Infinite Bucket MRP Module (MPS)

16.3.1 Overview

pc/MRP's Infinite Bucket MRP module generates an action.dbf file containing dated action items (buy, make, issue, etc.). Once the action.dbf file has been generated, the data can be used to print out various purchasing and manufacturing scheduling reports. All action items are pegged (contains the driving sales/work order number).

16.3.2 Activating pc/MRP's Infinite Bucket MRP Module

pc/MRP's Infinite Bucket MRP module can be activated by the phone by contacting Software Arts at 408-226-7321 and obtaining the activation code number for this module. Once you have obtained the activation code number, click on the Configuration Option in pc/MRP's top menu bar, selection Module Activation, and enter the activation code number when prompted.

16.3.3 Generating MRP Action Items

IB-MRP Menu

To generate MRP requirements, select "Optional" from pc/MRP's top menu bar. Select "Infinite Bucket MRP". Select "Generate MRP Action Items" as shown in the top window above. The second window, shown above will allow you to select the inventory areas (stores, area2-area6, and WIP) to fill the requirements.

We recommend companies using the stock room's "I" type issue method to issue stock to manufacturing and "L" type issues to cover breakage and items missing on the BOM, do not select the "Include WIP" option. The items in WIP have already been issued to existing sales and work orders on the floor and do not need to be reissued. If you use the default and do not "Includes WIP", pc/MRP will generate action items to fill shortages for sales and work orders that have already been issued to manufacturing. The BUY and ISSUE action item dates for shortages for sales/work orders that have been issued to manufacturing the floor will be time phased from the date the report was run and not based on when the sales order is due. The reason for this, is to get the parts in as early as possible since the sales/work order is on the manufacturing floor being built.

We recommend companies using the stock room's "L" type issue method instead of the "I" type, to issue stock to manufacturing, select the "Include WIP" option. This is the only method that will work for those companies using the "L" type issues only. Selecting Include WIP has the drawback of creating issue action items for parts and assemblies that have already been issued. If you do "Include WIP", pc/MRP will generate action items to reissue sales and work orders that have already been issued to manufacturing.

You must also select the items that will drive the demand open sales, open work orders and/or open sales quotes. The option to include open sales quotes with probabilities was added with version 6.85c. If you use work orders to build to stock only, check both sales and work orders. If you use work orders to build all of your sales orders, check either open sales orders or open work orders to drive the MRP (Do not select both). pc/MRP versions 6.90 or higher contain the option to mark work orders as consumable work orders. When generating an MRP, pc/MRP will use consumable work orders for sales and work orders whose due date exceeds the work orders due date. Work orders not marked as consumable will be treated as build to stock and will not be used to fill sales orders during the current MRP generation. As such, you can select both sales and work orders to drive demand with pc/MRP versions 6.90 and higher.

In addition, you can generate your labor requirements, if you check the labor requirements box and you have labor entered into your BOMs.

When generating an MRP pc/MRP proceeds as follows:

Generate MRP Action Items will generate the following types of action records.

If pc/MRP generates a "MAKE" action item for an assembly and the driving sales/work order is listed as "MINQTY", you should create a work order for that assembly and rerun the MRP with the new work order(s).

When generating a "BUY" action item, pc/MRP version 6.78C and higher will use the standard order quantity (for part numbers) if the standard order quantity is greater than the quantity required. It will place the excess in the avail.dbf file to fill additional purchase requirements. Versions 6.78C to 6.80X used the max qty - min qty for standard order qty if the standard order quantity was less than or equal to zero. Versions 6.80AA and 6.86A and higher just use the standard order quantities.

If you select, Include Labor, when you generated your MRP, pc/MRP will generate LABOR action items once the onhand quantity and purchasing quantity of action items has been allocated. To see your total labor requirements, make sure the on hand quantity of labor action items is equal to 0.

