Alternates method(s), how to work with more than 1?

Epicor ERP 10
1

So I’m exploring the use of alternate methods and I’m wondering how the system is set to handle more than one alternate method when the alternate would be 2 levels down. We have our BOM’s set up to run all the way from the top level down the piece part which make be 6 or 7 or more levels deep. On the level that you are pulling in, you can pick the alternate method, but on any levels below that, it looks like it only gives you a binary option to pull alternate method on all parts or not. If I were to have a main method and 2 alternate method, how does it handle that? Will it always just grab the first one? Is there a way to control them in the lower levels?

If anyone can point me to some documentation that would be great. I can’t find any information that gets into the situation of more than one alternate method, and maybe there just isn’t, and I should just assume only the main and one alternate method in any processes that I try and set up.

2

Brandon,

In a stock mfg’d material scenario what I see being done is the unfirm job would have the primary method for that component part, but the job scheduler for the component can choose one the other alternates if needed.

I believe you can mark an alternate as the primary also.

Assemblies can get a bit complicated, I have seen it where you need a Parent level alternate to match up with and call out the desired component alternate.

Brad Boes
bradboes@boosterpconsulting.com
231-845-1090

E3FEB85129DB48D1BB79420BCDAFE2E9.png708×1 83 Bytes

3

Can you provide some more detail? Are you looking to drive to the alternate method all of the time? Once an alternate method is created, do the other alternate and primary methods become obsolete?

4

I want to have the quoting details come in with all of the manufacturing details. For example, we have a part of a machine that happens to be common for 3 upcoming jobs. So the shop floor wants to do those all in one batch early. Because of that, we set that sub-assembly to pull as material in the master so that when we build the parent job, it pulls them from the stock that the batch job made.

Our parts salesman needs to be able to put a list together of spare parts. For him to do that, we need to have the full BOM brought in somehwere, and then he can look through that with the help of a dashboard and pick out the spare parts that he will quote. The problem is, if I use the manufacturing/job details, it will stop in this situation and that list won’t include the parts in that sub-assembly for him to grab the spare parts.

My idea was to have him get details on the quote and we can use that table just like the job, with the added benefit of him being able to make any adjusments he wants without messing up production.

The problem is, it respects the same pull/view as assembly flags as the jobs do, and I’m trying to find a way around that. I thought that I could intercept the call and make it pull in all manufactured parts as assemblies, but I was unsuccessful in that, so now here we are talking about alternate methods.

Theoretically, I can probably get by with no more that the one alternate method, but I was wondering if I could make the alternate methods set up by job for these large orders with special situations, so that I could pull the alternate method for the specific job that we have it set up for, but any other time it would pull all of the methods down the purchase parts.

None of this would be a problem if you could just change parts in the jobs from assembly to material as needed, but it’s more difficult than that.

I hope that makes some sense…

The other option is to start using the pull qty on the assemblies again, but that requires people to do things to make that work (since I can’t backflush those). People having to do things around here leads to stuff just not getting done, with me and others left to clean up the mess months later because the people physically doing things think it’s too hard to electronically tell E-10 that they did them. :man_facepalming:

Or I need to get off my lazy ass and recreate the get details BOM and just build the BAQ/Dashboard from the master. But CTE queries suck.

5

Why not just have him use the method tracker to view the full BOM and mark every level as View As Assembly? If you did that, what else would you be missing?

6

Be careful with Alternate methods - it makes the engineering more difficult because if you check out the part it marks all methods unapproved - including all alternates. Engineers will have to remember to approve all of them.

It also complicates BOM explosions - it is not as easy as walking the partmtl table -it gets a little more involved.

7

Because the BOM in method tracker under view costs is 2,255 lines for one example. We need to be able to sum and group the things that we need so he can send out a quote in a reasonable amount of time.

8

I guess I am not understanding what the issue is. You can enter a quote for a part whether it is Pull or Plan. If no cost exists yet for that specific subassembly, you should be able to calculate the cost in the quote using the method for the subassembly of the finished good.

9

We need a way to get the list of the parts for him to quote. These are for spare parts for a conveyor. It’s not so much about the cost, as the list of parts. I am trying to use the quote manufacturing details to populate the quote asm and quote mtl table so we can get the list of parts to quote in a dashboard. If an assembly comes into the quote as pull, then the parts that go into that assembly don’t show up in the list.

10

If the person knows which subassembly is needed for the repair, all they have to do is enter the subassembly on the quote line and then use get details. Unless there is some customization stopping it, the full BOM for that subassembly should populate.

If they do not know what the subassembly part number is, they can use the manufacturing tab on the quote line to search for the 0 level and then drill down to find the subassembly they need.

11

They don’t. Business practice is, someone orders a full conveyor. As we are building the conveyor, the parts guys sends out a quote for all of the possible spare parts that they could need for that conveyor. Basically all of the purchased parts and some parts that we make. The sales guy has the top level conveyor number (the one that shows over 2k lines on assembly and material sequences), and needs a way to get the part number for the bearings, pulleys, belts, shafts, motors, gearbox etc. That’s what I’m trying to do is give him a way to get that list. We’ve been going of of the job tables, but sometimes they are fed in through inventory and other jobs and it doesn’t show everything. I could create the list from the master, but see comment above for my disdain for CTE queries. The Get details does a good job of making a single level table so that I can just filter by job number, or quote number and line, and we don’t have to do the CTE thing, but gets messed up with the pull and view as assembly thing. So I’m just looking for a way to leverage that functionality.

We created a spare/not spare UD field in the part master so he can determine which parts qualify as spare parts so if the parts are used again his list will be mostly populated, but he has to search through to make sure that there aren’t any new parts that should be on that list.

12

So, you are trying to build a list of ALL materials in the top level conveyor?

You need both purchased and manufactured?
Do you need the level or just a list of everything? (e.g. a material is used in 2 different subassemblies, you want that material to only show up once)

Sorry, just trying to get my head wrapped around the requirement so I can help.

13

You could have Engineering setup a sales kit with all the appropriate spare
parts. If you allow the kit to be configured at the time of quote of order
entry. Then set it for component pricing.

Just a thought…

Brad

14

How would engineering get their list?

15

Sorry, I don’t know your process, but usually its Engineering.

Who is marking the parts with the current UD field?

Brad Boes
bradboes@boosterpconsulting.com
231-845-1090

E3FEB85129DB48D1BB79420BCDAFE2E9.png708×1 83 Bytes

16

Yeah, it’s the sales guy who is setting up the spare parts lists and adjusting the UD field. The initial set up on new part creation has some basic logic in a BPM that determines if it’s a spare part or not so it can check the box, but after that he keys in on a couple of things that might need to be changed. He actually has a better handle on what things need to be set up for spare parts because he gets the calls when stuff needs to actually get ordered. The designers design it, but once it get handed off to production, they don’t usually worry about it again, they are on to the next project. It’s the nature of custom engineered products.