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Using pc/MRP’s stockroom check availability function allows users to enter a bill of materials for a projected build, and check their inventories for appropriate amounts of stock to complete that build. As one might imagine there’s more to this routine than meets the eye.

Having enough materials to build a projected order is only part of the issue at hand. What happens if there are already orders in the system that MRP as planned for?  What happens if there are materials already on order to satisfy those plans, and when are they coming in?  All of these are answers that the MRP module could answer, but when you want to do a quick assessment, this is the place to do it.

Here’s the process:

1. Open pc/MRP and go to modules, stockroom, check availability as shown here:
2. Once you complete this navigation you will be presented with a number of choices of how you want the Check Availability routine to run for you.  The initial entry that you must make is to insert the assembly that you wish to check availability for.
3. Be sure to Identify the area or “ALL AREAS”  for the system to check availability in.
4. The next entry is very critical. The question is asked of the user:
5. If you select:” Assembly (If available), then Component Parts” as shown above, the system will go to the bill of materials for that top level assembly, and first look for any subassembly that is available to fill its needs. If it does not find the subassembly, it will then go to the component parts of the  subassembly, and look for them to fill in its needs.

With this method you would get a combination of assemblies and parts depending upon what you had in inventory at the time you ran this routine.  It will not take into account any sub assemblies that are being built, as it sees only actual inventory of completed, in stock assemblies and/or parts.

1. If you select “Parts Only”, the system will go to the bill of materials for that top level assembly and then break down the sub assemblies into parts only. It will look for inventory of the parts only. This is what is known as a “Flat BOM”

With this method you would get parts only of what you had in inventory at the time you ran this routine.  It will not take into account any sub assemblies that are being built, it sees only actual inventory of the parts.

1. A preferred method uses the last choice, “Sub-Assemblies Only”, and a secondary choice is to identify when the system should ask you to break down those sub assemblies. Your choices here give you the flexibility that you may need at that moment in time.

By choosing “Sub-Assemblies Only”, “Ask When Short”, the system will go to the top level bill of materials and look for Sub-assemblies FIRST as a default, and if it cannot find sub assemblies that are available for this build, it will ask you if you wish to break that sub-assembly down into parts for the build. If you respond with a yes answer, pc/MRP will ignore that sub-assembly and only look for the parts within that sub-assembly for this build.

This is a critical choice, because there are times that parts are on the shelf in a pre subassembly status that could be used as is.  The difference between the first choice as identified in 3.a above and this choice is the fact that you are able to choose your method rather than having the system automatically ignore one factor or the other automatically.

1. Additional factors on how the system is going to look for materials are shown here. When factoring in for the top assembly, users may check to look at their on  hand quantities of the top assembly, other orders that are creating demand, and whether or not they wish to include a recommended buy report.
2. When selecting the onhand check box, you are asking the system to do a math calculation, that would subtract the quantity you are asking to check availability for, against the on hand quantity, and if there was still a requirement the system would calculate that needs on the balance only.
3. When selecting the On Demand check box as well as the on hand check box, you are asking the system to do a calculation of what is on hand, minus the demand from other sales orders FIRST.  That amount is then used as the available top level assembly quantity which is compared to the quantity you are asking in your check availability request. If that amount is greater than your check availability quantity, then no new requirement would be created. If the amount is less than your check available quantity, that demand balance would then be used in its BOM explosion for this routine
4. Finally, the include a recommended buy report, would be used if any of the components were short and also spell out any existing purchase orders for the component parts.

This routine is a “Mini” MRP for a given assembly and is very powerful when used correctly.  As always. You should keep your