Project Inventory Management

Overview

If you are in the business of custom-built projects, you are most likely having the challenges of managing inventory and your supply chain.

1. Do we have enough inventory for each project?

2. When can we start ordering components for the projects that are due to close soon, so that we can meet the delivery date?

3. Can we eliminate multiple versions of spreadsheets and avoid entering the same piece of data into multiple systems?

GoldFinch ERP could help you plan and manage your inventory more accurately and efficiently.

Demand Planning

There could be three sources of inventory demands:

Sales Forecasting

You most likely want to forecast demand from your pipeline, not from your sales history.

It is recommended to schedule a routine to populate the GoldFinch Sales Forecast object with opportunities that have passed a certain Opportunity Stage (such as 75%).

Sales Orders

It is recommended to schedule a routine to convert Opportunity Quotes to GoldFinch Sales Orders as soon as the Opportunity Stage is changed to Close Won.

Safety Stock

For “common” components that can be used for multiple projects, you might want to consider keeping them in stock. You can set up Safety Stock level and Reorder Quantity so that you can run the GoldFinch Supply Plan to suggest supply orders.

Review these two pages for more information.

Supply Planning

Project Linking

You can use the GoldFinch Project object to set up customer projects. The Project code is linked to various transactions:

• Purchase Order

• Purchase Invoice

• Sales Order

• Sales Invoice

• Work Order

You can add these objects to the Project page as related lists to have an overall view of the project.

A project can have multiple sales orders.

Sales Order Planning

This function allows you to see the supply and demand for the lowest-level components that require purchasing. You can run reports to group records by Item or by Sales Orders. You want to ensure that the Plan Qty. for every Item or for every Sales Order is > 0.

Review this page for more information.

Explode BOM

Originally, the Sales Order created for the project will have only the Parent Item with pricing. The Explode BOM function converts the parent item to a service item and inserts the first-level components into the sales order.

• Available Inventory is automatically allocated for the component items. For the remaining demand, you can create a special Purchase Order or Work Order to fulfill it, depending on the Replenishment System of the components.

• The inventory received from the special Purchase Order or Work Order will automatically be allocated to the Sales Order.

• You will pick/pack/ship the components, but invoice the Parent Item.

Read this page for more details.

Production Management

Work Orders

• Work Orders can be created from a Sales Order or created from the Item page.

• It is possible to overproduce by specifying PO Qty. Tolerance % for the Output Item.

Pick Tickets

• It is possible to pick and reserve inventory for the Work Order. Read Create Picks from a Work Order

Outside Service

• If you need to outsource some of the routing operations to a 3rd party vendor, you can create an Outside Service Purchase Order from Work Order.

• It is possible to group multiple Outside Service requests into one Purchase Order.

Reverse BOM

If you need to consume one item, but output multiple items, use the reverse BOM feature.

Purchase Management

• Special Purchase Orders can be linked to Sales Orders. Inventory received from special Purchase Orders will be allocated to the Sales Order that is linked.

• It is possible to over-receive inventory by specifying PO Qty. Tolerance % on the Item page.

• To return inventory to a vendor, use Purchase RMA.

• To perform a QC check when receiving, implement the GoldFinch QC module.

Item Availability Status

To review the supply, demand, and item availability by inventory items, run this page: 

Capacity Planning

To review the supply and demand by Work Center resources, implement Capacity Planning.

Read this page for more details.

Change Management

When the Shipment Date of a Sales Order changes, you can schedule a routine to update the Ending Date/Time and Starting Date/Time for all related Work Orders and Work Lines.

Conversely, if you change the Ending Date/Time of a related Work Order, you should update the Expected Shipment Date of the related Sales Order.

To adjust the Starting Date/Time and Ending Date/Time of Work Centers to fit available daily capacity, use the visual Work Center Planning Workbench to drag and drop to reschedule.

Read this page for more details.