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We also run MRP600C every nite. Thanks to lessons learned on earlier threads of BPCS, we run MRP500C several times for a facility before running MRP600C from that same facility.
We hold off on starting this until after certain daily actions have been completed by 1st shift and part time worker in 2nd shift, such as changes to customer orders. However, the part time worker sometimes until 2 am to get done, and we need for our MRP and CAP to be completed before first people who show up at like 5 am of 1st shift, so sometimes we have to start MRP before the 2nd shift gal has completed her nitely duties.
Thank God for the ability to connect to the AS/400 via VPN from home. I can sign on every few hours to see if she is done yet.I can sign on a couple hours after filling the JOBQ to make darn sure nothing got stuck.
Take a look at BPCS Security. ======================This has been dramatically re-written for later versions than the one we are on (405CD) and I accept the possibility that some aspects are not as good as earlier ones. (Sometimes the act of fixing one thing involves a trade-off in which sacrifices must be made some place else.)
You can set people so that they only have access to the contents of a particular set of warehouses which are facility specific. We need people who work facility X to be able to inquire into facility Y to check on interfacility stuff and when there is an inventory shortage in X does Y have temporary excess we can tap into? So we wanted these people to be able to update stuff in facility X but only inquire into stuff in facility Y but BPCS security not that sophisticated.
Incidentally, managing BPCS security can be a royal pain in the rear end, and there are 3rd party add-ons to simplify that task, and repair areas where when BPCS was "invented" the security was great, but computer security is a moving target, so we need a time machine to go back to the invention of some version of BPCS and do a few things differently. Well you can buy 3rd party solutions that do that kind of thing.
Now we do have some people whose security is such that they cannot run MRP, can only do inquiry, so if it was acceptable to you, you could have a bunch of people who could do wide range of activities but not MRP, then use a particular OTHER sign on than their normal one, to do MRP for facility X. That way, you use BPCS security to control who can do what, and the people have to use more than one sign on for their duties.
Another approach is we can copy some BPCS programs such that they are 99% same as vanilla with just a few minor changes, and name the stuff so it is consistent with BPCS Security. You can set so that there is MRP6X to run MRP600 for facility X then inside BPCS security rules set who may run MRP6X and block access to MRP600. What MRP6X would do is use a custom prompt screen for MRP600 with all the fields filled in for facility X, regen-R (not net change) ... you would need another MRP6XN for net change. The only modifications needed would be to the CL ... under the covers it would run the same old RPG etc.
We have done modifications in which we know 100% of what needs to go into the prompt screen, so our modification is able to bypass the prompt screen. Just take option from a menu, and away it goes.
There are alternative ways of managing JOBQ ==================================Depending on your corporate budget, you might want to check out ROBOT SCHEDULE from HELP SYSTEMS. Many BPCS clients use this software for much more sophisticated tasks than are supported by either the IBM simple GO CMDSCDE or what is known as IBM ADVANCED SCHEDULER. These tasks can be setup so that one task (e.g. MRP600C) does not run until some other task (eg, MRP500C) has not only completed, but evidence associated with its completion shows that it was a successful completion, and if some task was not successful completion, some message is dispatched to relevant staff to take appropriate action, so you not have to wait until start of next shift to find out about the problems.
Now our company budget, being much more constrained, what we have done is go to a dual JOBQ architecture in which
1 JOBQ (BPCS default QBATCH) is used for stuff we know from experience will go pretty rapidly, typically run in less than a minute. 2. JOBQ (QSCHEDULE) is used for stuff we know from experience will take an arm and a leg of time to get done (Cost Rollups, Shop Order Purge, MRP CAP and some custom reports we have developed, that look at darn near everything in BPCS)
Stuff gets on the QSCHEDULE either* We altered the CL to steer those jobs there ... so if the jobs get launched from menu, command line, inside some other job, GO CMDSCDE (we have a ton of reports launched in the wee hours so they ready for our people when they show up for work beginning 1st shift)
* Pop-up Menu option 1 on selective work stationsMany years ago, we were on BPCS on S/36 before facilities were part of the equation. At that time we had each facility in a different environment and needed to coordinate launching many jobs, not only MRP so that each facility work would not overload our computer's capacity for only running so many JOBQ load at one time. I found that MRP was incredibly complicated, and that modifying it was an extremely non-trivial challenge.
For some tasks it may make sense to employ services of some outside consultant rather than relying exclusively on in house staff and company resources. For example, some outside consultants have access to some very sophisticated automated testing tools.
Hello, We are on BPCS 8.2.01 We run MRP600C every day. Before we start he job, we *HLD our jobqueue,submit multiple jobs with different parameters, change the schedule parameters and *RLS the jobqueue again. It is a is a cumbersome work around. We also have multiple facilities who run MRP. We would also like to secure the facility selection, which is not a standard bpcs security setting. We think about starting the MRP from a tailor made program, were we check facility security and submit the MRP600C as a scheduled job. Is anyone of you familiar with this solution ? If so, what parameters do we have to use for the call to MRP600C Kind regards, Peter Heeren Thetford BV -- This is the SSA's BPCS ERP System (BPCS-L) mailing list To post a message email: BPCS-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options, visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/bpcs-l or email: BPCS-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives at http://archive.midrange.com/bpcs-l. Delivered-To: macwheel99@xxxxxxxxxxx
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