Epicor Inventory Management: Cycle Counts, Replenishment, and Kinetic Transitions to Kinetic, and Advanced UOM Notes

Lenny Marks is a Solutions Engineer with $20\,\text{years}$ at Epicor.
Lenny began as a customer for $13\,\text{years}$ prior to joining the company, utilizing systems as far back as DCD Platinum and managing software on $6\,\text{inch}$ floppy disks used for CRM downloads.
Chuck Olson is the Regional Vice President of Solution Engineers at Epicor.
Chuck has been with the company for $30\,\text{years}$ , starting with green-screen interfaces on an S-100 system requiring $24$ function keys and no mouse.
The session, humorously referred to as "marriage counseling," focuses on the complexities of inventory management and reconciliation.

Part Maintenance is characterized as the most critical file within the Epicor system. Failing to configure this file correctly prevents the system from behaving as intended.
A common error cited is the improper use of the "non-stock" checkbox, which can lead to inventory not being recognized for planning purposes.
Cross-Referencing capabilities are extensive, covering customers, suppliers, and original manufacturers.
Unit of Measure (UOM) setup is critical for maintaining accurate raw materials, work-in-process (WIP), and finished goods tracking.
The system now supports tracking inventory by Revision, a feature that previously required the use of User-Defined (UD) fields.

Planning parameters such as Receive Days should be set carefully; a default of $1\,\text{day}$ is recommended to ensure materials arrive before they are needed for production. Materials arriving at $6\,\text{PM}$ are not useful for a job starting the same day.
Specific parameters to maintain include: - Days of Supply. - Multiples (e.g., box quantities, bar lengths, or sheet sizes). - Min/Max Levels.
In the Kinetic interface, the traditional "Tracker" is replaced by the Activity tab, which is embedded directly within the file structures.
Kinetic Search: Users can utilize the search field within Part Maintenance to find specific checkboxes or fields that were easily located in the Classic interface but may be located differently in Kinetic.

Costing methods can be assigned on a part-specific basis rather than a broad-brush approach for the whole system.
Average Costing is often preferred for Engineer-to-Order (ETO) environments.
Standard Costing is a common legacy preference for many manufacturers.
Cycle Counting is emphasized as a financial necessity to keep valuations in check and ensure usage data is correct.
Epicor provides tools (embedded and external) that analyze usage to propose new Min-Max levels. Without accurate cycle counts, these tools may provide false answers leading to overstocking or stockouts.
Backflushing: For operations like painting or powder coating, Lenny recommends setting these as backflush operations and performing a reconciliation/cycle count at least once a month to ensure cost and inventory accuracy.

The Fulfillment Workbench allows for the reservation and allocation of materials.
Automated Fulfillment Process: - This can be configured to run as a background process on a specific schedule (e.g., continuous processing). - It eliminates the need for manual "pick, pack, and ship" clicks by hard-allocating inventory so it cannot be "robbed" by other orders. - This process can run against Sales Orders, Jobs, or both. - Errors during fulfillment are displayed in an "Error Status Display" box, detailing why specific inventory could not be allocated.

Kanban POs can be used for redundant replenishment of items like hardware (e.g., Fastenal supplies).
Technical Setup Requirements: - Warehouse bins must be created using a wizard and set specifically to the Replenishment type. - In the Part Master site detail/warehouse tab, the replenishment type must be set to Kanban Purchase Order. - A Max Quantity must be defined for the replenishment to trigger. If only a Min Quantity is set, the process will fail.
Mechanics: - When inventory drops below the Min Quantity (demonstrated by a cycle count adjustment of $-75\,\text{units}$ reducing stock to $26$ against a min of $50$ ), the system automatically updates the PO (example PO $4540$ ). - The system generates a new line release for the Replenishment Quantity (e.g., $500\,\text{units}$ ) without requiring a manual PO suggestion process.

Blanket POs (introduced around version $2025$ ): - Linked directly in the Part Master warehouse detail. - Allows the system to suggest adjustments to an existing Blanket PO rather than suggesting a new, separate PO. - Users must run Purchase Suggestions and allow historical dates for a holistic view.
PO Contracts: - Used for more formal, rigid agreements with vendors over long timeframes (e.g., a year or a decade). - Requires setting the Purchase Type to "Contract PO" on the header and checking "Contract Active" on both the header and the line. - Dual Sourcing: Contracts allow awarding percentages of demand to different vendors (e.g., an $80\% / 20\%$ split between Vendor A and Vendor B). These splits can be adjusted (e.g., to $100\% / 0\%$ ) if a vendor is out of stock or performing poorly.

Advanced Unit of Measure (AUOM): This capability handles bar stock, drops, partial sheets, and other manufacturing-specific inventory challenges.
Dynamic Attributes: Classes can be set for attributes like length, width, height, Inner Diameter (ID), and Outer Diameter (OD). - Example: Buying material in pounds ( $\text{lbs}$ ) but issuing it in inches ( $\text{in}$ ). - Attribute lists allow for binning by minimum increments (e.g., $\text{at least } 2\,\text{feet}$ , $\text{at least } 4\,\text{feet}$ ).
Inventory Advisor: A search tool that allows users to filter inventory by attribute sets (like specific lengths) to find usable partials for a Bill of Materials (BOM).

Question Regarding Blanket PO Quantity Depletion: A participant asked if there is a way to have a total quantity (e.g., $200$ pieces) that subtracts from the blanket PO over six months.
Response: Chuck explained that this functionality is handled via PO Contracts. While a standard Blanket PO adds releases, a Contract PO manages the formal depletion against a committed quantity or price over a periodicity (e.g., every Wednesday or a specific day of the month). If the demand goes outside the contract timeframe or quantity, suggestions return to the standard PO suggestion queue.
Discussion on Dual Sourcing: Chuck highlighted that the primary benefit of the Contract PO is the ability to manage dual-sourced vendors through the contract grid to ensure supply chain resilience.