Materials Explosion
The Materials Explosion program updates the system to reflect the conversion of inventory “top level” items into “component parts”. Materials Explosion is appropriate for exploding top level parts back into the components to reflect dis-assembly activity. It may not be used for assembly processing. The Materials Explosion procedure updates the Inventory Master file to reflect the quantities consumed and produced during disassembly processing, and it documents the changes made to inventory quantities and costs in the Inventory Activity file for later reporting and analysis.
When you select the Materials Explosion program from the Menu, the cursor will be positioned in the Item field, and the Loc field will display the default inventory location assigned to you in the Operator Table. The Loc field determines the location in which dis-assembly processing will take place, and if you need to change the default location displayed in the field you may do so by using the Backfield key to access the field, and by keying in the appropriate information. Once you have accepted or changed the default location, you should Find the Item to be processed or disassembled using the program. You may find the appropriate inventory item by using the Find keys in the Item field, or by pressing the Expand key in the Item field. If the Expand key is pressed in the Item field, the system will display the Inventory Inquiry Screen. The Inventory Inquiry Screen allows you to locate an inventory item using any of the several display and search sequences which are available in the Inventory Inquiry program. Once you have found and selected (highlighted) the desired item in the Inventory Inquiry Screen, you may press the ENTER key to load the Item into the Item field of the Materials Explosion program.
Modifying the components and quantities being returned to inventory
Once you have selected the item to be processed (disassembled), you should input the quantity of the top level item to be disassembled. The quantity should be entered as a positive number (a negative number is not allowed as the program only supports disassembly processing). Once you have input the quantity to be processed and have pressed the ENTER key, the system will display the component items listed in the Bill of Materials for the selected top level item, and it will default the quantity of each component that should be generated (returned to inventory) by disassembling the specified quantity of the top level item. The quantities which are displayed in the lower section of the Materials Conversion program are extended quantities. They are calculated by taking the quantity of each component listed in the Bill of Materials for the top level item being processed, and multiplying this quantity by the number of top level items being disassembled. For example if you are exploding a PC486 item, and the BOM for this item includes 1 hard drive, then if you disassemble 5 of the PC486 items, you should be putting 5 hard drives back into inventory at the end of the process.
Once the component items and quantities to be generated by the disassembly process are displayed by the Materials Explosion program, you should edit this information as required to reflect the actual component items and quantities that are being returned to inventory. The Materials Explosion program allows you to modify the information for the component items as follows.
1.) You may edit the quantity of one or more components to reflect the actual quantity going back into inventory. This quantity may be more or less than the quantity defaulted by the program for the item. For example, if the program defaults the quantity for a component item to 5 and you only produce 4 during disassembly, you may edit the quantity for the component to 4. You may also change a component quantity to zero to indicate that none of the items are being returned to stock. The modified quantity will be used by the system when recording the transaction and updating inventory quantities in the Inventory Master file. If you do change the quantity of a component, the system will prompt you to select a transaction code to indicate the reason for the shortage or the extra quantity, and this transaction code, the original quantity defaulted by the system for the item, and the modified quantity will be recorded by the system for later reporting and analysis.
Note: The transaction codes which may be selected in the Materials Explosion program are user definable and can be set up in Gencode table by your system administrator. Only one transaction code may be used for each component item being processed. This means, for example that you may record the reason for a shortage on a single component as “defective” or “scrap” (not reusable) but not both. If you wish to record multiple adjustment reasons for a single component (normally only required when you are processing more than one top level item) you should process each of the top level items separately. For example, if you are disassembling 2 PC’s and one of the PC’s has a bad drive and the other is missing the drive completely, you may process each of the PC’s separately. This allows you to record a defective drive on the first disassembly transaction and to record a missing drive on the second disassembly transaction. If on the other hand, you are disassembling 2 PC’s and one has a good drive and the other is defective, you may process the 2 units at the same time, modify the hard drive quantity from 2 to 1 and record a defective drive when prompted by the system. This correctly records 1 drive being put back in stock and the other drive as being defective and not returned to stock.
2.) You may add a component item to the component list reflect an additional item received or produced as a result of the disassembly. This feature allows you to record a component item moving back into inventory as a result of the disassembly even though the component was not listed in the Bill of Materials for the top level item being processed. To add a component to the list, you may press the INSERT key. When the INSERT key is pressed, the system will display the Inventory Inquiry Screen, and you may use this screen to FIND and select the item to be added to the component list. Once you have found and selected the item, the program will prompt you to enter the total quantity of the item produced by the disassembly process and you should enter this amount as a positive number. This will result in the specified quantity being added to the inventory on hand quantity for the component. The additional component activity will also be reflected in the transaction records created by the system during processing.
