Re: Mapics Question for Mailing List -- MAPICS-L

Forwarded by moderator on behalf of Dale Gindlesperger
(DaleGindlesperger@www.fft-inc.com):
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In response to Dale Walker from Automatic Products question on one versus
two warehouses - we had to make the same decision.  We, however, chose to
use one warehouse rather than two for our production and sales inventory. We
differentiated them by using the first position of the warehouse location as
either an "R" (for R/M-WIP) or "F" (for Finished Goods).  We also went to
the additional effort of not having the same part numbers used as sales
items and RM/WIP (we don't want to sell raw materials, components, or WIP
parts - they must be packaged and priced).

This has worked out OK for us - we made the decision based on the
requirements of MAPICS II MRP (this was in the mid 1980's).  Things work out
fine over all.  However, if I was making the decision today, I would NOT
choose a single warehouse.  Instead, I would set up the R/M-WIP warehouse as
the primary planning warehouse for production, and the F/G warehouse as a
demand warehouse for the primary.  We recently added a new product line, and
I set that area up as the new method.  It is easier to keep track of
inventories, the I/M reports are shorter, transactions are easier to track,
and MRP still works fine.

If you are interested in more information, send me an e-mail and I can
forward a memo describing how we set up the new area.

"Walker, Dale" <DWalker@automaticproducts.com>
Sent by: owner-mapics-l@midrange.com
05/14/01 04:16 PM Please respond to MAPICS-L


To:     "MAPICS Mailing List @ midrange (E-mail)" <mapics-l@midrange.com>
cc: Subject:        Mapics Question for Mailing List


I am looking for some advice on ways in which to handle our warehouse
configurations. We currently have our production warehouse configured
separately from our spare parts warehouse.  Both are controlled warehouses.
The original thought was that we could segregate inventories in this manner
in order to insure that we would have inventory available to insure high
levels of immediate shipping performance for spare parts orders. We are
considering combining these two warehouses into one in order to eliminate
some of the administrivia that occurs as a result of having to transfer
items to/from the separate warehouses and to ease the shipping process for
spare parts orders.  We are considering using safety stock levels to retain
high spare parts shipping performance or will use planning BOMs to plan for
service items.  Under this one warehouse scenario we would have one location
designating a spare parts location; possibly "parts".  Although the current
spare parts warehouse is controlled, recent discussions resulted in an
agreement that one location per item is sufficient. Presently, the Materials
Department uses one common stocking location (9999) in our parts warehouse
to temporarily store all items that are transferred in from any production
warehouse locations.   Individuals in the spare parts department are
supposed to transfer these items from location 9999 to the location where
the item actually gets stocked in the spares warehouse (this isn't a totally
reliable process). When the COM shipment occurs for the parts order, there
may be inventory available in 9999 and/or the real stocking location and the
operator in our Service Department basically picks the location that happens
to suit their fancy at the moment, or will choose the location that happens
to have a positive on-hand balance at the time (yea...I know...). I am
curious to learn what some of your perspectives are regarding the pros &
cons of operating in a single warehouse environment versus a multiple
warehouse environment for the production and spare parts inventories. Thanks
in advance!



Dale Walker, VP MIS
Gross-Given Mfg. Co. / Automatic Products Intn'l
http://www.automaticproducts.com
voice        651-290-4349
fax          651-224-5559
cellular   651-270-4150

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