Good Afternoon All,
We are having some difficulty with co parts that the threads I’ve read have not really answered for me. some background: we have not used MRP yet but we are ensuring our system is set up so we can. one issue that keeps plaguing us is coparts. Previously, we had improperly set up co part items in our system. the Parent item was built in the workbench with the idea that within production of the item, it will also create a different part. most cases the customer will be buying the child part at the same time as the parent, but not always. the way these items were set up did not allow shipping or production to properly “see” the child material. often loosing visibility in Epicor, unable to track the child through shipping. to put plainly, co parts are a nightmare here. I have tried fixing the co-parts based off the co-part training video Epicor provided, and it did work for a time. The video dictates to create the co part at the job level and not have them built into the parent item’s Enginering Workbench. This worked for a while, but now our production crew has changed the way they process orders, and now the process they follow as outlined within Epicor training do not function properly with a co part job.
I am rebuilding the co part link on the engineering workbench is efforts to allow MRP to run smoothly however the job function is still having issues. our production team is seeing the error message in the Work Queue. The error reads: the total co-parts production quantity and labor quantity do not balance.
Production is unable to properly place their labor hours against the job.
If anyone knows how we can get this resolved, I would greatly appreciate it.
A couple of questions first… when you manufacture Parent Part “A” does it always (in this case “always” means Every. Single. Time.) also product Child Part “B” (and perhaps others as well)? Do the child parts have independent demand (can someone just order “B” without ordering “A”)? And finally, is the ratio of “B” to “A” constant (whenever I make 5 “A”, I get 3 “B” or whatever)?
Let’s start with where you want to get to, then figure out where you’re at, and see how long the path is between those two points.
Do you take the parts to stock after producing them? If so, it wouldn’t matter that part A and part B are sold separately.
For costing purposes, you will need to have a method to produce part A and a separate one to produce part b. This is only for costing if you are using standard costing.
When they are reporting quantity, are they using the Co-Parts card to report it? It’s a separate, card/tab that has them report the amount of parts A they produce and the amount of parts B they produce. Is there a BPM that is looking at part B to see that the amount that is entered in production is the amount that should be entered based on the method? Example would be if they report 1 part A and 1 part B but the method says they should be reporting 1 part A and 2 parts B, whether good or bad.
If they are trying to enter the parts on the main screen, that won’t work.
All material for both parts is loaded for material whether it belongs to Part A or Part B.
Thank you for your response Ernie,
depending on the customer, there are a few customers that like to mix and match between 6 parts, but primarily there is a fixed ratio. 1:1. 2:1,:3:2 are pretty common ratios. I have set the parts up to be independant of each other initially. Using the revisions function to separate between being individually ran and with a child co-part. the child co-parts also have 2 revisions, 1 ran individually and a second revision with no build information to allow the co-part function.
Beth,
Essentially, we are going to be putting everything back to stock… we are moving away from make to order as our primary way of job building and moving to everything being made to stock via the MRP function.
As far as reporting, I am unsure if they are using the co-parts tab but I am assuming they are if it is present.
MRP (and almost all automation) is based on doing something the same way every time. Every time MRP sees a need for Parent Part A, and Child Part B is a co-part, it will create a job for Parent Part A which will also product Child Part B in whatever ration has been defined.
If you don’t always want to do it that way, then someone will need to modify some of the jobs that MRP creates.
If your goal is for MRP to create all the jobs for you with as little input from your planning/production staff as possible, then the “default” revision (most recent Approved revision by Effective Date) should contain the parent part and as many co-parts as your organization feels comfortable with stocking. Since you’re moving to building everything to stock, that works in your favor… but you might eventually build up too much stock of a (or several) child part(s).
Interesting… so if we used a revision to separate between co part and not co parted, and select the revision needed for that job, Co-parted with product A, B, C, or no co-parts at all, you are saying the MRP will pick whichever Revision is the newest? even if the multiple revisions are active?
If you are making to stock, then yes. Kinetic will use the most recent revision for all make-to-stock jobs. If you are using the Make Direct flag on a Sales Order Release, you can specify a revision there and, as long as you UNCHECK the “Use Part Rev” flag at the part level, MRP will honor what’s on the SO Line for the sales order.