Duplicates in BPCS files - illusion? -- BPCS-L

What causes duplicates?  

This has come up several times in BPCS_L discussion of MRP performance 
challenges.

We recently had apparent duplicates for one customer order on ORD300 --- the 
ORD500 review was fine, but when we inquired into it, each requirement line 
was duplicated except the second appearance was blank for location --- after 
running a variety of dumps on the customer order files, I suspected that 
perhaps some type or flag was causing MRP requirements to show up on ORD300.

I recognize that we can do stupid stuff, like people using DFU instead of 
learning BPCS (it is easier to screw things up than struggle to learn the 
system), but sometimes human error might be more easily avoided by better 
reporting & division of labor regarding the input data.

We have had an intermittent management problem in that we end up with 
duplicate customer orders.  They were keyed in duplicate - same customer PO# 
item date etc.  This is because we get customer orders by fax & phone & other 
methods with a confirming document in the mail & sometimes person-A keys it 
in when we get first copy & person-B keys in next copy.  Even if you use 
ORD300 or other inquiry - nope that order is not in the system, then proceed 
to key it in, two people could be doing that at the same time.

We have also had some struggles with inter-company re-supply orders, in which 
the cause was determined to be personnel entering the orders for our 
inter-company the same way as they enter orders for external customers, and 
other personnel also entering the re-supply orders, so that the identical 
requirements were in the system twice, but by two slightly different paths.

But what causes duplicates when our questioning of users does not elicit a 
logical explanation?  I am thinking that after doing the type of work that is 
at risk of creating duplicates, we need some kind of a report or inquiry to 
check if any exist that need cleaning up.

We have had a running battle with extraneous Shop Order Labor Tickets, in 
which we determined that the problem was - if we keep history on-line for 365 
days, then at time of physical or fiscal year, reset those numbers that 
increment back to the beginning, then there can be an overlap between a new 
issuance of a shop order, and past history on-line for the same order number 
the last time it was used & when SFC300 goes after matching order #, it does 
not differentiate that this might be on a different item, facility, or labor 
reported on a date before the shop order was created.

I looked at this to see how practical to modify, only to find that SSA had 
shipped us source code with bugs that won't compile.

We number our facilities & warehouses & work centers consistently - the first 
character is unique to the site.  

>  Your endless loop could very well be caused by a duplicate record 
> in your KFP file. A duplicate would be defined as the same item, same date, 
> same order type (planned, form, etc) and same warehouse.
>  
>  Mike Bloom
>  Nexgen Software Technologies
>  bloom@nexgensoftware.com

>  From:        roxrhud@colaik.com (Ron Hudson)
>  
>  I have seen duplicate records in some files cause this type of problem.
>  You might want to verify that  IWIL04 does not have any duplicates.
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