Re: Open order amount in ACR300 -- BPCS-L

This was sent privately to Al Mac & here I am replying to the group because I 
think BPCS_L is better qualified than I to address some of these topics, or 
at least catch any of my mis-statements.

The fact that you are updating a field in a BPCS file with your own SQL is 
dangerous.  There is the risk that it will be updated twice ... once by your 
SQL & also by standard BPCS processes.  Midrange_L had a thread I started 
about getting the opposite of GO CMDREF & now thanks to help there, I have a 
query X_TRACE where I can key in the name of any file or program object & get 
a list of all the programs that update it or call it.  You may need something 
similar.

When your users delete orders or individual lines on orders, are they doing 
this through BPCS option to maintain orders, or are they going outside the 
BPCS system?  Have you ever tested what users do ... ACR300 before & after a 
user session that deletes stuff, compare the numbers to see if ACR300 is 
updated by the amount of the deletion?  Look at the audit trail accompanying 
the order maintenance to see if the numbers agree.

There is a field called CUSTOMER ORDER STATUS and you can get to it various 
ways, then cursor on the field & F1 to get at a chart of what all the values 
mean ... it is also buried some place in the DOC ... we have had the chart 
printed out & distributed to everyone who works with customer orders ... and 
we recently also added one for shop orders.

Our ID field is all open or Z'd ... we believe Z'd means it is waiting for 
something.
By the end of day billing, all our ECS lines are also Z'd.

How do you get rid of old unwanted deleted orders ... You do not use the BPCS 
reorg ... do you use IBM's?   I have written some zap programs, because I am 
forever in fear of el typo.

Do you ever have orders into the minus like over-shipped, RMAs, billing 
adjustments, and is all the number crunching taking that into consideration?  
Did you know that the shipping process had the power to change customer 
orders?  Did you know that BPCS lets us ship inventory we do not have?

Crowe Chizek has people on this list, and they also have people who 
distribute a CUSTOMER ORDER CHANGE HISTORY ... I do not know what all 
versions of BPCS it works with.  Basically what happens is that at end of day 
it compares current ECL data with a copy that was made end of previous day & 
writes change records to a file ... changes in due date, price, quantity, and 
cases of where the shipments played hanky panky with what was really ordered. 
 We can then query this history file & find out about all the changes made on 
the basis of some customer item order or other reference.

The way it is written, it is not getting all deletions, so we have added a 
query to the job stream to list all customer requirements that were deleted 
in the last 24 hours & how they compare to our lead times ... was this a case 
of sabotaging the factory floor or is the change far enough out that it is 
not harmful.

We also have a query we run every day to list customer orders where someone 
has neglected to specify a price.  This is because it is a whole lot easier 
to fix this kind of thing before the billing than notice it afterwards.

Deleting lines within an order is potentially dangerous for some versions of 
BPCS.
I have encountered BPCS programs that ASSUME the line numbers of an order are 
sequential .... you know like 1 2 3 4 5 etc. & if they miss a beat the 
program thinks that is the end of the data.  So long as the data is REALLY 
still in the file, just coded ZL or whatever LID, you are probably Ok.

These programs update BPCS files ... if some requirement is going away, the 
allocations & on order & all sorts of things get updated in many files & in 
theory everything remains in balance.  If you are updating some BPCS files & 
you are not doing so via some BPCS program, then you might be doing this to 
yourself.

Fortunately, we at Central do not run a 24x7 shop ... the people are using 
BPCS from about 6 am to about 5 pm (not all the same people ... overlapping 
shifts) so we are able to do backup & CST600 & MRP & CAP & CST900 & etc (not 
in that sequence) when they have gone for the evening.

You should visit SYS menu then take option 23 for reorganization menu, then 
press F1 for HELP about the stuff on that menu & scroll.  You do NOT want to 
be doing the stuff in the sequence that is on that menu & many of these 
options should ONLY be taken at certain points in end month processing, but 
there is a general description of each of them in the on-line help & we do 
run most of them once a week.

If you have the source code, you can also look at HELP about any given 
program without actually running the program.  Some of this is also in the 
DOC.

What the reorg programs have in common .... in theory every time we update 
stuff in BPCS it should all remain in sync & every human being in our company 
should have a thorough understanding of how BPCS is supposed to work & the 
right sequence in which to do various updates & we should never use a PC or 
communications line or other equipment that might go down in the middle of a 
BPCS update & everyone should know what to do when there is a record lock out 
& the list is endless of what collectively we should do, but often don't.  
And there are bugs that we have not yet found or fixed.

So most of the reorg programs take two files that SHOULD agree, and they 
ASSUME that one file is the correct one, and make the other file agree with 
it.

You might look in the archives for
Subj:    Re: Reorg (was RAR balance not equal to RCM balance)

There was a similar discussion to your current problem, in which some BPCS 
data was not in synchronization, and the topic of reorganizations came up - 
this might be helpful for you to review.

> Subj:  Open order amount in ACR300
>  From:    feroz4u@yahoo.com (feroz khan)
>  
>  Hello Sir,
>  
>  I did not run any reorgs to reset the open order
>  amount in ACR300.  I usually check the Open Orders
>  Report by Customer and update the COPEN field of RCM
>  with SQL for that customer and release the customer
>  from credit hold thru order hold manual release.
>  
>  It is happening with every second customer I mean
>  wherever there is a deletion.  Users, most of the
>  time, delete items within the order / whole order
>  itself and it is difficult to trace which customer
>  open order amount is appearing wrong in ACR300.
>  
>  I can try by running reorgs programs also.  Please let
>  me know which are those programs and what do they do (
>  logic).  If the problem can be resolved by running
>  reorgs programs, how often should I run those
>  programs, as users will be entering and deleting
>  orders several times a day.
>  
>  Thanks for replying me.
>  
>  Feroz Khan.


MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)
AS/400 Data Manager & Programmer for BPCS 405 CD Rel-02 mixed mode (twinax 
interactive & batch) @ http://www.cen-elec.com Central Industries of 
Indiana--->Quality manufacturer of wire harnesses and electrical 
sub-assemblies - fax # 812-424-6838

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