Engineer Site and Location
Most engineer attributes affect engineer scheduling. However, the engineer’s site, location, and area are important when you order items with material orders (MOs) and consume items in Call Activity Recording.
Use a consistent engineer site and location so you can manage inventory transactions that occur when you service calls.
Engineer Site/Location on MOs
Engineers can order service inventory with material orders (MOs). When you ship inventory for the MO, the system transfers inventory from the source site and location to the place you need it for the service activity.
The system searches for an engineer site and location defined in Engineer Maintenance. You can define either one or both of these for an engineer. If no site or location exists, the system searches for the engineer’s area site and location. The system transfers the MO items you order to this site and location.
Consider inventory management issues when you define default sites and locations. If engineers obtain repair parts from regional supply centers, let the site default from the engineer’s area and define each engineer as a separate location.
Material Orders discusses MOs.
Note: Significant overhead occurs when you define a site. For example, you allocate costs per site. For this reason, setting up individual engineers with separate sites requires more planning and implementation.
Inventory Consumption in CAR
When you consume MO inventory in Call Activity Recording, the system uses the same logic to determine a site and location for inventory issues as it uses in MO shipments. If you ship the items to a different site than the default, change the values in CAR to process inventory issues.
Establish procedures so the system always references the same site and location for service stock for a particular engineer.
Location Validation
The system validates the engineer location like any other location in the system. For example, the location must exist, unless Automatic Locations is Yes for the site.
The location you specify should not restrict any of the following transactions, which occur during service activities:
• For all MOs, the inventory transfer receipt transaction (RCT-TR)
• For expensed MOs—those with a charge code—the unplanned issue transaction (ISS-UNP)
• To issue items in CAR, the issue to work order transaction (ISS-WO)
Reserving Service Inventory
Other functions that allocate and issue inventory can use items you order on an MO. If service and manufacturing activities are in the same site, service inventory is vulnerable to access by manufacturing functions such as work orders or sales orders.
You can minimize the impact of other processes on service inventory in several ways:
• Use a special naming convention for service locations and establish procedures so that manufacturing functions skip these locations.
• Even if your service operation shares the same physical space as manufacturing, define a separate site for service. Managing service as its own site gives you greater control over inventory. In the service site, naming conventions and procedures can distinguish locations you use for different purposes such as stocking, return, repair, scrap, inspection.
• Give engineer locations an inventory status code with Available set to No. This status prevents the system from using the service inventory for other purposes. The service locations do not display in the picking logic for manufacturing functions.
Note: When you make a location unavailable, the system does not use it for standard picking. You can still issue inventory from the location in CAR. However, you cannot create detailed, or picked, allocation during Material Order Maintenance.
If the engineer location is not marked as unavailable, the system may allocate the items ordered on an MO, but not yet used, to another MO or sales order.