We produce circuit boards and change revisions often which is getting to be more and more difficult the more we are manufacturing.
We want to make sure we are using up all current existing stock as well as all the parts each assembly consumes, before switching over to our new revision (mostly the same but slightly different in terms of components, hence the new revision rather than new part).
I understand Epicor’s philosophy is that a new part should be raised in this case but we are very much in favour of working in revisions, especially since the change to function (and most of the form) is the same.
How are others coping with this issue? Run out seemed like it could have been useful but will not substitute the same part with a different revision.
You could take advantage of the Effective Date field of the revision.
From the Help:
Effective
Specifies the date on which this revision becomes effective. The Epicor application uses this date to determine the default revision whenever a part with revisions is entered. Enter the date directly, or click the arrow to the right of the field to access a calendar and select a date.
Example: If you have part XYZ with revisions A (effective 05/02/04) and B (effective 01/15/05), revision B appears as the default during for an order entered on 01/20/05.
This date is also used in the Engineering module reporting to determine current revisions in the bill of material structure.
When creating the new Rev, enter a specific date, far in the future (like 12/31/2099). Then have a BPM monitor the QOH and demand. When the demand exceeds the QOH, have it update the revision’s Effective date to the current date. Then any future uses of that partnum would automatically use the new rev. Probably ought to un-approve the prior rev too, and maybe shoot out an email, so any cleanup (like updating BOM’s that use the part are updated.
Is your inventory lot tracked? If it’s not, they system doesn’t keep track of which revision is in stock, so that makes it hard to try to manage using up old stuff.