How MRP, APS, and MPS Processor use warehouses

The MRP, APS, and MPS Processor planning functions view on-hand inventory as the total on-hand quantity (that is, On Hand - Qty Reserved for customer orders) at all nettable stockroom locations across all warehouses at the site.

For example, suppose you have a customer order for 150 of an item. The item is stored at three warehouses: A, B, and C. Warehouse A contains 50 on-hand, warehouse B contains 50 on-hand, and warehouse C contains 50 on-hand. When you run MRP or APS Planning or the MPS Processor, the system allocates on-hand from all 3 warehouses to satisfy the demand, and no planned orders are needed. This planning behavior occurs regardless of any specific warehouse specified on the customer order.

Dedicated remote warehouses

In some situations, you may want a warehouse to serve only local-area orders and not orders entered at the main facility. In the above example, suppose you wanted to "protect" the inventory at warehouse C so it could be used only for specific customer orders. To do this, select the Dedicated Inventory field on the Warehouses form for that warehouse.

When you run MRP or APS Planning or MPS Processor, the system ignores the inventory in the dedicated-inventory warehouse. Likewise, these planning functions ignore all demands and supplies that specify a dedicated-inventory warehouse.

Be aware of these restrictions on dedicated inventory:

  • You cannot select the Dedicated Inventory option for a warehouse selected as the default warehouse on the Inventory Parameters form.
  • You cannot perform the Get ATP or Get CTP function on a line item (for example, on the Customer Order Lines form) that is associated with a dedicated-inventory warehouse.
  • The Planning Detail and Planning Summary forms do not display any inventory transactions related to dedicated-inventory warehouses.
  • The exception message "Initial On-Hand Quantity Negative" (which appears on the Planning Detail form and on the Exceptions Report) does not consider inventory at dedicated-inventory warehouses.
  • The planning functions ignore demands set to ship from dedicated-inventory warehouses and supplies set to supply dedicated-inventory warehouses.

Dedicated inventory and planning of transfer orders

Outgoing transfer orders are not planned as demands at the current, local site if the warehouse specified as the From warehouse is a dedicated-inventory warehouse. However, that transfer order is planned as a supply if it is sent to a warehouse at the same site that is a non-dedicated inventory warehouse (that is, if the To warehouse is one in which the Dedicated Inventory field is not selected).

Incoming transfer orders are not planned as supplies at the current, local site if the To warehouse is a dedicated-inventory warehouse. However, that transfer order is planned as a demand if it is received from a warehouse at the same site that is a non-dedicated inventory warehouse (that is, if the From warehouse is one in which the Dedicated Inventory field is not selected).

Distribution warehouses

Distribution warehouses are dedicated-inventory warehouses that are designated to plan intra-site transfers using the transit time, in days, between the default warehouse and a distribution warehouse. For these transfers, the original demand is ignored, but the pre-planning process generates planned transfer orders based upon the demand at the distribution warehouse. New planned intra-site transfers represent demand for the planning engines.

Sourcing percentages of planned orders

You can set rules that automatically split planned transfer orders for a certain item or product code between multiple sites and warehouses, specifying what percentage of the order comes from which site/warehouse. For more information, see the online help about creating source rules for planned orders.

Determining the best site and warehouse to fulfill an order

When you fulfill customer orders, use the Multi-Site Item Sourcing form to determine the driving distance between each site/warehouse and the Ship To address, using the Google Distance API. You can use the distance, along with the quantity available at the warehouse and the planned production time, to select the best source site and warehouse for an order.