I am trying to understand the difference between setting the “Part Type” on the “Part Header” and having the “Part Type” different on the “Part Plants”. I have always set these the same. However, I have never had a part that I may purchase but also attempt to make in-house. We are a Multi Plant company.
Example: We have a part with the Part Type set at “Purchased”. We buy this part complete from a subcontractor. The subcontractor is unable to keep up with demand right now, so we want to also manufacture in-house (temporary). So rather than changing the Part Type to “Manufactured” on the “Part Header”, I changed it only on the “Part Plants”.
Conclusion: Part Header = Purchased / Part Plants = Manufactured. In the Multi Plant environment, the other Plant(s) are no longer manufacturing or purchasing this part.
The setting on Part Detail is also the default, so when you add another Plant, it will pick up whatever is on the Main Detail page automatically.
I have seen this used when Plants are different physical locations. One Plant may make a part and the other may purchase it. It isn’t that common, but it does happen on occasion.
So, are you changing the setting on Part Plant to Manufactured on a temporary basis. There are some issues that can occur when you change the part type. For example, if the part was Purchased and there were PO suggestions on the system, once you change to Manufactured, those PO suggestions are stuck.
I guess my approach this time (only changing the Plant Part Type to Manufactured) was because we are going to continue to purchase this part from our subcontractor on a routine bases. For us to manufacture in-house will only be a temporary fix until all demand is caught up. And honestly, at that point, I thought I may be able to leave it this way so that PO Suggestions are still generated for the purchase based on Min Inventory settings.
Taking it a little further, when MRP (or Generate PO Suggestions) is run it will select the type on a plant-by-plant basis, so the Plant.SourceType field is the one those processes use. As Ken said, the setting on the Part Detail screen (Part.Typecode) is the default and will trickle down when new plants are added to the part record. Also, if you change the Type on the main screen, it will ask you if you want to change it for all plants.
Thanks Ernie. That is a big part of what I was wondering; Which Part Type is the system using to process suggestions.
Thanks Bryan. Yes, we did create an alternate method to manufacture this in-house. However, I believe my issue was that I couldn’t create a Job for the Purchased Part. Maybe I missed something, or took someone’s word for granted without further testing.