How to structure an Order (in a multi-site environment) where all items will be shipped (or picked up by customer) from one site, but requires manufactured parts (finished goods) from another?
Imagine if you will …
Site S1 does manufacturing. 99% of the manufactured items are configurator driven and don’t create an entry in the PM, and are shipped direct from WIP.
Site S2 only stocks purchased items, or stocked items from the other site.
An order requires all the items to ship at once from S2.
The order consists of 3 items
…(1) Custom Mfg’d Electric sign (will be made at S1)
…(1) Solar Panel Array (non-stocked item will be Buy To Order, shipped to S2)
…(1) Reel of #10 Cable (stocked at S2)
A Job will be required at S1 for the first line’s item. Then this needs to be shipped to S2, so they can all be shipped together (or picked up by the installer).
If I understand Transfer Orders, they only work for inventoried parts. The configurator created P/N includes details (dimensions), and might be a configuration we never make again. So we don’t create a P/N for it.
I want S2 to have a demand for the part being Mfg’d by S1, so I assume I need to have the source of the Mfg’d part be S2. But the Job to make the part will be at S1.
Calvin,
You seem to have a LOT of questions about basic Epicor functionality and setup. Have you given some thought to scheduling some education classes with Epicor? I have found that it can be very helpful to get up to speed on the basics of the system. You can schedule classes for Multi-Site specifically
Also Epicor Education Module has courses on Multi-Site setup and concepts. I don’t mean to be but rude I truly think that some additional education might benefit you and your company.
To be honest, I’ve been disappointed with any of Epicor’s training and support.
I have all the Tech Ref Guides and Users Guides. They are obviously better than nothing, but not by much.
And questions on how to implement specific business processes, seem to best answered by other users who have actually done it, and have experienced the pros and cons of doing something a certain way.
Maybe Epicor has gotten better. But they’ve done nothing to make me think they have.
We have run multi company and multi plant for about 9 years with Vantage/Epicor. There have been some pain points and a lot of success.
Epicor’s support staff is much better at supporting these modules than in years past.
I will be honest and tell you that between support docs, playing with the software in test environments and bringing in a great consulting team to work out some kinks, we have simplified some complex transactions and financial reporting.
Let me know if a need recommendation to some consultants who can help.
Looks to me that if you create a part number for S1, the issue is resolved. Might have to change your business practice, but if you have a part number for S1 you can have demand in S2, but have the job manufactured in S2.
I agree with the other comments on training. Contact Epicor and get a consultant on site with Multi-Site experience for the best results. We have done this a few times with Vantage/E10 for Inventory, Finance and other areas and it has really helped. The ability to ask questions and get real answers on the spot speeds up the entire process and gives the users involved direct ownership of the processes they design.
I agree with Ricks statement to create a part number for your configured parts.
This way you can pass it through inventory via transfer order to the shipping plant which is driven via sales order release to ship this part from shipping plant. We do this, calling our parts EngineeredPart-Sales order no-Line no. It does make part master bigger, but we like to be able to pull them out via Engineered Part. Also when customer wants same order as done historically, don’t have to configure again.
In the first 9 months of 2016 we had 495 different configurations (each with a unique P/N) ordered. Over 375 were only ordered once. And that is just one of the configurable items. Another product had about 100 different configurations
I thought about creating generic P/N’s to hold the configured parts, but then two different configurations would appear as the same in the system, and would “share” costs.
FYI RE generic part nos:
We use generic part number RepairAndUpgrade-Pump for our repair work. A big drawback we’ve had is that all of the reports and job scheduling board are based on this generic part number and then when you’re looking at e.g. scheduled shipments report, you see a bunch of scheduled shipments for RepairAndUpgrade-Pump, not easily differentiated from eachother. We’ve trained the order entry personnel now to enter some details on the model/type of repair in part description, and exposed the part description on reports and it has helped.
Nancy - What about costing when items enter inventory as “RepairAndUpgrade-Pump”?
For example WIDGET-1000 and WIDGET-0100 are similar but the first is 1,000 FT long and has material costs of $2,000. The other just 100 FT, with a cost of $250. And we setup a generic P/N “WIDGET-GENERIC” to hold the parts in inventory so a Transfer Order can be done.
Normally this P/N would have zero QOH, and only exist to go from Site1’s WIP -> Site1’s Inv -> In Transit -> Site2’s Inv, and then be shipped from Site2’s inventory.
But there are constanat delays (by the customer) before we can ship an order to them. So having more than one variation of the WIDGET-xxxx part is almost a certainty.
We do not store the RepairAndUpgrade-Pump in inventory at all. You’re right, its cost is variable.
If we need to transfer a RepairAndUpgrade-Pump to another plant (i.e., pass the pump thru inventory), we make an intermediate part master part based on sales order line and from plant and transfer it via that unique part number, then sell the RepairAndUpgrade-Pump part from final plant, via make direct job.
In summary, first plant job to do RepairAndUpgrade-Pump-12345-1-WV setup as mfrd WV, transfer part for PA, and this part number is material on second job which is make direct for order 12345 line 1 from PA.called RepairAndUpgrade-Pump.
I don’t think this helps your many configured parts how to do it problem, though, since you need to transfer always. I just wanted to ensure that you were aware of some of the effects of using generic part number on not seeing decent data on many of the systems standard tools.
Almost every one of the sales order lines we process here is for a one off part. Currently, our part master has more than 325,000 active part numbers. E10 can handle it just fine!
We are considering creating parts from the Quote/Sales configurator. My concern is the impact it may have over time on Process MRP. We could end up with creating 1000 new parts each week. The reason for considering this is for multi-sites Transfer of Parts.
The S2 Job will get its demand from the Sales Order in S1.
The S1 Job will get its demand from the S2 Job.
To transfer S1 Job after completion from S1 to S2, use Job Receipt to Job.
Yes, this does work for Parts on the Fly.
Unfortunately, I no longer work for the company that did this with dozens of Jobs per day, so I can’t show you examples of the process. Test this out and let me know if you run into any issues.
Matt - We do no manufacturing at S2. And the people at S2 know nothing about Jobs. That site acts like a warehouse. It is a different site for Accounting reasons.
Having to make twice as many jobs, and all the overhead that goes with them is a cure that is worse than our current ailment. And how would you even get the finished assembly from S1 to S2. I understand a Job Receipt to Job transaction exits, but what about while it is in transit?
And how would it be known that the finished job in S1 needs to be shipped to S2?
I understand that this is not perfect, just shooting out some ideas.
S2 does not need to know anything about manufacturing or Jobs, the folks at S1 can do the transactions.
The Job Receipt to Job Transfer Order is instant, so there is not an in transit stage.
A dashboard could be created to monitor S1 for Jobs that are Complete (these need to be shipped), the shipping department would perform the Job Receipt to Job.
I believe that S2 would then need to receive the Transfer Order created by the Job Receipt to Job until then the are “In Transit” and can be monitored on a dashboard, the S2 Jobs could be Auto-Completed and Auto-Closed.
That’s clearer. I keep getting hung up on the fact that the Job Rcpt to Job(in a different site) creates a Transfer Order. And it’s this Shipment for that TO, that creates MFG-PLT? And the resulting TO Receipt does the PLT-MTL?
Still, all the extra transactions related to the dual jobs seems no better than creating Part entries that will never be used again.
Yes, the Job Receipt to Job will create a TO and ship it, this is the MFG-PLT transaction.
Yes, the Receipt of the TO creates the PLT-MTL transaction.
May be just me, but I’d rather have the extra Job and transactions than one time use parts in my Parts table. If you’ve got something that works and everyone understands, go with that.