Backflush not working

A few months ago we updated all of our stock parts to be have the backflush flag checked on their part master(s), but they are not backflushing when the operations they are tied to are marked complete. Note: We are not backflushing labor, just parts.

The parts are attached to operations, they have a quantity and they show as backflush on the jobs. All operations are tied to resource groups and the backflush WH/bin fields are empty on the associated resource group(s), so that it pulls from the main stocking location.

Any ideas why the process does not work? We have read through the hierarchy.

We have a long production process, so do not want to wait until Job Complete/Close to backflush.

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

Are they ending activity and reporting the quantity when they end activity? The backflush will related to the quantity you put in when you end activity. So you can’t just mark the operation as complete.

Yes they are. They are marking the operation complete and reporting a labor quantity. See attached example. The part I circled is showing like there isnt any material in the backflush location, but there are 351 pcs in the main stocking location. Note: The parts that are issued are parts that are in a separate warehouse that get hand picked, so they are manually issued and not marked backflush.

Is the material set to backflush on the job? If you just changed the parts, and jobs created before that change won’t be backflushed. You have to check the box on the material in the job.

Also, do you happen to have not allow negatives on? I’m not sure if that will mess with backflushing if you have something not in the right bin.

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The jobs were created after the change and parts are marked backflush on the job. We do allow negatives.

I’m assuming you looked in Part tran for that part and nothing shows up for that job? (this is about all that I can think of that would be causing your problem.)

Shot in the dark, but make direct, or purchase direct isn’t checked is it? Back in the day Epicor allowed both backflush and purchase direct to be checked which didn’t make any sense.

Make and Purchase direct are not checked in the job and there is no transaction for the part against this job.

Stacy, have you checked the backflush log for more information?

No we have not. I do not think we have seen this log. What kind of log is this/what is it named please? Is it a server application log?

This is for labor only, sorry it’s been a minute since dealing with backflush.

But I do believe it backflushes material as well. I could be wrong though.

Read up on the backflush labor server process. I am not sure running this service should be needed in your case, but I remember it did record material issuing.

It is on the app server as a separate log. Try it in your test environment.

That’s just for labor @utaylor . I looked at that too and remembered that it’s for backflushing labor only.

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I do recall that it is for labor only but it also recorded material transactions as they pertained to backflushed operations- I believe****

It’s been so long. But I remember I used to it to find an issue with material transactions.

Just checking - you have these as Qty-Bearing materials?

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Make sure you don’t have FIFO Layers enabled in Site Cost Maintenance for your site (rare, but it can be the cause).

Good idea @Rick_Bird , also, are these Lot or Serial controlled? Those won’t allow backflush either.

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@utaylor You are correct the backflush labor also handles the materials side. Corrected:

@SPhillips The hierarchy is a fun read, but I have found that the most consistent for us to fire is the resource group of the related operation backflush warehouse and bin. We do not use our stocking location as our backflush quantities sometimes are not accurate. We also have found that since it is a background process it has no regard for on hand quantities. We true up what is in floor stock weekly.

You may have it set properly and just need to run the process.

We never use continuous processing. A holdover from E9. Shortest time I have is 5 minutes for the Backflush Labor Process. I know it does the material, but there is no mention of material in my log. We stopped backflushing labor a year ago and I have the same 18 backflush operations logged every 5 minutes. 1.8M lines of them. Apparently I have some cleanup to do.

In the image below from PTHT the reference is the LaborHedSeq and LaborDtlSeq that triggered the backflush.

@gpayne , it did that because the labor was a backflush labor transaction. If you aren’t backflushing labor, I’m 90% sure that you do not need that process.

@Banderson We don’t backflush labor anymore so I stopped that process. I will know in a few hours if we don’t backflush any material on third shift. It would be nice not to have that running.

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Sweet, now I don’t have to wire up a test to check to make sure I am correct.

The reason that I don’t think you need that, is when I would end activity with quantity, part tran showed the material tran right away. If we were backflushing labor, the subsequent labor transactions would take a couple of minutes to show completed. (we had the process running every 2 minutes.)

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