Hi. We're using Dynamics Ax 2012 in our company since a few months, and we have quite some philosophical discussions about the firming of planned orders (planned by MRP).
We are a manufacturing company, we make a lot of standard products but also a lot of custom and derived products. For the latter, the BOMs often change, even after the products have been ordered, because a certain amount of engineering is only done once the order is in. Also, we have a lot of small orders which should preferably be grouped in larger production orders.
This means we're looking for flexibility in our production orders.
Now here's the question: when do we firm a planned order, and turn it into a production order?
Do we firm it right away after the MRP run?
In that case we lose the ability to group production orders into larger orders, which means we'll be making a lot of small series. Also, if the BOM still changes, this gives us a giant headache because we have to start sorting out all the production orders that need to be changed.
On the positive side of it: all of the production orders are scheduled, and we're quite sure to be able to deliver on the promised date.
Or, do we leave all the orders as planned orders, and only firm them a few days before they are due?
In that case, when something changes, the nightly MRP run updates all the planned orders and we don't have any headaches to sort out all the changes. Also, the planned orders will be grouped and consolidated by Ax.
However: this results in production orders that are sliding backwards into time without any control on them.
This has been our strategy for the last months and it has resulted in a terrible "on-time delivery".
So: how do we get maximal flexibility, while ensuring not to run into delivery troubles?
When do we firm planned orders into production orders? And when do we release the latter?
What's your opinion?