Once the Infinite Bucket Module has finished generating the action items, it will zero out and then update the quantity available field for each part in the part master. The quantity available field will contain the quantity available after allocation. A negative quantity in this field indicates that the part needs to be purchased and BUY action items were generated.

Version 7.02E and higher assign driving sales/work orders to existing PO action items based on the earliest sales/work order that needs to allocate parts from that PO. pc/MRP does not carry over the related document number into the avail database file. As such the Infinite Bucket reports may indicate a sales order with an earlier due date requires this PO.

Sales Quotes with a date required less than the current date will not be used for the MRP run. pc/MRP will insert the sales quote into the error file notifying you that the MRP run did not use this sales quote.

16.3.4 Print/Display Action Item Reports

Selecting Print/Display Action Item Reports brings up the following screen:

To reset the Save Settings to the default setting press CTRL-L with this screen up.

Non Consolidated Reports

Not checking the "Consolidation" check box will print/display all individual action items. The non consolidated reports can provide daily lists or schedule of action items. This type of report can be used to see exactly what is going on for a particular part number or sales order. An example of a non-consolidated MRP report follows:

IB-MRP Example Non Consolidated Report
pc/MRP IB-MRP Non Consolidated Example Report

The non consolidation report MRP (mrp2.frx) uses the action.dbf and includes the following columns:

Software Arts recommends printing the following non-consolidated report after generating an MRP. Deselect the Consolidated Check Box, if checked. Select "All" (action items) and include all action items (Initial Onhand Quantity, Purchase Orders, Buy, Issue, Sale, Make, and Labor) sorted by part number (sub-sorts by date). This provides a list of to do action items for each part number with a running onhand total since the part number sort is sub sorted by date.

If there is a question about a part number's action item quantities, run the following non-consolidated report. Deselect the Consolidated Check Box, if checked. Select "All for a part number" and include all action items (Initial Onhand Quantity, Purchase Orders, Buy, Issue, Sale, Make, and Labor) sorted by date. This provides a list of to do action items for that part number with a running onhand since the action items are sorted by date.

Consolidated Reports

Checking the "Consolidated" check box allows you to print out consolidated MRP reports. These reports will consolidate and sub-total the action items based on the consolidation period selected. As a result, the consolidated reports are shorter than the non-consolidated reports but they not as detailed. If you wanted to create work orders for sub-assemblies, you could run a monthly consolidation report, create consumable work orders for every sub-assemblies make action item who's due date was the first of the month, and then regenerate your MRP. Please note, that it is not necessary to create a work order for every sub-assembly with pc/MRP. An example of a consolidation report follows:

IB-MRP Consolidated Example Report
pc/MRP IB-MRP Consolidated Example Report

The consolidated MRP report (mrp2cons.frx) uses the mrp2cons.dbf file and includes the following columns:

Excess Inventory Report

The "Sort by part number option", (sort choice = 1), uses the action (parent) and partmast (child) dbf files. This option uses report memory variables and the detail band in the mrp2excs report form to total up:

The "Sort by buyer option", (sort choice = 2), was added in pc/MRP version’s 7.02 and higher. This option uses the exectmp.dbf as the main dbf file. Action.dbf and partmast.dbf are open with action being the parent of partmast. This report uses, program code, and the group band in the mrp2execs report to total up:

pc/MRP Versions 7.03 and higher added a third sort option, extended cost. Version 7.03 and higher was re-coded such that it uses action.dbf (parent) and partmast.dbf (child) to create an exectmp.dbf file. It then uses the exectmp.dbf file and the mrp2execs form to create the report. This report uses program code (and not report code) to total up quantities.

The excess inventory reports in pc/MRP versions 7.01Y, 7.03S, 7.05C, and 7.42 and higher add an additional issue transaction for make transaction types when the part number does not equal the top assembly number. This keeps subassemblies for sales and work order subassemblies from showing up as excess. The excess inventory reports in pc/MRP versions 7.03 and higher do not print/display parts or assemblies that are not in excess.

