“Can a inventory part(a manufacturing part with subparts) be selected as “Phantom Consume” in a product structure, not must be a phantom part? “  - yes, you can do this if you aren’t sure whether a part might be in stock at the sub-assembly level or not.  Select Planning Method P if you always plan to Phantom or blow through that level.  Change it here on the Product structure to Phantom Consume if you will occasionally have this level in stock.

when this phantom consume part has no inventory, the subparts, instead of this part, are seen in “component” of the shop order. But why the operations to finish this phantom consume part is not included in the shop order routing?   the lower level routings are not rolled up to the top automatically, you would have to define an alternate routing if you would sometimes need to have additional assembly/machining time if you didn’t carry the sub-assembly in stock

there is also an other concept “phantom part”. How they function differently in a shop order between a part with “phantom consume” selected and a phantom part? can anyone give a use case example for each?  Select the Planning Method as Phantom when you will never stock the sub-assembly at this level.  Sometimes the sub-assembly level is useful for engineering to understand a module within the total upper level structure, but for many manufacturing operations, they have no need to build the item at that sub-assembly level.  Rather they want to just make the entire system at the top level and attach the total assembly/machining routing at the top level.  This makes for fewer shop orders for manufacturing to deal with and allows backflushing all parts on all the levels without issuing at multiple levels to multiple shop orders.  Phantom sub-assembly levels is a technique to minimize inventory, minimize the admin for multiple shop orders, and simplify issuing.  You also would never plan to have inventory at this level, though you can make a specific manual shop order if for some reason you need one at the sub-assembly level, though it would never be seen by MRP or shown as a need on IPAP.  If you have a need to sometimes build to the sub-assembly, but sometimes build at the upper level, then using the Phantom planning method at the sub-assembly level is too restrictive, in fact it will cause problems.  Then you might use the Phantom Consume flag on the Product Structure.  But this means that the sub-assembly level must be something other than Planning Method P, so you know that you need to plan at that level, sometimes you will have needs at this level, sometimes not.  This method is a bit more work to track, but is more flexible if you have a mixed mode of operation.

Thanks for the excellent explanation! one further question, if i selected planning method as Phantom for a part, then i should not for this part select “phantom consume” in shop order?

@ShawnBerk I prepared a setup and made some tests. each test is started with the basic setup.

Basic setup:

• Standard manufactured inventory Part A and B.
• Part B is in the product structure of A, as its subpart. 
• Part B has its own subparts B1 and B2.
• Only Part B1 and B2 has on hand quantity. 

test 1:

In the Product Structure of A, set B with Phantom Consume flag. after creating a Shop order to produce A, part B appeared in the material list. The shop order cannot be proceeded as part B cant be reserved - no on hand quantity.

test 2:

set inventory part B with planning method P: after creating a shop order to produce A, part B1 and part B2 instead of part B appeared in the material list. the shop order can be proceeded.

test 3:

set inventory part B with planning method P. creating a shop order to produce B, the shop order proceeded successfully and put B on stock. creating a shop order for A. part B appeared in the material list. the shop order can be proceeded.

Based on the test before, can we make the further conclusion, which conflicts with your saying:

• no extra influence using the flag “Phantom Consume”, regarding the shop order process
• planning method with P is also flexible enough. it means, can directly use this part if available on stock or blow through to the next level if not available.

could you please explain it further?

thanks!

Correct, we don’t bother with Phantom Consume, only with switching to Planning Method P for controlling which levels we don’t want to appear or stock.

Yes, Planning Method P is flexible enough if you rarely ever need to stock the Phantom item and do not allow demands for it from other orders, especially direct from Customer Orders.  If you have occasion to require the sub-assembly to stock, you can as you’ve demonstrated create the shop order manually and put one to stock, but it all has to be done manually.  MRP will not notice or plan for the part.  Because the item is always Phantomed, any parent item that has the Phantom assembly as part of its structure will always ignore the item even if it is in stock because it won’t be in the materials list.

If you operate in a mixed mode of operation where you sometimes have stock of the sub-assembly, that means its Planning Method is not likely to be set at P.  If for certain structures you want to use the sub-assembly if it is in stock, but if not, you want to show all of the lower level parts so you know you have to make one on that shop order, then Phantom Consume is supposed to do that for you. 

**This is specific to the repetitive backflush processing of the shop order, which I didn’t explain earlier - sorry about that.  That is why your shop order wasn’t working, it has to run from a schedule.  See below for more help details.

FROM HELP:

Phantom Consume
Specify whether or not the repetitive backflush should continue down to the next level. A component defined as a phantom in this way behaves just as a planning method P part. If parts are available, they are backflushed; if not, the backflush process explodes to the next level in the structure.

Go to F1 help from Product Structure, then look at Define repetitive backflush behavior, this will give more info, but is probably not how you are operating.  Repetitive manufacturing requires defining either a Production Schedule as part of the MRP output or using a Customer Schedule. 

We don’t use Repetitive Manufacturing, we get along with Planning Method P only.

Shawn

many thanks for the clear explanation! 

Roza, I am facing a similar issue from my side.

I did the same test 3 than you and my phantom part appear in the material list of the shop order and create a requirement on it.

My need is the following :
I want to see in the material list my phantom part but the requirements must go directly to parts on lower level

Is there a way to do this ?