This should be a common problem in the manufacturing industry, but I never found a session that solves the following problem:

The company decides to discontinue a range of items. Based on the BOM, the components of these items (manufactured or purchased) might also be affected by this discontinuation. In order to find out which item is no longer used, the planner has to pick 'his' items from the BOM, run the 'Where Used' session before he can make a final decision to mark this item as 'No Longer Used'. This task can be very time consuming and, because it's done manually, error-prone.

I assume that this is not a specific problem of our company. Other should face it as well, probably with larger BOM’s than we have. Is there a solution in the market that handles this task automatically?

Best regards,

Martin

I must be missing something. I can understand discontinuing top level items - possibly being ones you no longer want to sell. Obviously these would be flagged with an Item Signal with the appropriate blocking codes to warn or not allow enter onto a sales order.

But, I do not understand the need to immediately flag the components of these that are no longer used. Assuming you are using ERP/MRP, you just won't see any more demand for the component and do not buy any more.

Is it that you want to identify any excess inventory of components that will be left if the top level item is no longer used? This is a more common problem for us - and not just when discontinuing items. This can also be an issue when changing one component for another in a bill of materials.

We do an obsolete / excess analysis at least once a year looking at recent actual transactions and projected future movements. This clearly identifies those components that are truly obsolete and we can then apply the desired Signal Codes to those.

Hi jcorwine,

Thanks for your reply.

But, I do not understand the need to immediately flag the components of these that are no longer used. Assuming you are using ERP/MRP, you just won't see any more demand for the component and do not buy any more.
Frankly, I expected this objection. You are correct, the demand won't no longer show up, except one thing: safety stock. To flag these items actually means for us: reduce safety stock to a lower lever (or zero), eventually changing the planning method from MRP to Manual and so on..
In addition to that, we would like to be proactive: the period between the announcment and the actual date of expiry gives the planner plenty of time to reduce the inventory level of the affected items..

Is it that you want to identify any excess inventory of components that will be left if the top level item is no longer used? This is a more common problem for us - and not just when discontinuing items. This can also be an issue when changing one component for another in a bill of materials.
Exactly, this is another major concern. We simply have to get rid of this expired stuff..

We do an obsolete / excess analysis at least once a year looking at recent actual transactions and projected future movements. This clearly identifies those components that are truly obsolete and we can then apply the desired Signal Codes to those.
Well, this method has several disadvantages, mostly the delayed reaction, and also the problem with other slow moving items which are not expired.

Hi there,

I have to admit that I didn't mentally 'dig deeply' into the problem, but from what I understood you want to identify the impact on sub-items when top level items are no longer needed.
Rough approach: Gather all sub-items of obsolete top items in an array, then run through bom of all other top items and free each member (sub-item) in the array as soon as you find it in a bom ==> array now contains all obsolete sub-items.
Thorough approach: Use the total numbers of consumption (top-level items - sales statistic) too and multiply according to bom so that you get the total numbers of sub-items used. Then do the same with the obsolete top level items only and combine the totals for sub items of these two runs - this will give you a percentual idea, of how many sub-items you will need.

Although I have to admit that recursion is not my strongest skill when I'm programming, either way is not too hard to do.

hth or please tell me when i didn't grasp the problem

regards

Norbert

When we obsolete or end-of-life and assembly or product, part of the process is identifying the unique items and subassemblies, similar to what Norwim suggests. All of them are immediately given an appropriate signal code to identify it as obsolete, end of life, spares only, etc. It's typically easier to do this all at the same time rather that going back later and trying to identify the items.

We faced this exact same challange, and took a 'big hammer' approach.

Step 1:
When the purchasing \ engineering groups know that there is an upcoming change, they put the change (ECN Number + affected parts into a custom table in Baan).

Step 2:
We wrote a Baan report that can be run for either a unique ECN, or a range of ECN's. The user can enter an effectivity date of when the change is going to happen.

The report shows for each item on the ECN :

How many on Hand
Current Inventory Value
Current use (pcs\day)
If we made the change on the requested date, how many surplus pcs would we have.
Surplus inventory dollars


The idea was to give the users a tool that would enable them to plan what the best effective date was for the change, and to help the isolate and eliminate surplus inventory before that date.

We never really used it, even though all the software worked.

Hope this gives you some ideas of what may be possible.

We faced this exact same challange, and took a 'big hammer' approach.

Step 1:
When the purchasing \ engineering groups know that there is an upcoming change, they put the change (ECN Number + affected parts into a custom table in Baan).

Step 2:
We wrote a Baan report that can be run for either a unique ECN, or a range of ECN's. The user can enter an effectivity date of when the change is going to happen.

The report shows for each item on the ECN :

How many on Hand
Current Inventory Value
Current use (pcs\day)
If we made the change on the requested date, how many surplus pcs would we have.
Surplus inventory dollars


The idea was to give the users a tool that would enable them to plan what the best effective date was for the change, and to help the isolate and eliminate surplus inventory before that date.

We never really used it, even though all the software worked.

Hope this gives you some ideas of what may be possible.

Hi jroberts,

that's exactly what we are looking for. I'm surprised that you never used it.

Martin

Run the Slow Moving Inventory Report to see items that have no movement or when last issued.

Can the slow moving inventory report provide $$ value of excess with no demand report as well??

Please advise.

Thanks.

AMit