ORD V4 Clarification -- BPCS-L

from Al Macintyre
We are on BPCS 405 CD

Question

At what point does record id for ECL go CL to ZL for customer order lines 
whose quantity we sent (shipped then billed) greater than or equal to what 
the customer ordered?  Is it within shipping, billing, or some other point?

A Problem

When the shipment is greater than what was ordered, it shows up on various 
ORD search engines, for customer order maintenance staff ability to adjust 
quantity ordered to agree with quantity sent.  I have my doubts that this is 
a wise corporate policy, since it erases internal evidence of our shipping 
performance slip-ups, still known to our customers of course.  

I think it is driven by a lack of understanding of what exactly is the effect 
on MRP of shipping against other than the best order lines of a blanket 
order, if no subsequent adjustments were made, and an internal battle between 
various departments, like suppose something is due both this week & next 
week, and the shipments are made against next week's requirement, it makes 
this week's look overdue, into the eyes of production management.

Question

Do I assume correctly that quantity picked, shipped, invoiced, get updated 
real time in ECL as they happen, with no delay through any work file such as 
BBL?

A Problem

I suspect that some queries are inadeqately taking into consideration stuff 
like order types & status codes.

Our overall scenarios

We use blanket orders heavily ... each ECH record typically has a ton of ECL 
lines = same item, similar quantity, evenly spaced dates.

We do not use data collection so there's a lag in reporting labor & inventory 
transactions which varies by application.

Parts often finish manufacturing & are shipped out the same day.

Since labor reporting is lagging, computer inventory must be driven negative 
so we can do the shipping paperwork.

Miscellaneous add-on reports & queries are run intermittently during every 
day, some of which I suspect are not correctly reflecting the latest status, 
due to the negative inventory & general corporate lack of understanding of 
order codes.

Billing is run at end of work day.

Overnight we do MRP & Job Scheduler reports, whose accuracy I doubt due to 
the impact of these various negatives.

Sometime next morning, 

customer service adjusts order requirements on over-shipments to agree with 
what was actually shipped, and due dates on what's left, so that production 
control will not see eroneous dates on what is left to produce;

production control gets caught up with keying in transactions for yesterday's 
activities;

inventory control cleans up any left-over negatives.

Bottom Line

I am struggling with how to improve reports that have inaccuracies due to lag 
in transaction reporting, and other hassles.

Al
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