Pre-Shortage Report

Push Pull Report

Issued Shortage Report

MRP Buy Report

16.3.5 MRP Time Line

The MRP Time Line can be used to display or print a graphical representation of the MRP requirements.

The MRP Time Line can display All actions, Buys, open Purchase Orders, Issues, Makes, and Sales.  Actions can be further separated by specific part numbers, sales or work order numbers, and specific date ranges.

16.3.6 Automatically Create Purchase Orders

IB-MRP Example Report
pc/MRP IB-MRP Create Purchase Order Options Screen

If the purchase buy requirements report looks good, selecting "Create Purchase Orders" will automatically generate the POs required to fill the buy requirements. Users can select a date range that POs should be generated for. Selecting Order per requirement will generate a PO for every buy action item generated. Selecting "Daily Orders" will consolidate all POs for the same part number required for the same day into one PO line item. Selecting "Weekly Orders" will consolidate all POs for the same part number required for the week into one PO line item. Selecting "Process Defaults" will allow you to set the defaults for the above screen. When the "Create POs" function generates a PO, it puts a Y in the PO_MAKE field for that BUY action item in the action data base file. This allows you to use the date range function without worrying about creating duplicate POs. The function that automatically created purchase orders is limited to 100 line items. pc/MRP will create multiple purchase orders if the 100 limit is exceeded.

16.3.7 Trouble Shooting The Infinite Bucket Module

If the quantities in the Infinite Bucket reports appear to be wrong, please do the following:

 

16.3.8 Infinite Bucket Pseudo Code

  Creates copies of partmast, sales, bom, and stockroom dbf files named
    mrpart, mrpso, mrpbom, and mrpstk respectively.
  If include sales quotes is checked (6.84A)
    Creates a copy of quote.dbf named mrpquo 
  Creates a blank ACTION.DBF file which will store action item records 
    such as: ONHAND, PO, BUY, ISSUE, and MAKE
  Creates a blank AVAIL.DBF file to store ONHAND and POs and the dates
    the parts will be available on.
  Removes deleted mrppart records and records with invalid part_assy fields
  Totals the total onhand qty of each part for every area selected
  Replaces ordqtys with maxqtys - minqtys for ordqtys = 0 (6.80a) 
  Replaces all ORDQTY with 0 for ORDQTY is less than 0
  Replaces all negative onhand quantities with 0
  Replaces all negative min quantities with 0
  Removes mrpbom records with invalid part numbers
  Changes A type part numbers not found in mrpbom to P and creates error msg
  Removes all deleted, closed and invalid records from mrpso.dbf
  If sales orders were not to be included
    Removes sales orders from mrpso
  If work orders were not to be included
    Removes work orders from mrpso
  If include sales quotes checked (6.84A)
    Removes all deleted, closed, and invalid records from mrpquo.dbf
    Qtyreq = qtyreq x probability (stored in qtyassembled field)
    Appends valid sales quote records into mrpso.dbf
  Removes all deleted, closed and invalid records from mrppo.dbf
  Zeros out on order quantities in mrppart.dbf
  Replaces on order quantities in mrppart with totals from mrppo.dbf
  If Incl WIP not selected, removes all mrpstock transactions except shortages
  Enters ONHAND records into action.dbf and avail.dbf
    with an action starting and ending date of 00/00/0000
  Enters open PO records into action.dbf and avail.dbf with
    dlrydate being the ending date and the date avail (6.80R,6.82L or higher) 
  If Incl WIP not selected
    Allocates completed finished assys for sales orders from avail.dbf 
  Allocates minqtys from avail.dbf
  If there was not sufficient qty in avail 
    If it is an assy and you did not select work orders only  (6.80h)
      Reduce the qty required by the qty created by open work orders
      If qty required is still greater than 0
        Enter Make record into action.dbf with review = Y
    Else it is a part or you are running work orders only
      If it is not an assy
        Enter a BUY record into action.dbf and allocate that qty 
  Processes each open sales and work order (in date required order) as follows:
    MMAKEQTY = ORQTYREQ - QTYASSM
    MSALEQTY = ORQTYREQ - QTYSHIP
    If reqdate is less than todays date review = Y
    If MSALEQTY is greater than 0 and not a work order
      Enters SALE record into action.dbf
    If incl WIP selected MREQQTY = MSALEQTY, else  MREQQTY = MMAKEQTY
    If sales/work order has been issued to mfg and Incl WIP not selected
      If MPART_ASSY = 'A' AND MMAKEQTY is greater than 0
        Enter a MAKE record into action.dbf
        IF it is a consumable work order (6.90A)
          Enter a Avail record into the avail.dbf
      If were any shortages when issued
        use avail.dbf
        If parts or assys are available
          Allocate those parts in the avail.dbf
          Enter an ISSUE record in action.dbf 
          If availdate is less than reqdate review = 'Y' (6.80h)
        If there are none or not enough
          If the required date is less than todays date
            mreview = 'Y'
            Case it is a part
               If it can not arrive in time for start of final assy
                  mreview = 'Y'
               Else
                  mreview = 'S' (7.01AA,7.03T,7.06D,7.43E)
               Enter a BUY record into action.dbf
               Enter an ISSUE record into action.dbf
            Case it is an assembly (6.89A)
               Enter a MAKE record into action.dbf
               Call getassy prg with partnumber, required qty, required date
    Else (the sales/work order has not been issued to mfg)
      Use avail.dbf to see if the part or assy is avail
      If it is available (and it is not a work order, 6.90A)
        Allocate the parts in the avail.dbf
      If there were none or not enough
        If the required date is less than todays date
          mreview = 'Y'
        Case it is a part
          Enter a BUY record into the avail.dbf
          Enter an ISSUE record into the action.dbf
          If availdate is less than reqdate review = 'Y' (6.80h)
        Case it is an assy
          Enter a MAKE record into the action.dbf
          If it is a consumable work order (6.90A)
             Enter a MAKE record into avail.dbf
          CALL GETASSY program with partnumber,reqqty,date
        Case it is a labor part record
             Enter a labor record into action.dbf 
  Go to the next sales record and continue looping until finished.
  Total and Replace Quantity Available field in partmast.dbf by 
  calculating (ONHAND + PO - ISSUE - SALE - MINQTY) action item qtys for each part 
  
