We have 2 major levels in our BOM - a finished good and a subassembly. Our subassembly is basically a finished good without labels. So, we could have, for example, 5 different finished goods that all call out the same subassembly.

In terms of routing operations, the subassembly level is where 95% of the production time occurs. The last operation on the routing for the subassembly is curing, where the parts sit in a room for a couple days.

There is a disconnect between the quantities ordered at the finished good level and the quantity built at the subassembly level. Example - one of our finished goods is ordered in quantities of 45, but the subassembly level must be built in multiples of 50.

lets say a customer orders 45 of the finished good part. We would then open up 2 production orders, one for 45 of the finished good, and one for 50 of the subassembly. We would build the subassembly, put all 50 to stock, then issue 45 to a finished good production order, build that, report production complete and ship the order. The 5 extra subassembly parts would remain in stock until a new finished good production order needs them.

The problem with the above scenario is that since about 95% of the lead time is in the subassembly level, it is very hard for our sales and shipping groups to be able to accurately peg down from the sales order to the \ finished good level to the subassembly level to determine when product is coming to stock. I guess this is the disconnect due to having 2 levels in the BOM.

I have considered setting the subassembly as a phantom, but the problem is that when the customer orders 45, and we need to build 50, then there is no way to put the 5 extra units into stock at the subassembly level - which we need to do because we do not want to label them.

Has anyone ran into a similar issue? Basically the problem is that we have these 2 major levels in our BOM, and because the bulk of the lead time is at the subassembly level, and because we are not using projects and there is no 1:1 correlation between finished good and subassembly order, we have to jump through hoops trying to determine when each order will come to stock.

We basically have multiple sales order lines, all which could be different finished good production orders, which all could be calling out 1 subassembly order - and trying to figure all this out so we can schedule shipping and inform our customers on order status is a nightmare.

Thanks
Bryan G

Bryan,

I think the reason behind this trouble is not your two bom levels, but an inaccurate production planning for the top level item. Your sales people are only interested in when the end product is coming to stock, right? However, they have to look when the subassembly will be produced. Why? Normally, this should be the task of production planning, and during production planning the end date of the top level production order should be adjusted if the material (the subassembly) is not on time.

Or am I missing something here?
Uli

You are exactly right. The problem is the volume of orders. In order to match up which subassembly order is going to which finished good order, and then going into each on a daily basis and changing the dates would take a couple hours every day.

Im trying to avoid complexity - but maybe this is the only choice we have???:D

Off the top of my head, I think you have your BOM structured correctly. I hate to say the word 'customization' but one possibility is a bolt-on customization (as opposed to an integrated one). Unless you use PCS you can't peg level 1 (FG/no label) item inventory/production orders to level 0 (FG/label) item sales orders. The salespeople would query the new table which is rebuilt completely on a periodic basis. The question here is 1) how long is this period (how much can salespeople tolerate old data?), and 2) volume of data that would equate to how long the batch session would take to run.

Here are some details of the batch session:

1. Clear the new FG-Alloc table.

2. Select all outstanding sales order lines by the level0 item by delivery date. Create a FG-Alloc record for each order line indicating o/s qty, delivery date. order, item, etc.

3. Select onhand for level 0 item inventory and allocate to the order lines on a FIFO basis by updating the FG-Alloc records.

4. Select open prodn orders for level 0 items and allocate their o/s qtys in the same manner. An issue here is the prodn order delivery date vs the sales order delivery date but there is more detail to how to do this that I haven't included here.

5. Select onhand for level 1 item inventory and allocate to the order lines on a FIFO basis by updating the FG-Alloc records. You would have to know what level 0 items use this level 1 item and I would do this in step 1 by also adding the level 1 item to the FG-Alloc table.

6. Select open prodn orders for level 1 items and allocate their o/s qtys in the same manner. Same date issue as in step 4.

At the end you have one FG-Alloc line per sales order line showing its o/s qty, and where its supply is coming from with associated dates.

This is just a rough sketch but if well thought out then it should work and Baan patches can still be loaded without compromising the customization.

Email me if you wish to discuss further.