We are producing finished goods to stock (into a bin named for the customer) and then when monthly usage is reported we enter sales order/ship/invoice.
Does anyone do something similar and how do you handle it? I am particularly interested in how you handle the initial shipping of the stock to the customer before it is purchased.
Epicor actually has a module for this as well as supplier-owned material and it’s not very expensive.
Mark W.
What I have done in the past was to setup a warehouse with a bin for each consignment customer or create a consignment warehouse. This way it’s visible by warehouse as to your on-hand quantities. You can also trigger production using mins
for the warehouse.
When shipped to the customer:
Sorry, don’t know why it was cutoff.
Can you share the rest of the response? Now you’ve got me curious.
Darn! OK, let’s try this again.
What I have done in the past was to setup a warehouse with a bin for each consignment customer or create a consignment warehouse. This way it’s visible by warehouse as to your on-hand quantities. You can also trigger production using mins
for the warehouse.
When shipped to the customer:
Create a miscellaneous packing slip with the items shipped.
Bin Transfer the parts from your warehouse to the consignment warehouse. You can also do manufacturing receipts directly to the consignment warehouse if desired.
When consumed by the customer:
Create a packing slip making sure you ship from the consignment warehouse/bin.
Invoice Packing slip.
Using a warehouse Pros:
You can see immediately what the consignment warehouse contains when reporting inventory by warehouse.
You can control production by using Min/Max for the warehouse part and create MRP jobs based upon that warehouse.
It could also be a transfer flag to indicate that parts need to be moved if stocked in both warehouses.
Cons:
As usual, you have no revision control unless you use some kind of bin system at the consignment warehouse, but you also have no control over picking.
Lot Tracking is impossible unless are reporting back which lot they are consuming.
Suggestions:
You will need a cycle count system to validate the quantities at the consignment warehouse. Either the customer is responsible or you need a visual inspection.
If doing a number of parts, it will be a time consuming project. Try to automate it as much as possible. Much easier to do nowadays than it was for me with E9.
Charlie Smith
CRS Consulting Services
860-919-1708
Mark, what module are you referring to?
I believe they are called Customer Managed Inventory and Supplier Managed Inventory.