We have picking days set as 3 days but all Shop Orders seem to finishing just in time for the demand. We want stock to be on our shelves 3 days before it needs picked for the demand shop order or customer order. Anyone else having this issue ??? Or have we a setup incorrect ??
The picking lead time is the time between the reception in inventory and the shipment. It’s at site level, the system should take 3 days into account that your parts needs to be in inventory to give you the time to pick and ship.
Do you have any MRP messages?
If you would add a safety lead time on the part itself, does it tcount 3days extra before you receive it into inventory?
Thank you for response, we are currently working Apps 8 , I don’t believe I have saw any Safety Lead time on the inventory part ?? Can you please advise where I may find this.
MRP action proposals recommending to reschedule due date to 13/10/2020 which would only be 1 day before Customer Order required.
The safety lead time can be found on your inventory part. (I’m talking about IFS 10, not sure for 8). But it doesn’t matter anymore now I see your screenshots.
MRP will not touch your released shop orders. These are fixed for MRP. As your current released shop orders meet the demand for your CO on 14/10, he will not plan any additional orders.
Also, the CO is in the past. MRP would plan ASAP, but start date will not be in the past.
The MRP message means that the order may be rescheduled. The due date of the order falls earlier than the due date of the CO, so you are keeping stock which is not needed.
Could you create a new CO (or an other demand, material req is also ok) in the future so your current fixed supply does not meet the demand? Then you should run MRP, we would expect that MRP creates a SO requistion with due date 3 days before the demand.
This seems correct. The picking lead time is reflected in your customer order: you need 3 working days before you can ship. Your shop order makes sure it ends 1 day before CO due date.
The 17th your SO is finished. The 18th you can start with your CO, start with the picking. This will take 3 days, so you can ship the 23th (there is a weekend in between)
The picking lead time can be set on Site level, so it reflects all inventory parts.
I have a Shop order for 9 with a due date of 25/11/2020 this is to cover demand for 3 other shop orders with due dates of 09/12/2020 but MRP Action Proposal is telling me to reschedule the shop order due date from 25/11/2020 to MRP due date of 09/12/2020 , is this then not ignoring my picking day theory.
Sorry for the questions but I just can’t get my head around this at all. I would have expected MRP to use a due date of 3 working days before due date of demand shop orders.
Hi Karen. To my knowledge MRP engine (and other planning engines) don’t use the site picking lead time when planning for shop order components availability. As discussed earlier we have safety leadtime that can be used starting from Apps10. Safety Leadtime should theoretically be used when you have uncertainty when it comes to supplier’s lead time but also for inhouse manufacturing lead time uncertainty for sub-assemblies. So it should not be used when there is variability in the demand picture - then we have the safety stock.
So what can you do in Apps8? Can you test with extending the queue time on the Work Center that is associated with the first operation? And then recalculate manufacturing lead time for the manufacturing parts. Not so nice but it might work. A perhaps even uglier solution is to add a dummy first operation associated with a dummy work center with zero-costs. And then just define setup time for this 1st operation. Here I am on thin ice…
(Since I added comments regarding another question you raised you realize we have much more “tools” in the Apps10 toolbox, compared to Apps8)
We have heard similar concerns/questions from others, so we will listen to this.
-Mats
Many thanks for your reply Mats, we hope to be moving to Apps 10 next year with the rest of our business but for now I require a workaround for our fabrication site, we need to have sub-assemblies in stock more than one day, to allow my Stores team to have kits picked, issued and available for Production in advance and the IFS Apps 8 standard one day doesn't allow for this advanced picking.
One more thing Karen, in Apps8 and Apps9 you have the possibility of getting one day extra lead time, a sort of fixed safety lead time of 1 day for all your parts in an MRP/PMRP execution. So how do you achieve this then? Well, in the Perform Site MRP dialog box you have the Add 1 Day Lead Time check box. Select this one. At least it will give you one extra day.
Thank you Mats, do you know how we can set this as a default on the Perform Site MRP task.
Well, if you schedule the MRP job to be executed, let say every night, with this setting, system will ‘remember it’. But you cannot change the default setting for THIS flag by some OTHER flag :-(
-Mats
Thank you soo much Mats, you have been very helpful. 
In Apps 9 and 10, there is a field on the Customer Order screen for Picking Lead Time (it’s on the Delivery Information tab). If you add 3 to that field, I believe MRP will create the 3 day buffer you require.
As i understand it, when MRP creates a Shop Order Req, it calculates the need date by taking the date from the CO line, then subtract the “external transport lead time” (if specified), then subtract the “picking lead time” (if specified).
I assume equivalent fields are available in Apps 8? This might give the require result, rather than specifying it at Site level?
Hi Robin, many thanks for your reply, the picking days on site in Apps 8 is fine for Customer Order picking but I assumed and assumed incorrectly that these picking days worked all parts even manufactured shop orders but on testing the picking days on Apps 8 only reflects customer orders.
We are using Apps 8 in a Fabrication plant and as you can imagine there are a high volume of parts and various structure levels for these same parts. I actually need a workaround for manufactured parts to be in stock x days before next level shop order demand comsumption as IFS just seems to work JIT, not allowing much time for reserve pick and issue from one section of the plant to another.
I am currently testing transport time on the routings and also testing adding additional operation to routing as offset to allow parts to be on the shelf in stores in advance, we will see which one of these is most practical to the business.
I am sure we are not unique in this requirement and other IFS users must be experiencing similar??
Again, this is more to Robin (and perhaps to other people out there...), than to Karen, coz she digged into this, and I also explained to her, in the reply that starts with “To my knowledge MRP engine (and other planning engines) don’t use the site picking lead time when planning for shop order components availability….”
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The site pickling lead time is neither used by MRP nor by Shop Order. This is valid for Apps8, Apps9 and Apps10, in IFS Core business logic.
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In Apps10 we have introduced “Safety Leadtime”. It is an attribute on Inventory Part level. In many cases this can be used to manage Karen’s problem.
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In Apps10 we have introduced DDMRP which is a smart way of building up buffer stock, to protect the flow, and reduce the lead time. The buffer stock act as a shock absorber between demand- and supply variability. But that is another story….
-Mats
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