Master Planning Action Messages

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Posted on by kpm

Master Scheduling is generating action messages on planned orders. For example, it may produce a "Cancel" message on a planned order. Firming that Cancel message creates a purchase order, which doesn't seem to make much sense. Is there some setting to bypass the creation of action messages on planned orders? What is the purposes of those messages? Is there any documentation that discusses the rules behind the creation of planning messages in general, and describes the consequences of firming those messages?

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Community Member on at

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Action messages are suggestions that let you know how you can change your plan. The action messages do not directly influence your Planned orders. You can manually make a change based on the suggestions. However you have the option to copy the date calculated by action messages to the requirement date. This option you can see it in the Master Planning -> Setup -> Plans -> Master Plans -> Action Messages (Tab).
If you want to deactivate action message you can do that here... Master Planning -> Setup -> Coverage -> Coverage groups -> Action (Tab)
For detailed documentation refer to the study materials on Master planning

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kpm on at

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I understand the purpose of action messages with respect to existing orders. I don't understand why MRP generates action messages that refer to planned orders. Why would it want to cancel a planned order? If calculations later in the MRP cycle determine that the planned order is unnecessary, why not just delete the planned order. What is the appropriate response to an action message to cancel a planned order? If you firm the message, it actually creates the purchase order.

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Brian Vittrup on at

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The reason why the action also comes on the planned order is ex.

Sales order 10 pcs

Purchase order 10 pcs.

Then a new sales order comes in

Sales order 2 - 5 pcs

When running with masterplanning,

First scope of it, will cover the planning aspect and create a planned order to fulfill the sales order

planned order 5 pcs.

Second scope will do the actions

Action increase on the existing purchase order with + 5

but to avoid you to by in double, then the system makes a cancel on the planned order. this is however only relevant if you process the forst action.

Brian

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Evert Bos on at

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Like most people using master planning I think it is ridiculous to generate cancel messages for planned orders. The system creates that planned order in anticipation of the user NOT acting on the action messages.... it clutters the system with planned orders you have to ignore. it was a very bad design idea. No parameter will get rid of them, we have explored every avenue. With the positive and negative days the user has complete control when the system will suggest to use an existing order and when it will ignore existing orders and create a new planned order. The sobering reality is that it ALWAYS creates that planned order, in one case without action mesages, in other cases not. Brrr. We have to change the code.

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Julie Johnsey 570 on at

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I absolutely agree. It is ridiculous to generate cancel messages for planned orders. Why plan it in the first place? We have greatly minimized ours with the positive and negative days, however.

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Tim Schofield on at

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Planned purchase orders are generated based on 'Just in time' inventory - so (like in Brian's example above) if you have an existing purchase order covering a existing demand, and a new demand is created [for a later delivery date] you have two options: Either process two purchase orders, order reciepts, and purchase order invoices, or process one, larger purchase order. But in the second case your average on hand inventory increases. Which is best? Lots of small quantity transactions, or fewer, larger transactions with a higher average inventory carrying cost? There is no simple answer to this, so it's a value judgement, and one thing the action messages are doing is indicating that you have to make the decision.

But the system's not perfect. Why for instance do you get an action advance message on a future dated purchase order receipt which is late relative to the demand it's covering but a futures message on the demand?

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Julie Johnsey 570 on at

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I noticed that several of the futures messages we get are related to Safety Stock - Min.Max. Anyone else notice this and how have you dealt with it? I cannot get my head around why the system won't release the safety stock instead of pushing the order out. Why doesn't it just plan another requisition or planned order. Also, it works very different on purchased parts and manufactured parts. Our purchased parts are set to Today + Procurement time. However, this setting does not work on manufactured parts. The only option on manufactured parts is today, which you will never accomplish, especially if you are using FIFO.

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Karen Hanley 815 on at

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Have any changes been made in AX 2012 with regard to creating planned orders with an action to cancel? (I notice this blog started in 2010) I am running into this in AX2012 and just wanted to see if any new options exist. Thanks!

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Evert Bos on at

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You can disable the action message for "decrease". Becuase a cancel message is a decrease message, this will stop the cancel messages for planned orders but you will also miss any action messages to reduce quantity of existing orders. Otherwise in the past years with customers I have seen the users just live with it and filter out any planned orders with a cancel message. When you firm them you are going to over-order (although the next MRP run would generate a cancel message for your firmed order again) . Nothing has changed in 2012 regarding this behavior.

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GeorgeB 345 on at

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I have disabled "Decrease" the Actions for Cancel of Purchase Orders do disappear as stated in this thread. When I run the Actions Report, I still see a lot of Cancel lines. Does anyone take advantage of this functionality?

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