Good Afternoon,
In our industry (aerospace), there is this concept of a “Standard Part”, where there is a national registry of items with recognized Part Numbers and technical specifications.
In your mind picture a Bolt…2.5 inches long, made of a certain alloy, having a certain tensile strength, threads, etc. The National Airspace Standards Board will designate a Bolt meeting those technical specifications as Part Number MS1410-1.
Now imagine a manufacturer who has their Part Number C10-218…which coincidently happens to be a Bolt that is 2.5 inches long, made of a particular alloy, having a certain tensile strength, threads, etc.
The manufacturer can seek from the National Airspace Standards Board a certification for their Part Number (the C10-218) to be approved for sale under the Standard Part Number (MS1410-1).
At the end of the day, the net result may be 15 manufacturers that make an MS1410-1…all of which have their own manufacturer Part Number / designation for that item.
This has led us to a multitude of questions on how to handle this paradigm in M3…
- How do we purchase these Items from a Supplier(s)? When we procure these Items, the PO needs to have the Manufacturers part number on it…not the “standard” Part Number.
- How do we Stock it? Under the Standard Part Number or the Manufacturer Part Number? 95% of Customers will come looking for the Standard Part number.
- How do we receive it? It must be purchased under the Manufacturer Part Number but received under the Standard Part number.
- 5% of the time a Customer will come looking specifically for a Manufacturer's Part Number. The Customer may have an affinity to a particular Manufacturer or explicitly need items from a certain Manufacturer. How do we let our Sales Team and the Customers easily see what “flavors” of Manufacturer Part Numbers we have in Inventory?
Here’s what we’ve concluded in our own research, and we’d love for you guys to weigh in with your own experiences (if you have something similar in your line of work) and opinions…
- Only the Standard Parts will be configured in MMS001.
- Manufacturer Part Numbers will be set up as Aliases in MMS025.
- That will let the Sales Team and Customers be directed to the Item where the Stock is located regardless if they come looking for either the Standard Part Number or the Manufacturer Part Number.
- Supply Chain will place Purchase Orders for the Standard Part configured in MMS001 using the Manufacturer of their choice
- And because of the Alias configuration, they should be able to easily “put” or “print” the Manufacture Part Number on the Purchase Order so the Manufacturer knows what we are ordering
- Receiving will have to pay attention. The PO will arrive with emphasis on the Manufacturer Part Number, but needs to be received into the Standard Part Number.
- Potentially, in addition to the Manufacture field being populated in the Lot Master, maybe a Lot Attribute to more easily show the Manufacturer and / or Manufacturer Part Number?
Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Other ideas to strengthen this approach?
Thanks in Advance!
Steve