Author: admin

19-NOV-2024

Keywords: Mfg Fixed Lead Time, Mfg Variable Lead Time

Some quick facts:

• It looks at the Primary Routing for each made item.
• It does not explode the BOM and calculate the TOTAL lead time to make a top-level item as-if all of the subassemblies need to be made.
• It updates the two lead times fields on each Item-Site where the replenishment method is NOT “buy”.
• When calculating all items it uses the Item Engineering table.  If an item is not in the table it will not be updated.

To see the total lead time to make an item, look at WilloWare’s Lead Time Inquiry in MFG PowerPack. Lead Time Inquiry calculates the total time needed to make an item and can include (or not) usage of available inventory of both make and buy items.  If available inventory is excluded the lead time includes purchasing all buy items in the assembly and making all subassemblies.

The calculation performed by the Manufacturing Lead Times window is provided below.  The first few sections describe where the data is coming from, the calculations are at the end.

ITEM ENGINEERING: Average Quantity.  If the field has a value other than zero it uses that value, otherwise it uses 1.  If you calculate all items the utility runs through all records in the Item Engineering table, which means if you have incomplete setup (i.e a missing record in Item Engineering) the item will not be updated by the utility.

AvgQty = Average Quantity

ROUTING: It gets the routing sequences for the item’s Primary Routing.  For clarity we are leaving out information about how it handles parallel routing sequences, suffice to say the calculations below are applied (see note at the end about parallel routing sequences).

QNS = Qty Next Start

PNS = Percent Next Start

QT = Queue Time

ST = Setup Time

CT = Cycle Time

MT = Move Time

WORK CENTER: It gets the Work Center record using the Work Center ID and the first record with an Effective Date <= User Date.  Note that the User Date can be set to a date that is not the current date and that could cause the lead times to be updated using previous Work Center setup.

HPS = Hours Per Shift

NS = Number of Shifts

THE CALCULATIONS

PctComplete = 1

IF: QNS > 0 THEN PctComplete = PNS/AVGQty

ELSE IF: PNS > 0 and PNS < 1000.0 THEN PctComplete = PNS/1000.0

* Dividing by 1000 is correct, it has to do with how GP stores the data

If QNS and PNS are zero, PctComplete stays 1. PctComplete is used later in the calculations below.  NOTE: the calculation when QNS > 0 is incorrect, this is a bug.  It should be:

IF: QNS > 0 THEN PctComplete = QNS/AVGQty

ELSE IF: PNS > 0 and PNS < 1000.0 THEN PctComplete = PNS/1000.0

As it is, if you use Quantity Next Start the PctComplete value will always be zero, and the Variable Lead Time calculation will always result in zero.  We have fixed this in MFG PowerPack’s Lead Time Utility.

WCHours = HPS * NS

SetupAndQueue = (QT + ST) / WCHours

MoveAndCycle = (CT + MT) / WCHours

VARLeadTimeLine = MoveAndCycle * PctComplete

FixedLeadTime = FixedLeadTime + SetupAndQueue, rounded to 2 decimals

VariableLeadTime = VariableLeadTime + VarLeadTimeLine, rounded to 4 decimals

The calculations above are repeated for each routing sequence and the last two values (FixedLeadTime and VariableLeadTime) accumulate the total as each routing sequence is processed.  These values are used to update the two lead time fields in Item Quantities Maintenance.  All Item-Site combinations where the Replenishment Method is not BUY will be updated.  This means you cannot have Site-Specific Lead Times.

Note the rounding could cause a slightly smaller lead time, which could impact planning.  This is not technically a bug, but it would be preferable if it always rounded UP so that you would allow more time in the schedule rather than less.

Parallel Routing Sequences: the Calculate Manufacturing Lead Times window does not correctly handle routings with parallel sequences.  When the routine looks for parallel sequences it does so only by the Routing Sequence Number, so it retrieves all routing sequences from all routings that have a sequence running parallel to, for example, sequence 100. If you use parallel routing sequences on SOME but not ALL routings, this will cause the routings without parallel sequences to have incorrect lead times. (zeros). 

WilloWare has just release our own Lead Time Utility that not only addresses the two bugs described above, but also offers important key improvements:

• It is significantly faster because it runs completely in SQL and only updates items if there are changes
• It provides a report at the end of the process showing which items changes along with the before and after values
• It has a lead time history table where it tracks the date of each change, the user who made the change, and the before/after values with each change.

