Hi! We implemented IFS apps 10 in my company just over a year ago. We still have many problems but one of the biggest is the system is constantly asking us to buy things we know we don’t need. (Garbage in garbage out of course!)
My specific question is, ‘What is MRP Planned demand’. In the I P A P screen, it’s easy to understand why something is needed when the demand object is a shop order, or a customer order… But it’s baffling to continually see MRP planned demand. Especially when we know it’s not real demand. What does this mean?
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It can be real demand, but demand that IFS can see well into the future and maybe doesn’t consider all of your stocking methodologies depending on how the parts are set. It is IFS being clever for you, but depends on how you want to act on it.
When you see the line mixed in with what you are considering real demand, there is a source for all of the items that appear.
In this case, the source is the parent part. If you were to look at the parent part, you should find its source of demand in a Planned state. You can RMB to Supply/Demand Details and it will take you to the parent part MRP Part Information. (Same part and source ref)
If you trace back the source of that item, it could be a supply requisition in an unreleased state, a requisition that has been deleted since MRP last ran, or a Phantom item that won’t end up with an actual supply because it is a blow-through item. That is the majority of the Planned Demands that we see, Phantom items.
Hi, thanks so much for the detailed answer.
So in this case, why might MRP be generating a PR to buy more?
It’s clear there is already 2 in stock (not project stock, not reserved, no availability control, it is company owned etc) MRP should see that stock and not be asking us to buy more. The ‘source information’ fields in the demand columns for ‘MRP planned demand’ and ‘Shop order material’ are the same.
Is it something to do the ‘MRP planned demand’ being ‘Exploded demand from PMRP’ ?
It will be all of your dates messing up your things. MRP does not like past due orders. What I mean is, it will assume that any past due order will have already consumed whatever material they need, even if not reserved and issued. Then it will attempt to align needed new supply with the right date for the equivalent orders. The more past due orders you have in the system, the muddier the picture with MRP. MRP is always going to try to get you back on track at the right date, but it also assumes you are doing things according to its date rules.
More often than not, our own company is no exception, the orders are not maintained and scheduled well, and the result is always MRP spinning a bit out of control trying to right things that don’t really need righted, but MRP is blind to that because it is a human failure.
In 10 years of running IFS, I’ve never found MRP to do the wrong things, what I have always found is MRP behaving wrongly due to bad human behavior (data input).
Thanks for the reply. Yes, we have a huge problem with dates being in the past and I accept that it’s our (the users) fault primarily.
I still haven't really grasped what ‘MRP planned demand’ actually means though and can’t find a definition in IFS Applications Online Documentation. What demand object is it actually ‘planning’ for? There is no Shop Order or requirement of any kind for back then? (16/03/2022)
