Blocking PO suggestions from unfirm jobs

Hi Everyone,

Any ideas on how to block PO suggestions from unfirm jobs?
Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Hi Moe,

I don’t think that there is a way to do this. What problem are you trying to address by wanting to have no PO suggestions? Typically, if you want the system to make a production suggestion (i.e., unfirm job) then you want system to make purchasing suggestions (i.e., new PO suggestion). If you don’t want it, then don’t run MRP on the parent part perhaps…

We do have cases where we need a “placeholder” job to start purchasing long lead items against but are unsure of all parts and operations that will eventually be required. For this, we firm the job and then remove materials from the job, if needed, while engineering works on the method and revises the job BOM as needed.

Nancy

Nancy,

Thank you for the reply!
We want to prevent our purchasing department from buying items that are listed in the BOM of an unfirm job. Since we are not doing purchase direct we cannot filter for suggestions from unfirm jobs.

Hi Moe,

What is the use of having an unfirm job when you do not want to purchase yet?
Should you consider turning off process MRP on parts that you don’t actually want to consider yet?
If the unfirm job is associated with a sales order line, should you consider making your sales order release unfirm so you don’t get an unfirm job for it yet?

Nancy

Your post begs the question - what are you using unfirm jobs for if not to procure material? Are you just looking for overloads across resources?

Moe,
What version are you on? We are on 10.2.500.7 and would love to see PO suggestions on unfirm jobs. That way we can get them firmed up and combine orders if need be. We have some components with long lead times that don’t show until the job is firmed, then we are scrambling to get parts here.

Having unfirm jobs in the system helps us with scheduling resources and avoiding shortage - in answer to the question on why have unfirm jobs :wink: . We only firm for our “frozen” period and let MRP handle updates on the slushy and liquid periods.

Jenn

Jenn,

PO suggestions will only show for materials that are pulled from stock. Materials that are marked as purchase direct will not generate suggestions until the job is firmed up. Additionally, any subcontract operations on the job won’t create suggestions until the job is firmed.

Without knowing more about your system, it might make sense to set these materials up as stocked parts so that jobs will pull from stock and you’ll get PO suggestions immediately when the unfirm jobs are created.