Can you tell me the exact function you use to create the PO off MRP?

I got to Enterprise Planning, POS Purchase Suggestions, click on search, I'll left click on one of the products, click plan order, then order, and it populates a po number. 

I see. The order date is meant to be the date the order is placed, therefore it's the date the order is generated.

However, if you look at the PO line, you should find a separate "Expected rcpt date" field. That should be the date that you needed by suggested by MRP, and that shoud be the date printed on the PO to the supplier as expected delivery date.

Michael, sorry. I don't think I explained myself good enough. So if I input the expected receipt date beyond the current date it will not come off of MRP. The only way it goes off of MRP is if the expected receive date is the current date.

Danelle,

what you are describing is not consistant with my own testing. Maybe something got lost in the transalation. Can you tell me from the below screenshots if my step is different from yours? Please note that I am using a V11 environment for my testing, but the function should be the same in the previous versions.

MRP shows Purchase suggestion.

I click on "Plan/order". if you are using V6, this is the "right click" menu.

The ordering windows, note that the requested date is as suggested by MRP. I click on the Order button.

PO, POMT0010003 is created.

When I go back to my Enterprise Planning table, the suggestion is no longer there.

The actual PO shows today as order date, and 10/22 as expected rcpt date.

The suggestion comes off MRP initially if change the expected receipt for a future date. However, once MRP is re-ran the suggestion shows on MRP again UNLESS i change the expected receipt date to the current date. It's very strange, and we can't figure out why this is happening.

I see. and this is an expected MRP behavior. MRP is a time phased calculation. It evaluates the aggregated demand and supply per time bucket (could be daily, weekly, or monthly based on the setup), and produces suggestions to fulfill the need. So if you move your purchase order date to the future, from MRP's perspective, your PO will not be received in time to fulfill your need, and therefore requires a separate PO.

There's a workaround for this.

Under "Setup->stock->requirements parameters", under the "MRP calculation 1 tab, you can tweak the "Replanning rules". The replanning rules is where you can setup how MRP should treat existing orders. For example, if i have the setup as the screenshot below.

It's saying that if I have an existing PO, look back 2 days and look forward 4 days for additional requirements, and propose changes to my existing PO instead of produce a new suggestion,

So if MRP think that I need 100 widget on 10/22, and I have a firm PO at 10/25, instead of suggest a new PO to fulfill the need at 10/22, suggest me to move my currect PO to 10/22. This replanning suggestion will show up as MRP messages on the workbench, but would not actually move the PO. So the buyer can look at that to take it into consideration, but will not require to do anything if nothing to be done.

So depending on how far into the future from MRP suggestion you put when you create your PO, you can make the backward/forward lead longer than standard setup.

I hope this helps.

Or you can assign the POF to the requirement and the MRP will understand that there is no need to create a new suggestion. Still there is a risk there: you are late and you should reschedule your customer delivery or work order to fit the real expected receipt date.

Hi.  We are planning to go live April 1 but are struggling with mrp testing.  We tried just starting with safety stock, although we have very complex boms with service demand for parts also.  When we were planning safety stock, when we made a PO for the best date we could (shorter than leadtime but still a few weeks away), it was telling us to cancel the existing PO and place a new one at lead time.  I made the back 21 and the forward 350.  It isn't planning new orders now, but it is still telling me to cancel the existing PO.  I don't understand how you can have a working mrp process when you can't believe the messages.

Hi, it's a bit difficult to troubleshoot the MRP behavior without actually seeing the system. Perhaps you can provide some screenshots of the issues you are seeing. 

To see how MRP come up with the result for the product, I would first start with "Stock -> Inquiries -> MPS/MRP reorder -> MRP results". This inquiry will show you the demands and supplies within each period (or time bucket) at the time of MRP calculation, and how MRP makes its suggestions. 

Also, I am wondering what your settings are under the "Setup -> Stock -> Requirement Parameters"? Did you set it up to always rebuild safety stock or is it only at the first requirement? If it's at the first requirement, the system will not ask you to purchase for safety stock unless you have demand in the future. 

You may also want to check the reorder policy under the product-site to see if safety stock is checked and if "replanning analysis" is checked.

I have tried to upload a file with test scenarios but get an error.

Hi, can you give me some more detail? What's in the file you are trying to upload? What's the test scenario? What was the expected outcome? What did the error says? 

I think there must be an upload limit.  I will try to break down the document into smaller chunks.MRP Tests scen 1.docx

scenario2.docx

On the replanning setting where you set the backward leading time, a couple columns over, I would set the replan quantities to "Decrease" instead of "Decrease/Increase". When the replan quantities is set to increase, and MRP sees that you need more, it would ask you to increase existing PO/WO and not give you new suggestion. By removing "Increase" from the setting, if you only ask you to replan the order quantity if it need to be decreased, but would not ask you to increase it. Instead, it would give you a new suggestion. 