Date: 28-OCT-2024

We are starting on the 18.7 updates to our software!  You will see new releases of everything over the next few weeks.  They will be released every few days in the following order:

• GP PowerPack
• MFG PowerPack
• MO Generator
• MFG Import
• MFG Data Archive
• Blanket PO
• LeanMFG
• SpellCheck
• Complete Count
• Consulting Toolkit
• Engineer To Order (ETO)
• EZImport
• Item Process Tracking
• LabelLink
• SOP-POP MultiLink
• Preactor Integration

Nearly 25% of our customers are on a Dynamics GP version below GP2018(18).  We are currently doing all of our “base” development on GP2013, then upgrading and testing across all versions above that.  If you are current on Annual Enhancement you have access to all new features and fixes on any version of Dynamics GP from GP2013 and up!

If you are not regularly updating your WilloWare products you are missing out!  We regularly add new features, and we love incorporating your feedback into our products.  Be sure to let us know what you would love to see in our products and in GP.  Our 18.7 releases are not just for people on GP18.6, they are for YOU.

Date: 28-OCT-2024

You have likely heard recently about one or more of the following:

• GP Lifecycle
• Dynamics GP Roadmap
• Microsoft Support
• Timelines
• Or even the scary and completely wrong “end of life”.

If you own your license, GP will keep running for as long as you want it to.  Here are some statistics from our customer list–the version and the percent of our customers on that version.

• 10% – GP2016
• 7% – GP2015
• 4% – GP2013
• 1% – GP2010
• 1% – GP10

This means that 23% of our customers are on a version of Dynamics GP below GP2018/18.x!

We provide support to ALL of our customers regardless of the GP version and we will continue to do so.  Does it matter if Microsoft provides “support” for the version of GP you are running?   According to a significant portion of our customers the answer appears to be no.

That is the headline because if you hear that “support is ending for GP” just consider for a moment that WilloWare still has businesses using GP2010, which is incredibly out of the support window.  It still runs, it supports their business, and it does not shut off.

Fortunately, if you own the license, the software just keeps working.  These customers all have GP Partners who are committed to supporting them and helping them, and ISVs (like WilloWare) who stand by their products.

One more anecdote: A friend of mine is in IT management for a very large national insurance company.  He recently told me they use an IBM Mainframe application that is at least 40 years old.  They have developers who can make changes to it to address new areas of business, such as coverage options for Uber and Lyft drivers.  Since the software does what they need the enormous cost to replace it would not result in a benefit to the organization.

I’m sharing these stories with you so that when you consider the Dynamics GP Lifecycle, one thing you can be sure of is that it will keep running for many years to come, and long past Microsoft’s end of support.

–Brenner

Date: 2-OCT-2024

Keywords: Reconcile Inventory Quantities, Speed

If you have a lot of Item Numbers and/or Location Codes it creates an enormous number of Item-Site combinations, all of which combine to give the Inventory Reconcile process a lot to do!  Running Inventory Reconcile may take many tens of hours.  It may take days.  Perhaps it takes so long that you only run it over holidays.

There is a relatively simply way to make it run 5x faster.  In true social media style, this is definitely a “hack”.  While we have tested this and it does work, you may have other modules installed in your system or other unique characteristics that could cause this trick to not work.  Please be sure to trial it in a test company before running it on your live data.

When you click the PROCESS button on Reconcile Inventory Quantities the Inventory Reconcile routine adds an activity record in DYNAMICS..SY00800.  If you have Manufacturing installed it also adds “locks” in the company database MOP10223.  If you attempt to start another IV Reconcile process from a second GP client it is these activity records which prevent it.

How do you make IV Reconcile run 5x faster?  Run it simultaneously on five GP clients!

Divide and conquer.  Figure out how to divide your inventory into equal sized groups, such as A-K and L-Z (this would not actually work because it would miss everything after “K” such as “KA”, but you get the idea).  Technically A-K and K-Z would only overlap on a single Item Number “K”.

Log into the first GP and start IV Reconcile on the first range of items.  Then delete the Reconcile record from SY00800 and everything from MOP10223.  Note that MOP10223 holds MO locks for other parts of Manufacturing, such as MO Entry, so clearing this table should only done when you know that users are not going to be working in Manufacturing.

Now start IV Reconcile on a second GP client.  Clear the tables again if you are going to start a third processor.  This process can be repeated as many times as you like.  Do NOT delete the records after starting the last processor.

Most of the “work” of the reconcile process is performed within the GP client so this procedure splits the workload allowing you to run IV Reconcile more quickly on a given range of items, or to get through more items in the same amount of time.