I've been there and will try to help with what I've leaned:

With regards to: "Under the Setup -> Stock -> Requirements Parameters, should I set the 'Retain orders in process' field to 'No' or 'Always'..."Answer: This flag refers to POs partially received, WO partially tracked and Subcontract Orders with Order is issued. The option "NO" actually means Yes-retain orders in process (in other words, No means do not replan orders in process). So I would set this to NO.

With regards to "Should I have the replanning rules method set to 'Simulation' or 'Messages Only'." Answer: use Simulation

With regards to "- Do I need to set the replanning analysis weeks to a non-zero value in order to get replanning suggestions for the entered period of time? Answer, yes

With regards to Coverage weeks: This is setup in Product-site record, Planning tab, Coverage field. Note: if you enter 4 weeks, actually means 3 weeks. 3 week coverage actually means 2 and 2 week coverage means 1 week. Example, if you need the products 2 weeks before the required/demand date, enter 3 week coverage.

With regards to Pick lead time: we suggest you to escalate this to Sage support as it seems that QC lead time also doesn't work.

With regards to a guide or tutorial, I believe the answer is it doesn't exist (other than what you can fiind in the Online help). I've made notes from my various testings and issues escalated to Sage support.

My best advice is to set the Replaning rules to Simulation with Replaning quantities=None. This is because if you set it to increase/decrease, the system will tell you to increase an existing WO BUT it will not drive demand for the components needed for the qty to be increased by. In other words, the PO suggestion for the components will be based on the qty entered in the existing WO, not based on the new MRP qty showing for the WO with Increase message. This is a known issue that has been escalated to Sage support/RND and they are working on a solution.

Setting Replaning quantities= None: the system will generate new suggestions and therefore it will drive demand for the components (PO suggestions) and semi finish goods of lower BOM levels (WO suggestions for subassemblies)

I would suggest you to set Replan dates to Early/late so you can see a message Advance on an existing WO or PO to let you know you need these earlier. Or the message Delay firm horizon which means you are late to cover the demand. Otherwise, you can set this to none as well.

Hi Chau, I've added a reply on this chat chain below

Thanks for your detailed response.  I guess I'm confused about  what's considered orders in process.  Would purchase requests with a future date be in process?  Or is in process only referring to firm orders not suggested or requested?  The system has a 'WIP' screen which shows all resources and requirements--- so I assumed that in process included all these things.

We do not do manufacturing at our company, so I'm only using this to mange the inventory of purchased goods that are sold directly to customers--- so we do not have WOs just POs.

Good question and I believe only SAGE RND/Support may be able to confirm this.

Or via testing. A Subcontract Order is considered to be "in progress" when a PO is issued off this subc Order record (as per the online help). So, I would test and see if a Purchase request (which is a POP-Purchase order plan) with an Order of it would be considered "in progress"

Chau said:

is in process only referring to firm orders not suggested or requested?

Yes.

I believe on purchase side a document in progress is a PO received partially. So by definition a POP cannot be in progress.

On a work order side, a document in progress is a WO tracked partially (Time, Material or Production tracking).

thank you for clarifying this Julien

Another question regarding MRP demand forecast.  If I started entering my forecast in April and now its May, do I need to manually delete the April forecast or is there a way to get MRP to ignore those projected resource demands that are in the past and weren't realized by actual sales orders?

When I run MRP now, it seems like it sums up all that past demand forecast and still considers it as a resource requirement.  The way I want MRP to work is to just to consider the demands going forward.  Anything in the past should be ignored.  I have my demand horizon set to 0 and run MRP for the current date.

Thank you!

Chau - Was there a resolution to this specific issue of past forecasts being considered current demand? Encountered this same thing today setting MRP up for a new client. My understanding is that X3 should never consider requirements prior to the reference date used when running MRP/MPS.

Thanks!

If you set 'Ignore previous lost sales' in Planning workbench criteria you won't see those. Also experiment with the 'Forecast offset' in the Requirement parameter. Interesting with the prod-site demand horizon setting looking at near term forecast consumption.

Thanks John, I'm currently loading demand horizon values for all products with 'forecast offset' checked which does ignore previous forecasts in testing. Ignore previous lost sales also works but available stock query and enterprise planning suggestions were showing negative stock values and suggesting orders to cover forecasts for all previous existing forecasts which is not ideal for many reasons!

That's an option in criteria for the stock availability inquiries as well. We use that dependent on the product line.