Automating Purchasing with Requirements

What are Requirements?

Requirements are the records opentaps uses to denote when inventory is needed either for production or for resale business. These two types of of Requirements, Product Requirements and Internal Requirements, are used as follows:

• Product Requirements are used to create purchase orders,
• Internal Requirements are used to create production runs.

Creating Requirements

Requirements can be created automatically in either of these two ways, but only one method should be used:

• Use Material Resources Planning (MRP) which is a distinct process step, and is considered the preferred method for many businesses.
• Use "Requirements Enumeration" configured in the main navigation Catalog section, Product definition screen when sales orders cause Requirements to be created. (Refer to Setting Up Your Products). This may be a sufficient method for simple business processes.

To create requirements with MRP, use the Run MRP Screen in the purchasing application and refer to the User Manual section Material Resources Planning.

To create requirements automatically as sales orders are entered, set up the “Requirement Method Enum ID” field of the Product Screen by selecting one item from the drop down box. The different settings are described as follows:

• No requirement Created when sales orders are entered. thus, only MRP will produce your requirements.
• Automatic For Every Sales order (PRODRQM_AUTO) – Requirement is created each time a sales order is created, for the quantity equal to the item order.
• When QOH Reaches Minimum Stock for Product-Facility – a Requirement is created the first time QOH (quantity on hand)falls below the minimum stock level set for Product and facility of the order, for the reorder quantity defined for that facility.
• When ATP Reaches Minimum Stock for Product-Facility – a Requirement is created the first time ATP (available to promise)falls below the minimum stock level set for Product and facility of the order, for the reorder quantity defined for that facility.
• Requirement for order when ATP Reaches Minimum Stock for Product-Facility – a Requirement is created for the quantity of the order item if the ATP is below minimum stock, without regard to reorder quantity. (This is often used for simple automated purchasing.)
• Drop ship only – The item is only drop shipped.
• Auto drop ship on low quantity – Item is drop shipped based on quantity.

  ???(Note that this setting has not been verified.)???!!! What???

When requirements are automatically created, they are created in the warehouse defined by the facilityId of the product store of the order. Minimum stock and reorder quantity are defined as part of the Inventory Stock Levels for a product. If you set a days to ship, a required by date will be created as well on your Requirements.

If you want to create purchase orders or drop shipments automatically, create suppliers for your product under the [Catalog] > [Product] >> [Suppliers] tab, and designate one supplier as the “Main Supplier” under the “Supplier Order Pref” field. The requirements will then be automatically created for with this supplier.

Working with Requirements

Once your requirements have been created, go to the Open Requirements Screen in the purchasing application. You can look up the Requirements here manually, or you can use the [Approve Requirements] tab to look up a list of all outstanding Requirements and approve them in bulk.

After you have approved requirements, you can use Approved Requirements Screen to see the vendors with approved requirements for them. The “# Products” is for the number of distinct products approved for this vendor. For example, if product A has been approved with quantities 2 and 3, it comes as 1 product in this column. Select a warehouse where you would like a purchase order to be shipped, click on [Prepare Order] to go to the next Prepare Purchase Order Screen, where you can review the quantities and prices of products to be ordered and create a purchase order for the items.