Does anyone know if there is a standard process to create a single job from multiple job suggestions? The result would be a single job with X number of demand links.
I tried using Planning Workbench to select 2 new job suggestions for the same part. When I attempt to create a job, I get an error “The job already exists” and it only creates 1 job with 1 job demand link.
I think Job Manager allows what you are trying to do.
Thanks @jkane. That seems to be the only way. It would be nice to link more than 1 at a time.
Job Manager is Part driven. You should be able to link all demand to one Job in that screen. If I am remembering correctly, you can even create a Job from that screen.
You’re right, Job Manager is part driven. You can link all your demand to one job, but it still requires you to do this link by line. There is no checkbox to select multiple suggestions.
I just created some ideas to make this process scale with the number of suggestions.
Allow linking multiple job suggestions to one job in Job Manager
Allow creating one job for the same part with multiple demand links from Planning Workbench
I’ll tell you, the holy grail of this would be if MRP could do it, too.
So, we are ETO and, in short, all of our orders are make direct.
But in truth, they are not ALL make direct. We used to do that, and once we firm the job, it is make direct. But most of our unfirm jobs are supplying non-direct orders, lumped (via days of supply) a week at a time (past 60 days out). There’s a whole discussion of it in that post below. It was a tweak I had to make to trade off for MRP time.
But if I could actually keep all my sales orders as make direct and yet MRP knew to lump them into jobs for several demand links (past a time fence) in order to reduce the load on MRP, oh that would be amazing.
Because past 60 days, I lose the visibility of “this job is for this project (on this order).” (To get the link back, I have to run multi-level pegging and query off of it. It works okay.)
@timshuwy Whaddya think? Shooting for the moon? I ask because you helped me with that post below. (It’s working well, by the way.)
(@mbayley I voted on both, by the way.)
We are ETO for the majority of our work too. So far we’ve been doing ok with make direct for all of our machined components, but our machine shop is complaining when they get a common part on a dozen different jobs. It would be so much easier to enter time and material on one job.
I’m thinking of using the job suggestions and automatically converting them to jobs on some reoccurring schedule via a function
Very cool thread.
I came out of an ETO / MTO background. We were also 100% lot controlled. that said, we also changed our process, and became 100% make to stock, and processed EVERYTHING through stock.
WHY?
BUT… for those that still want to tie their sales order to jobs, you CAN have the best of both worlds.
Right, there’s merit to all of that.
Here’s our problem: our biggest suppliers, like Cummins/Meritor and our Allison distributor.
They refuse to look at our purchase orders. (Seriously.)
They want a detailed schedule - we need this engine for this truck (that we are building) on this date.
So for that I either need make direct, or I do make to stock but then I have to use multi-level pegging to interpolate the link. It works, but not flawlessly.
We don’t get to tell them how we want to buy from them. They dictate that conversation.
Incidentally, implied in that is that multi-level pegging kind of does this work now - the work of saying to itself, “This job fulfills the demand of these 5 order releases.”
So, is it extreme to think that the MRP engine could do the actual demand-linking?
Tim, thanks for weighing in on this. I always think like you did there, but come back to this “issue.”
The issue with make to stock for some companies is that they might make these parts one time and never again, or for a short period of time (3 months) and then never again so they decide to make a quote with a part on the fly and then pull details from that quote continually as orders come in which ends up with this same scenario that @mbayley started with, though I don’t think @mbayley has this part-on-the-fly complexity. Michael are these parts all set up as parts in the part master? Cause if they are I would argue that Tim’s approach could work.
For us we deal with a lot of parts on the fly because they are truly one-offs. Having to set it up in part maintenance and all that seems to be a struggle for some companies, because it’s all that extra work for something you might make once. And now you have standard costing to worry about, did you put the right cost on it so that the variances are meaningful, did you check Process MRP, did you set it up in the right sites, etc. I see some argument for keeping everything as a part on the fly and not having to deal with part maintenance for something that might only be ordered once.
-Utah
I don’t think so, it should be an idea, it’s useful.
Should be a configurable option. We do a lot of EDI dropship POs that are one-to-one matches to a sales order…works out great…but not everyone does it like we do. Seems like you should be able to structure as a one-to-many by date if you need to issue blanket orders and/or schedules.
well… creating part numbers (once a quote is accepted) is not a huge effort… you can create a template part to create parts. also get the details from the quote, which then would be used for the order, and any future orders if they come in.
I would also suggest that instead of marking them as STANDARD cost, mark this series of parts as AVERAGE, which essentially works similar to POTF from a costing process. ALSO, if you mark them as Make Direct, the costs will go directly to the sales order anyway even if standard cost.
Almost all of our parts are created as part masters even if used once. They are non-stock, non-quantity bearing by default.
I’m going to try the approach that @timshuwy suggested, but with jobs instead of sales orders.
We have empty jobs that get created from sales orders to capture all of the time and material to build a machine. Engineering is done after the sales order is generated and added to these empty jobs. The idea would be to capture the common manufactured parts added to any job and combine them into one job with many job-to-job demand links.
Thanks for the detail Tim!
Rabbit-Hole Alert
If the Job Firming process (in Job Status Maintenance or some new program) could create Demand Links in a similar way that the Create Purchase Order function in New PO Suggestions creates PO Releases, that might work… but there are so many other variables at play besides dates (mostly resources and raw materials). The complications multiply. Interesting thought though.
