Keep trace of any stock out situations

[former_member728727]

Hi,
Is there any kind of way to keep track of stock out? Let's say a breakdown occurs, and there are no spares in stock to be able to correct the breakdown. Is it possible with standard SAP MM/PM to record this? And even further, is it possible to keep this record connected to a specific Material Master?

The idea is to keep track if we have a breakdown in an motor let say, and we do not have it in stock, we want to understand that the reason for production stop-time was partly because of that we didn't had a spare motor in stock at the factory.

[Oscar_DC · Accepted solution]

That's a great question!

Here's the problem you will have with this and different ways to solve it

If you have a technician walk to the storeroom, not find what he needs and then just leave, SAP will have no record of the stock out situation.

If you reserve the material, your operations are up-to-date and you run the material availability check, then you will know that there was an order which had a shortage for a material. You can see all of the statuses for your orders and build a custom report for that if needed.

I've also seen folks try to create a custom tcode for this. Basically just a running list of a combination of material and Pm order operation for stock out instances.

I want to see what more folks say!

[former_member728727 · Accepted solution]

Hi!
Thank you for your input! It's a very interesting topic for sure. And maybe I don't see the details of the day-to-day work here but, if a breakdown occurs, then they have been no change to reserve or plan any stock movement, meaning it is an underlying spare part probabilities strategy of define what component do we need to stock and where

Let say for the sake of the scenario that we in normal cases have motor A in stock, 1PC just for safety stock, but somewhere along the day-to-day work, the material planning have failed in some way (could be human error, system error, supplier shortage etc.), we still have to understand that one of the causes to production stop was shortage of stock for that motor. Meaning we have to report in some way, that we couldn't correct the breakdown due to stock shortage..
maybe I'm talking in circles now, but just want to be clear with my issue..
Thank you!

[Oscar_DC · Accepted solution]

This makes perfect sense now. While I understand everybody's effort to give you alternatives to prevent a material shortage from happening or correct material shortage after it has been identified - I completely understand that a material shortage can have an impact on an equipment record and shut it down. All you're asking is for a way to track it !

Now - let's clarify a couple of things. When I mention "orders and operations" - I'm referring to a Plant Maintenance Order and a Plant Maintenance Operation - not a Production Order.

You might be processing a production order using a piece of equipment which suddenly breaks down. Assuming this issue is considered an emergency, your maintenance team would create a Maintenance Notification and a Plant Maintenance Order to fix the equipment which broke.

Your maintenance notification would include the equipment record which broke, when the malfunction started, which part broke, why it broke, which damage was done etc.

If your maintenance team finds the parts that they need to execute the maintenance job, then they would just issue those parts to the Plant Maintenance Order creating a goods issue.

If they don't find them, then they have to create a material reservation for the PM order to make sure that the parts will actually get ordered.

Depending on how you have the Material Availability Check configured, at the time in which your maintenance technicians save or release the maintenance order, your PM order will have a MATERIAL SHORTAGE MSPT status.

If you run the material availability check as a batch job every day, your PM order status will change to MAC - or something similar- when you have all of the material needed to process the plant maintenance order.

If you analyze the status history of your Plant Maintenance Orders you could know which PM orders, for which assets had a Material Shortage status and for how long.

All of this is easier said than done ... but that's a way to get it done.

Realistically - your PM process might not be mature enough to do this. For example: not all of your spare parts might have material numbers, you might not be using maintenance notifications and orders consistently, you might have a lot of backlog PM orders which doesn't allow the Material Availability Check to run correctly, not all of your equipment records are in Plant Maintenance, etc ..

This is why folks sometimes do not do this in the PM module ... and find other ways of documenting how shortages impacted production.

keep in mind - I've never used production planning ! I'm just an MM and PM guy.

Thanks

[pascal_bellerose2 · Accepted solution]

I was looking for a way to detect stockouts so we can track improvement of MRP efficiency and you really nailed it! I did think about that MSPT status at all and since the order's status history is stored in a table, we can access it and read the number of times MSPT status was applied to an order to get eh number of stockout occurences! Thanks Oscar_DC!

[BijayKumarBarik]

To avoid such instance of material shortage - you need to go for using MRP for material by using MRP type and setting MRP data( Reorder point, Safety stock and planned delivery time etc....) . Once material stock reaches to the level you defined and on MRP run, system create PR where procurement process start. With addition to PM module also reservation of material created based on your requirement too!

[former_member728727]

Hi, thank you Barik. Yes the MRP profile and settings are up to date. But the issue can still happen. Let's say we have re-order point, but the supplier(s) have shortage, or very long leadtime, and the component do not get delivered as planned. We are facing the mentioned issue. Breakdown can happen even with the best monitoring, and supply of spare parts can be affected by multiple parameters. So i guess the question still remains..

[BijayKumarBarik]

Supplier cannot deliver or supplier capacity or supplier not available - ERP system cannot decide on it and system not designed to improve supplier capacity.

But what business can do for it to avoid such situation on breakdown

1. Keep more quantity in stock by keeping good quantum of materials with parameter such as Reorder point and Safety stock

2. Keep calculating material delivery time with Planned delivery time, GR processing time and purchasing department processing time

3. Vendor/s bound to supply as committed with purchasing conditions in your PO else you can claim penalty

4. Additionally business can have alternate option with different vendor to supply material on emergency basis

[former_member230000]

It seems the best approach is to know that you are in a stock-out situation before the equipment goes bad. As for maintenance persons, we don't necessarily know if MRP for our spare parts for our critical equipment is set up adequately. Our focus is equipment centered.

We have customized an equipment tab to let us know that there's a stock out for a particular piece of equipment. It is calculated dynamically by looking at each item on the BOM + construction type, and checks the stock levels.

This field is also part of a list report so you can look across several pieces of equipment at once.

[peter_atkin]

Fredrik,

If your MRP is set up correctly (as described in the posts above), then this occurrence should be an exception i.e. when two critical breakdowns happen simultaneously and one of the breakdowns results in insufficient stock.

The maintenance guys will know as soon as they go to the warehouse that there is no stock, so who in the business will need to know? Either way someone needs to initiate the procurement process (or robbing process).

It sounds like a simple batch program is required to pick up these exceptions and email them to the relevant parties.

PeteA

[gzanolet]

Hello

It is not my area of expertise, however I would explore the options that are offered by notifications (General notifications or quality notifications or maintenance notifications) in the first place. Notifications are there to record problems and their solution, and they may be used to track (and analyse) issues caused by material shortages.

Regards

Gianmarco

[drbharucha]

For this very reason, many times technical mainly maintenance people do tends to reserve the specific materials or issue and keep in sub-stores. Although in case of sudden break down, it always to have additional quantity of critical spares on hand. Planned shutdown do supposed to have procurement process well in advance.

I am not aware,how system will take care of such production loss due to non availability of critical spares.

Will follow this thread for correct answer.