand numbers and flow into our current CEM/MRP to generate PO suggestions. It should be noted that these parts are physically stored in the same location currently. We plan to separate them out once we have more space but currently don’t have that option.
The issue we are having has to do with MRP changing the demand warehouse when creating PO Suggestions. We lose all visibility of the warehouse a PO was created for which would make for a nightmare for material timing purposes.
The company has settled on making duplicate part numbers for all service parts, which should work, but will be cumbersome to maintain.
We have reviewed using a Multi-Site module to separate them out but that comes with its own issues, requiring our shipping department to bounce between logins to receive to different sites which is not ideal.
Is there a way to have Epicor consolidate purchase suggestions but also provide direction during receiving so that we don’t misallocate parts?
So there is a warehouse in the PO suggestion. But I’m not sure how that’s populated. I’m assuming you are finding that it’s using the default warehouse instead of the where the demand is coming from?
That is correct. What is interesting is that the warehouse “Field Help” Description states that “Warehouse that the item on this release is being purchased for” but it changes it to the default warehouse. We contacted Epicor help regarding this issue and they stated that it is working as intended and the field description isn’t well defined.
That’s dumb… I would agree it seems like a bug, not a feature to me, but if you go make an idea for it, I’ll vote for changing that. The warehouse that creates the demand, should be in the suggestion, and should follow through to the order release. Otherwise, you’re going to keep getting suggestions when the PO is created for the wrong warehouse…
Can you set up a test to verify this? (I don’t have time right now to do it). Create a sales order for the same part with the warehouse set on the release to warehouse A and another sales order for the same part with release set to warehouse B and check on the warehouse through the process and make sure they don’t match the demand?
Then you can use this example as evidence in your case how the consequences affect the business. (demand that never gets satisfied)
I’m looking at the settings for part and warehouses, there aren’t inventory min and max settings for the individual warehouses. Those settings that are there are for kanban replenishment. That means you’ll be purchasing to the default warehouse, then doing moves to replenish the other warehouses or bins. You have an overall min max, and a lesser min max in each location.
So the multiple part numbers is the only way to actually set that up.