3.) You may add a component item to reflect an additional item which is consumed as a result of the disassembly. This feature allows you to record a component item being consumed during disassembly even though the item was not listed in the Bill of Materials for the top level item being processed. To add a component to the list, you may press the INSERT key. When the INSERT key is pressed, the system will display the Inventory Inquiry Screen, and you may use this screen to FIND and select the item to be added to the component list. Once you have found and selected the item, the Materials Explosion program will prompt you to enter the total quantity of the item which is consumed by the disassembly process and you should enter this amount as a negative number. This will result in the specified quantity being subtracted from the inventory on hand quantity for the component. The additional component activity will also be reflected in the transaction records created by the system during processing.
Once you have made any required modifications to the component information (items and quantities) appearing in the lower section of the Materials Explosion program, you may attach an optional comment to the transaction by pressing the Comment key normally F11). When you press the Comment key, the Comment Editor program is displayed. Once the Comment Editor program is displayed, you may add notes relating to the transaction being processed by keying in the appropriate information and by pressing the Save key. Any comment you save in this manner will be tied to the materials explosion transaction and may later be viewed or edited as required.
Once you have made any required changes to the items and quantities listed in the lower section of the Materials Explosion program and have created a comment (if desired), you should press the Save key to process the transaction. Once the Save key is pressed, the system updates the inventory quantities of both the top level and the component items being processed, and it writes Inventory Activity records to record the changes made to each inventory item as a result of the processing.
As each materials explosion transaction is processed, records are written to the Inventory Activity file to record the transaction. These records store several different types of information and they can be used to reconstruct the transaction and to calculate the gains and or losses which are recognized due to processing the transaction.
Materials Explosion Program - Field Descriptions
This section is divided into two parts. The first part lists the descriptions of the fields which are displayed in the top section of the Materials Explosion program. These fields display information about the top level inventory item which is being disassembled or converted into component parts. The second part of this section lists the descriptions of the fields which are displayed in the bottom section of the Materials Explosion program once an item has been selected in the top section of the program. The second section lists the component items and quantities which will be processed when the top level item is disassembled.
Top section of the program screen. This section displays information about the top level item which is being disassembled.
Loc: The location of the inventory item being processed. The location selected determines the location in which inventory quantities will be adjusted
Item: The inventory item to be processed. The item entered into this selection should be the top level item which is being disassembled and there should be a BOM (Bill of Materials) defined for this item in the Bill of Materials file. The Item field is a Search field and you may search for the item you wish to process by using the Find keys in this field, or by using the EXPAND key to call up the Inventory Lookup program. The Inventory Lookup program allows you to search for the desired item number using any of the several display sequences available in the program. Once you have located and selected (highlighted) the appropriate item in the Inventory Lookup program you may press the ENTER key to select the item and load it into the Item field in the Materials Explosion program.
Qty: The quantity of the item which is being exploded or disassembled. The quantity should be entered as a positive number. Note: The Materials Explosion program may only be used for disassembly processing; it will not allow you to enter a negative quantity for this reason. The quantity that you enter in this field is the quantity of the top level item which is being disassembled and which will be removed from inventory.
Desc: The description of the selected inventory item. The description is displayed from the Inventory Master file. The Description2 field (2nd description line) from the Inventory Master file will be displayed underneath the description field if information has been entered into this field for the item in the Inventory Master file.
Lower section of the program screen. This section displays information about the components which are included in the top level item which is being processed. This section is automatically filled in based on the Bill of Materials for the top level item and the quantity of the top level item which is being processed. Some of the information displayed in the bottom section of the program screen may be edited by the user Qty: The quantity of the component item which is actually being returned to inventory as a result of the disassembly process.
Qty: The quantity of the component that will be received into inventory when the Materials Explosion transaction is processed. This field may be edited by the user as required to reflect the actual quantity of the part that is being produced by the disassembly process. The quantity should be a positive number if the item is being returned into inventory and should be a negative number if the item is being consumed or taken from inventory as a result of the disassembly transaction.
Item#: The inventory item number of the component item.
Description: The description of the component from the Inventory Master file.
BOM Qty: The quantity of the component which should be received into inventory when the top level item and quantity are processed. This BOM quantity is based on the quantity of the component which is defined in the BOM for the top level item multiplied by the quantity of the top level item which is being exploded or processed.
Code: The transaction code used to identify the reason for any change in the component quantities. The program prompts you to enter a code whenever a component quantity is changed. The codes which are available are determined by the Materials Explosion codes which have been entered into the Generic Code table by your system administrator.
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