RE: Anyone entering BPCS Forecast have the Prorate Forecast flag set on? -- BPCS-L

Hi,

Al, your input is welcome.  It sounds like our shops are similar.  For one
of our product groupings, we sometimes have customer orders before we have
completed BOMs and/or routings.  We use the "Item Status Code" field to
identify these...  Actually we have 3 product groupings. 
1. Items made to order (along w/ engineer to order).  
2. Items w/ high usage tied to many parts and/or customers.  
3. Items w/ high usage but for only one or very few customers.
Our old rule was to store minimum balances on 2 and enter a forecast on 3.
Now we are going to replace the min bals w/ an automated forecast (based on
sales history) on item grouping 2 (w/ some exceptions).  The reason we want
to get away from min bals driving stock levels is because no one maintains
them hence no one trust them, they tend to be too high, they drive demand
prematurely at times...
Thanks again for your input. 

DeeDee Virgei
Project Leader
Nelson Stud Welding, Inc.
7900 West Ridge Rd
Elyria, OH 44036

 -----Original Message-----
From:   Al Mac [mailto:macwheel99@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent:   Monday, August 25, 2003 1:07 PM
To:     SSA's BPCS ERP System
Subject:        Re: Anyone entering BPCS Forecast have the Prorate Forecast
flag  set  on?

DeeDee

Some more thoughts ... hope I not being unconstructive here

We often get customer requirements on new parts before the customer 
approves the samples.  We enter BOM and customer requirements, so that the 
MRP will plan the raw materials in time, then enter the Routings when the 
samples are approved.  We have a hard time differentiating for our factory, 
which customer orders are not REAL yet, because samples not yet 
approved.  There has been some experimentation, placing "S" in buyer 
planner code when sample not yet approved, but looks to me like that is not 
yet working, because I have seen shop orders released on such parts that 
are not yet ready.

We have had evolving business needs in our mainly make to order reality, in 
which we recently have been doing some things differently.  We have a 
growing volume of customers in which we need to have a safety stock of 
finished product, that we send out when the customer asks for it with 
almost no lead time, compared to how long it takes us to make it.

To make this work, we are using minimum balance safety stock in CIC 
file.  Sometimes questions have come up, when we moved product from which 
factory made it (new factory needs CIC safety stock, old factory not need 
that any more), and I have discovered that CIC safety stock demand does not 
show up on MRP300 ... you trace the pegging and it goes invisible.  I am 
wondering if other requirements from other sources in BPCS can also go 
invisible, whether you looking INV300 DRP300 etc.  As we implement changes 
in how we do things, we need to be alert to the risk of invisibility in 
what's going on why.

We manufacture parts in one facility to be used in another, so they have to 
be item master coded manufactured parts.  In the facility where they used, 
we have some new staff who are unfamiliar with our item # systems item 
classes and so forth, who sometimes have something to be made on short 
notice, they look at the BOM and release shop orders on purchased and other 
parts that should not be in that situation if they had better understanding 
of our systems.  Oh yes training issues abound.


-
Al Macintyre
BPCS/400 Computer Janitor at http://www.globalwiretechnologies.com/


>Thank you very much for your responses so far.
>
>We are set up similar to Al, where we run MRP nightly and don't use order
>policy K...
>
>Robert, we have a mix of both stock items and made to order; but I don't
>think the made to order items will stop us from using the prorated forecast
>- we are trying to enforce having our sales employees enter customer orders
>for those items, which would then drive requirements.  If we do end up
>forecasting them, we'll make the start and end dates the same...  I
couldn't
>agree more on it being an issue of training and all.
>
>I've set up our test environment to run a prorated forecast.  In a
nutshell,
>requirements appear prorated, but orders don't (most apparent on MRP300
>screen --Planning/Pegging Inquiry).  The main reason we are forecasting is
>to have more reliable MRP results; our next step is to start using PUR640
PO
>Consolidation/Release - our goal is to automate creating and distributing
>POs based on MRP... I'm going to do some further testing - thinking I might
>have a parameter set up wrong, else this prorate flag is useless to us.
>
>DeeDee Virgei
>Project Leader
>Nelson Stud Welding, Inc.
>7900 West Ridge Rd
>Elyria, OH 44036

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