This should resolve a bulk of issues you are seeing. As for other behavior you are expecting, here are couple comments.

1. MRP only deals with quantity not $. It's an inventory planning tool that help you identified expected shortage so you can act on it. It's designed to minimize your inventory. In other words, if you don't need it, $50 is too much. 

2. If you have many levels of BOM, I would suggest you to run MPS from Finished good down to the "common modules", and then run MRP for everything else. I understand when you have many level of BOM, it's very difficult to get downstream suggestions just right because there are too many moving pieces in production schedule. That's where MPS comes in. MPS stands for Master Production Schedule. Its setup and logic are identical to MRP, but it's meant for production planner. The idea is that the Production Planner will use MPS to see what need to be build during the planning phase. During this time, he/she may change the quantity, and change the date as needed. Once the master schedule is set, we then run MRP against it to see what need to be assembled and purchased to support the master schedule. 

Hi, Michael. 

I have been involved in high tech manufacturing for more than 30 years and have been involved with APICS for all of that time.  I have been involved with implementations of several different mrp2 and ERP systems in that time but this is the first time I've seen Sage.  It is also the first time since the 80's that I've seen a system that doesn't do more than the very basic mrp.    

I agree that by it's narrow definition, mrp doesn't deal with $.  However, any system that calls itself ERP should include not only the basic calculation of MRP, but more advanced planning requirements including supply chain planning.  When an item is $20 excess you don't want to spend time on those messages when you have hundreds of messages that may involve >$1000 in excess.  That is why I said there should be filters for the messages.  By not providing that type of functionality up front, it means each customer will have to build their own reports and analysis tools to make the system functional for them. 

I will continue testing and try the decrease only.  I'll let you know what I find.

You have a valid point, and I stand corrected. My thinking was on the wrong path. I was thinking about the MRP calculation logic itself, and it does not consider $$$. However, X3 does have tools to filter the result. If you go to "setup > Manufacturing > Entry transactions > Enterprise Planning", you can choose what you want to display in each entry transaction. First of all, I would use the "selection" tab to choose the transactions types that I want to see. For buyers, maybe just Suggested PO and/or "Firm Critical" PO. "Firm Critical" can be defined toward the bottom of the same tab. Check "Resourse to replan" to display all the PO that MRP thinks you need to replan. 

Now come to the $$$ filter. There's no native setting to filter by $$$, however, on the bottom of the "Parameter" tab, you will find the "Formula" field. You can set up your own filtering formula using a limited set of database table. 

For enterprise planning, the formula does not see the actual PO table, instead, it see a "WIP" table, which contains all transactions that impacts your inventory. This is also the main table that enterprise planning uses. Unfortunately, the WIP table only contains the quantity, not price, and since it does not see the PO table directly, there's no way to filter the result by the actual PO price. However, it does have access to the product table ITMMASTER, which contains the base purchase price that you setup on the product record. If this information is maintained, you can potentially use this as the filter formula 

[F:ORD]EXTQTY*[F:ITM]PURBASPRI>50

This way, the enterprise planning entry will only display entries where the order qty * base price is higher than $50. I know it's not exactly what you are asking for, but hopefully this is a suitable alternative. 

At what frequency would you run MPS? once a week ? during that week with the new suggestions, level out the load,  and then run MRP daily to catch the schedule changes ?

This really depends on a few factors. If you have a forecast, and your demand is relatively constant, and if your safety stock is enough to cover variances between forecast and firm demand, then I would suggest running MPS once or twice a week. Any rare spikes in demand can be handled manually. In that scenario, it would be like you mentioned in you post. If you don't have a forecast, or if your demand fluctuates often, you may want to run it more often to catch all unexpected demands. 

Hi Julien,

Just thought of checking, if the POS is for a MWS - which is originally from the SOS of FG, we will not be having a document to assign. In this case, how can we stop the MRP to keep suggesting every day - especially in the scenario of a long lead time for the Raw material. It becomes challenging for the Buyer and end up generating multiple POs. 

And I believe the same scenario in the distribution business for the POS based on the Safety stock requirement, especially in the case of a newly created introduced item in the item with long lead time. 

Is there a setup we can do in Requirement parameters / Planning tab MRP parameters in ITF to avoid these POS dropping on every MRP run when there is a PO waiting to be received in the future date (though it is a valid suggestion as the PO is not addressing the current requirement).

Followed the post   Purchase order suggestions (POS) with safety stock and got the clarifications by setting up the re-planning functionality.