Inventory Manager – Manufacton Support

Overview

An Inventory list in Manufacton, as in the real world, is simply a list of what items are where!

In Manufacton that what and where is defined as follows:

What:
- Received Material items
  - Materials in the Requesting, Sourcing or Ordering stage are not considered "inventory" until they are received into a location.
- Completed Prefabs (Kits, Production Orders, Assemblies):
  - Prefabs in Planning, Coordination, Detailing, Manufacturing or QA are not considered "inventory" until the prefab has been completed and moved into inventory.
Where
- Every location, company-wide and project-specific, is considered a potential inventory location.
- There are three distinct types of locations in Manufacton:
  1. Project Locations - Those locations which are specific only to a single project. All projects will have at least one "Project Location" which is typically that jobs "job site". Additional locations, like lay-down yards, project storage, etc. can also be created for projects.
  2. Classic Company Locations - See the Company Locations KB Article for details
    - For Classic Company Locations, Manufacton adds one additional layer to this organization, and that is to which Project the Material Item or Prefab belongs.
  3. Nested Company Locations - See the Nested Company Locations KB Article for details
    - For Nested Company Locations, there is no "Project" affiliation, and inventory stored in these locations is available to all projects.

Notes:
      o Nested Company Locations fundamentally replace the functionality 
        of General Inventory and the General Inventory feature is being
        phased out.
      o Much of what can be done in the web app, can also be achieved in the
        Mobile App - See the KB Article on Manufacton Mobile App.

This article covers the following topics:

Inventory Interface
Filters & Columns
- Filters
- Columns
Managing Inventory

Inventory Interface

General Interface

Inventory is managed in:

The Logistics Manager Module
In the Inventory tab

In General, the Inventory Manager list shows a single line item for each unique item:

Items with Catalog IDs are grouped together
Items without Catalog IDs (from non-assembly-based Production Order) will be on their own line even if their name, location, and project are the same.

Whether items are stored in Classic or Nested Company Locations, the interface is essentially the same, with minor differences called out below.

Classic Company Locations

Items residing in a Classic Company Location provide the Project and Location information as part of the "turn down" data:

Select the Turn Down icon
Location information is provided
The Project to which the item belongs is provided
The quantity of the item can be adjusted (assuming appropriate permissions are granted) allowing the in stock count Min and Max quantities to be modified
Items with no inventory in the specified location can deleted (these items and locations will only show if the Out-of-stock items filter is set to "show all"

Nested Company Locations

items residing in a Nested Company Location do not have any project context, but as the name implies, does have nesting and roll-up capabilities:

Select the Turn Down icon
The Top-Level Location in the nest is provided, selecting a down-turned Turn Down reveals the next level of locations that contain this item
Down-turned Turn Down icons indicate that there are additional sub-levels that continue items
Roll-up quantities of those sub-locations is provided for un-opened locations
Up-turned Turn Down icons indicate that the level has been "opened" and sub-level(s) are exposed
Where this is not turndown, the location is a "Termination-Location" and the item is actually located there
Each Termination Location can be edited (assuming appropriate permissions are granted) allowing the quantity to be adjusted directly and Min and Max quantities to be modified
Items from a location can be deleted - If items are deleted it is assumed they were either destroyed or moved outside the system and have been accounted for in another location
- This function would generally be used during an inventory audit to true-up stock quantities and locations
- To move inventory from one location to another as part of a standard workflow, Transfer Requests should be leveraged.
At each Termination Location, the quantity of the stock in that location is provided

Filters & Columns

There are a few filter and column settings unique to Inventory Manager.

Filters

Along with the standard Project and Location filters available in many views, Inventory enables three unique filters:

Data Source
- To filter only on Material or Production Orders
Catalog ID
- To filter down on only one specific Catalog ID item
Out-of-Stock Items
- To filter in on items in inventory which are:
  - not out of stock
  - understocked
  - overstocked

Columns

There are several columns unique to the Inventory Manager module as well, including:

Perf Vendor
In Stock
In Delivery
Consumed
Reserved
Min Stock
Max Stock

Managing Inventory

Part of the power of Inventory Manager is its simplicity. The functions of setting-up, managing, moving and ordering new inventory in manufacton can all be managed from this one interface.

Import/Export Inventory
- Import
  - For initial set-up or to bring a large number of items into inventory from another system, for a new inventory location, etc., the import function allows for items to be brought into the system.
  - There are two types of item import for Inventory, for Classic Company Locations and for Nested Company Locations
    - Each import is for one project at a time
    - See the Import Templates KB Article for more information on importing Inventory.
    - Only project team members with "Inventory Import, Increment And Decrement" Permissions can import inventory. See the KB on Permission for more information.
- Export
  - The export is WYSIWYG and honors the filter setting when the export is made
  - Prior to export, the system will allow additional columns to be turned on or off as desired
Ship Inventory
- Inventory is moved from one location to another, including to storage, production facilities, and the job site, by initiating a shipping order or Local Material Transfer (aka "Transfer Requests")
- For Nested Company Locations, the items must be transferred to the Top-Level of the nest for them to be shipped - use "Local Material Transfer" to transfer those items to the Top-Level
Multiple items in a location can be re-ordered via the "Order More Inventory" function.
- Selecting this tool will bring up an additional dialog box to choose for which project and Location you want to order more materials.
- Once selected, the option to select multiple items for that project, int that location will be made available
- Once selected, a new material order can be sent directly to the Sourcing stage, or, by selecting the "Edit Material Order" check-box, to the Requesting stage where the order can be further managed and then sent to Sourcing.
Reorder one item
- A single item (for a project location) can be re-ordered.
- When this option is selected, the same option for a new material order, for the one item, to be sent directly to the Sourcing stage, or, by selecting the "Edit Material Order" option, to the Requesting stage where the order can be further managed and then sent to Sourcing, is made available.
Remove Items
- Items that meet the following criteria can be removed from the Inventory Management list:
  - Have Catalog IDs
  - Have a zero (0) quantity:
    - In Delivery or
    - Reserved
Transfer Requests enable the movement of items around Nested Company Locations and support the movement of items to a Production Order's location during the Manufacturing stage.
- See the KB Article on Transfer Requests for more information on this

Here is a brief (7:49) video on an introduction to Inventory Manager: