Thanks Kristin, we use Alternate Methods now. What we are trying to do is allow our Buyer to be able to decide what material can be purchased rather than asking the Engineer's to determine that up front.
When you setup a Method and run MRP the suggestions to create a Job does not look at alt methods unless you identify it up front. This means that the Engineer must be responsible for keeping up with costing and other factors that may help determine where we buy material to fulfill the Job.
When you setup a Method and run MRP the suggestions to create a Job does not look at alt methods unless you identify it up front. This means that the Engineer must be responsible for keeping up with costing and other factors that may help determine where we buy material to fulfill the Job.
--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Kirstin Brandt" <kirstin.brandt@...> wrote:
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> Have you researched alternate methods? Same part and rev, but with multiple methods of manufacture attached. You pick which one to use when you create the job.
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> --- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "batlou" <brian.chandler@> wrote:
> >
> > Essentially are an Engineer To Order manufacturer. Customer states they want to us to build a Widget and provides us with the BOM. We use this to create a Method in Epicor with an Operation and Material.
> >
> > What makes this often challenging for us is that we don't actually build anything here. All of our orders are sent out to a sub-contract manufacturer for the actual manufacturing to take place. We provide them with the BOM and CAD drawings and they build and ship to us. We maintain the BOM (method) to order Material that cannot be supplied by the Sub-Manufacturer.
> >
> > In the case where we are required to supply all or some of the material to build the Widget we need the flexibility to order these materials based on several factors. Proximity to Sub, Lead Time, Cost, Approved Substitution, etc. This could mean that one week we order Material "XYZ" and the next we may order "PNY".
> >
> > Where we run into trouble is that we have no way to manage the approved substitutions without an ECO which as you know changing the method requires a lot of work and is a pain in the backside. Creating a new Rev is not ideal as that would change the part number to the customer which means they would then have to do work on their side to match up their BOM's.
> >
> > Ideally we would have the person that is in charge of purchasing see the requirement to purchase material and be able to cross reference approved substitutions. Our hope was that setting up an "alternate" part in the Part Entry screen would solve this but it is not at all what we are looking to do.
> >
> > This would have to be done prior to creating and firming up the Job or else we would have Material to issue that does not match the Job. Because the same person that sets up the Job also creates the PO and places the order it is assumed that we can capture all of this up front and solve this part.
> >
> > So the question is, has anyone figured out a way to deal with this effectively and efficiently? Does anyone have a simple suggestion on how to manage these substitutions on an as-needed bases?
> >
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