Here is a question that has long puzzled me, and now I have some users asking the same question: Why does Epicor sometimes backflush all previous backflush operations / materials immediately under the username of the user that reported quantity, and other times it only does the current/final operation and then lets the Backflush Labor process come along and get the rest?
Assume all of our jobs are pretty straightforward: multiple operations, all but the last operation are set to Backflush , and the last one is Quantity Only or Time & Quantity. Like so:
OP 10 - Backflush
OP 20 - Backflush
OP 30 - Time & Quantity
Also, materials are attached to all of these operations, and all materials are set to backflush (except serial tracked parts, but those are somewhat rare in our business - at least the division of the business we’re looking at).
Now, from what you read in Epicor docs and are told by consultants (years ago), the process would look like this: someone reports a quantity on OP 30. At that point, OP 30 has labor transaction, and the materials related to OP 30 would be backflushed if applicable. Nothing else would happen until the Backflush Labor process ran next, at which point OP 20 would be backflushed, including related materials, and then OP 10 would be backflushed, including related materials. But in our observation, this is not always (seldom?) how it works! Instead, when the user reports a quantity on OP 30, immediately Op 20 and Op 10 and all related materials are backflushed immediately, creating transactions with the ChangeBy username as the whichever user did the report quantity.
What causes a job to backflush everything immediately, and what causes another nearly identical job (as far as we can tell) to wait for the Backlush Labor processing?
Material will backflush when the related Operation is marked complete. So all Parts associated with Op 10 and 20 will not backflush until Op 30 is complete.
also the parts need to be marked as backflush on the site setting of part maintenance.
The Operations (10 and 20) will backflush when the Op 30 is complete.
You have Op 30 set as time and material. its possible that the Op is not getting marked complete when they report quantity because there is not enough time clocked to Op 30.
Sorry Crag, but that part we already know. It’s not that we’re having any trouble with things backflushing, or understanding why things backflush or not. It’s that we don’t understand why some jobs seem to not need or use the Backflush Labor Server process at all, and other jobs sit there and wait for that process to do the backflushing.
When it was explained to us, I understood what was going on to be as follows:
Backflush of materials is triggered when Labor is booked against an operation.
Backflush of Labor against Quantity Only operations is performed by the Backflush Labor Process. When that Labor is booked by the process, the materials backflush is triggered by it as though the Labor was booked manually.
I haven’t had reason to check because we use Quantity Only everywhere (at the moment).
I thought the backflush server process just handles backflush operations and any materials/labor on those operations, but now that I think about it, you are right, it does backflush the materials on a quantity only op. As for who’s name is used to record the material transaction I do not know, I would have to take a look at our transactions a sec.
We generally have one Quantity only or Time and Quantity operation, and the rest of the ops (previous ops) are backflush. It has been our general observation, without explanation as to why, that:
ALL of the materials related to the quantity only operation are immediately backflushed with the “by user” stamp being the user that did the report quantity.
SOMETIMES the other operations / materials on the job are backflushed by the backflush server process eventually, and have the “by user” stamp being manager for us, the user running that process. OTHER TIMES the other operations materials on the job are also backflushed by the user who did the quantity only op, and at the same time, and are stamped (“by user”) with that users name
The mystery is why is it sometimes one way, and sometimes another?
That is the question… I just never saw this behavior in our environment (even though it is probably happening) which is why I thought this post was peculiar.
The process will also run every time you do any of the following:
Run the Production Detail Report, Inventory/Wip Reconciliation Report, Work in Process report, Capture COS/Wip process or if the job is populated in the Job Closing Screen
Thanks for that @Jason_CTS, very interesting to know. That said, our observation is that some jobs, for whatever reason, backflush everything IMMEDIATELY as soon as you report on that last quantity only or time and quantity operation. Like you open the job in job tracker, then complete a quantity in MES, then hit refresh in job tracker and it’s all been backflushed.
I am having some issues with auto receive, and dug up this old post. I am doing some research / troubleshoot, and found this comment from Epicor that may be beneficial to some in this thread, although old.
The employee assigned is based on the following.
Backflush Labor Server Process
Note: If you assign an employee to a resource group, using the Resource Group Maintenance > Backflush Default Employee (pane) > Employee field, the assigned employee is saved in the Labordtl table, when you run the Backflush Labor Server Process.
When a resource group does not have an employee assigned, the employee for the backflush operation is saved in the Labordtl table, when you run the Backflush Labor Server Process.
