[Ben Baxter]

One of the challenges we face as a partner is giving advice on how to handle the tracking of raw material lengths after a cut.  We have ways we address this, but I would love to hear from the community how people are tracking this information in their system.

Example:
Purchased a 12 ft plank (a.k.a. beam/sheet/bar/etc.)
The BOM calls for a 3 ft length of the plank
Need to cut and cost 3 ft of plank to build

How do you track the remaining 9 ft of plank?

There are several variations to this, but we’ll leave it basic for now.  I’m going to keep my mouth shut and just listen to see if we approach this the way actual users are approaching this situation.

Thank you in advance for your input!

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Ben Baxter
Consultant
Accent Software, Inc.
carmel IN
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[Jason Nicolaou]

Great question .  I am interested to see what people are doing especially when it comes to situations with variations like random lengths of raw materials and when inches are involved.  I will start the ball rolling.  Let’s assume for this case you have an expensive raw material that is worth the extra effort to track the drops.  I have seen folks make manufactured component part numbers for the cut lengths and just eat the difference.  For example if I need 2′ 8″ pieces for production, I create a quick production order for 3′ lengths.  Business process tells me to scrap everything under 2′ so my 16″ left is simply scrapped.  If I end up with more, then I make an inventory adjustment for the drop(s) as another sku.  The end result is that I am consuming my 12′ lengths and now my inventory shows full 12′ lengths (12′ length of expensive raw material) under 1 item # and the drops are captured under a different item number (3′ piece of expensive raw material)?.  Interestingly enough, for those saying this is too labor intensive, operators create spaces to hide drops like this and keep track of them mentally already.  If you create tools and/or process around the adjustments then it becomes habit just like digging through the drop pile that they do already.  Finally, I would change flushing to manual so that operators can change the raw material sku that is consumed if needed.

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Jason Nicolaou
Engagement Manager
Sikich, LLP
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[Jeff Mack]

Ben,

You may already be aware of this, but the problem you describe is a common one in steel service centers and its commonly referred to as “remnants”.  There are several software publishers focused on this industry and most of them offer specific functionality for managing remnants.  If you search for something like “steel service center software” or “remnant management software” you will find some of these offerings.  You may be able to glean some ideas from what those specialized publishers are doing to address this challenge.  Good luck.

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Jeff Mack
President & CEO
ICS Support
redmond WA
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[Ben Baxter]

Thank you Jason and Jeff or responding.  I would really like to hear from some end-users to whether they currently track this information in NAV/BC.  If so, what process are they using to track the cut lengths.

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Ben Baxter
Consultant
Accent Software, Inc.
carmel IN
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[Kevin Fons]

When I was a customer and what I have seen at other customers is the used of the rounding precision and multiple fields on the item card.
We had many items that would use a partial piece of tubing, the bill of material called for the amount needed but with a rounding precision of 1 when we made a item and the BOM called for .5 of a piece of tubing, it would consume a full piece.  We bout the tubing as Pieces not by the foot.  We also set the multiple for an item like this to a quantity to minimize the scrap (i.e. 2 in this case).  The operator would keep a rack of the longer drops/remnants that were not in inventory and if they could use one they would adjust it back in for the production order when they used it.
This works and helps with the issue of showing 10 piece of inventory but they are all to short to use for an order.  It’s not perfect but workable and was easy to understand for the operators.

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Kevin Fons
Senior Application Consultant
Innovia Consulting
waunakee WI
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