  PROCEDURE GETASSY
  Use mrpbom.dbf file to find the BOM
  Use avail.dbf to see if the part or subassy is available
  If it is available
    Allocate the parts in the avail.dbf
    Enter an ISSUE record into action.dbf
    If availdate is less than reqdate review = 'Y'  (6.80h)
  If there were none or not enough
    If the required date is less than todays date
      mreview = 'Y'
    Case it is a part
      Enter a BUY record into the avail.dbf
      Enter an ISSUE record into the action.dbf
    Case it is an assy
      Enter a MAKE record into the action.dbf
      CALL a program named GETASSY with the partnumber,reqqty,date
  Loop through the bom until done
 
  PROCEDURE ENTERACT
  Case it is a BUY record and ordqty greater than actqty  (6.80a)
    Enter a BUY record into avail.dbf for the excess with allocated = 0
  Case it is a BUY record and order multiple qty is greater than 0 (6.87B)
    Enter a BUY record into avail.dbf for the excess with allocated = 0
  Enter a record into action.dbf
    If it is a BUY record  (6.80a)
      IF ordqty > actqty
        use ordqty
      ELSE
        use actqty
    Else 
        use actqty
   

16.3.9 Automatically scheduling MRP runs with pc/MRP's plug in

You must first generate an MRP manually by electing, "Optional", "Infinite Bucket MRP" and "Generate Action Items". Select the "Inventory Area and Demand" from options you wish o use to generate the MRP. Click on the ok button to generate the MRP. The Infinite Bucket Plug Module will use the settings used to generate the last MRP run.