Item Planning Data as Dynamic Data
There is a tremendous amount of benefit that can be realized by an organization by continually revisiting their settings in 1.4.7, Item Planning Data Maintenance. We are finding that clients that are seasoned MFG/PRO users are drifting back into habits of calculating their production or purchasing requirements by exporting and manipulating data in Excel. We promote the constant evaluation of the planning parameters to achieve the inventory levels that will best serve the business….letting MRP do the work for the client requires an understanding of the settings upon which MRP logic is predicated.
Organizations will benefit by understanding why the buyers and planners are overriding the policies being established in the item master. These decisions may be acting as a security blanket that, in the best case, leads to excess inventoy and, in the worst case, hides management from a significant supply chain issue that might be better addressed by changing pricing or ordering policies with their customer base.
Sometimes the best approach to addressing faulty MRP settings is to isolate the highest moving items in your business and understand whether MRP is tuned finely enough to arrive at optimal inventory balances for the long term. Trying to fix all settings for all items can be an overwhelming task.