CTO Parts - Customer Consignment Process

Hi,

I am pretty sure that at least handling of serial and lot/batch was added in APPS10, I thought the full stock tracking was added including configuration as part of this? I might be wrong as I don’t have any application to verify this.

I write more to point out that there is an optional solution that might solve the business requirement in a lightly different way. You can define a remote warehouse and connect the customer address, this will be more of a consignment warehouse solution.

You can define a part assortment an refill the consignment warehouse based on order point, with purchase order, transport task or shipment order. You can also define a default part availability control on the remote warehouse to avoid reservation of the material, include from planning etc. 

The consumption can be done by entering a customer order as the remote warehouse can be added to the customer order line.

There might be some AI Agents done or in the making to handle the refill when you are not using part assortment?

Best Regards

Fredrik

For this situation, really, the requirements are low. Send x parts to customer on consignment. Customer sells or sends back in the end. In-between some are invoiced. The standard IFS consignment process would work fine. No need to worry about order points as it is low quantity/high value items that generally, don’t get replaced individually to start with as they are sold.

The lot/serial was added in 10.  Also... I think the consignment RMA process was added in 23R1.  It definitely is in my install on 25R1. I haven’t used customer consignment since version 9 extensively but that RMA process sure would have been handy back then.

I thought about the remote warehouse setup but… Not sure it is worth it for this situation. We kind of do a half-baked version of that flow right now using a regular inventory location. The additional complexity remote warehouses will add I am not sure it is worth it given the staff is comfortable with out hacked process.

I thought I had read repeatedly that customer consignment functionality was being extended to configured parts so that’s what lead me to post this. I thought even on 24R1. But, now I can’t find anything specifically saying that, except on the supplier side. So, maybe I just misread it.  

On 25R1 I don’t see the config_ID field on the setup consignemnt screen and configured parts don’t show in the drop down listing (still). 

Hi ​@rsczerowski,

Sharing my findings from a recent Cursor-assisted code/functional search. I hope these insights are beneficial.

Configured-to-order parts work differently:

Consignment tracks quantity of a known part. CTO requires identity per configuration before you can manufacture, deliver, cost, and invoice correctly. Those two inventory identities do not reconcile in the current design.

So,  a genuine “CTO consignment” capability would need product changes across:

• Consignment stock master data
• Inventory-at-customer tracking by configuration
• Refill logic tied to configuration-specific demand
• Consumption, costing, and invoicing per configuration
• Shop order creation from consignment refill with configuration context

We feel that is a significant enhancement to the existing IFS application.

If we think what is feasible instead, 

    - Create fixed-configuration variants as separate part numbers (each effectively “not configured”) and put those on consignment. This is usually not true CTO — you lose dynamic configuration at order entry and increase master data maintenance. This is not a workaround for sure.

regards,

Piyal

I understand it would be a significant enhancement, and maybe not largely required by the customer base, but it would seem to be possible to code.

Back in our IFS 10 days, my plan was put into a place a process that would convert consigned configured parts to a standard part, then ship the standard part as consignment, using the new functionality that was placed into 10, as you described.

That project I never managed to get to. But as part of my review of the situation, I took another look at that feature in 25R1. The problem is that there are two bugs I have found. One that has been reported, and the other, which has not. 

The reported bug won’t be fixed until 26R1. The one I just reported I haven’t heard back yet. But for someone that might be reading this, the create a standard part from a configuration part is basically useless in some setup scenarios on 25R1. The reported bug happens when a part to be converted has a characteristic that was not used in the specific config ID to be converted. The process will not finish without an error. 

 The other, I just reported, happens if the costing method for the part to be copied is part per configuration. In IFS 10, the system automatically converted the part during the copy process to cost per part. In IFS 25R1, an error message happens and the copy process stops. 

This is the third bug I have come across in CTO since 25R1. I really wish IFS would focus a little more on the fundamentals and less on the latest AI flavor of the month that most of us, will never be able to afford.

Apparently, the last issue, the “cost per configuration” one, is fixed in IFS 25R1 SU11.