How do I prevent manufacturing a prototype?

I have a situation where we are designing products and want to prevent manufacturing from entering and processing WO's for those items until they pass through the Pre Production Approval Process (PPAP). Is there a way in vanilla JDE to prevent this from happening other than having a separate B/P (and all the associated maintenance) for engineering? The ECO process does not appear to do what we want as once the items are entered, they are "live".

If this configuration is not available in JDE, is there any software package compatible with JDE that supports PPAP?

Thanks,

Jeff
EOne 9.10

Jeff,

I'm assuming that you use MRP and Work Orders are created from MRP Messages.
There are many ways to accomplish what you want to do - limited only by your imagination and flexibility. Here's a couple:

Method 1. In Item Branch definition set the Planning Code = 0 (don't plan) when first created. After PPAP finished open the Item up for production planning by changing the Planning Code.

Method 2. Use a Field associated to a Item that indicates the "Status" of a Item's Definition. Items pass through multiple stages of definition (Initial Entry, BOM Setup, Routing Setup, Costs setup, Production Ready, etc) before Work orders can be created. Modify Data Selection of the Versions associated to Work Order Processing to exclude Items whose Status is not equal to Production Ready. Some minor customization may or may not be needed.

Larry:

You are correct, we are using MRP and releasing mfg orders (rate schedules) from the messages.

Our settings are Planning Code = 0, Not planned by MRP. Planning can still manually open a Rate Schedule and attach P/L and Routing via R31410 or manually add them and then produce. This has Quality very concerned. They are looking for something more robust, similar to Stocking Type O for obsolete items.

Thanks for your response.

Jeff

Thats why we use Method 2 I described.

We took the IFLA field (Item Flash Message) and repurposed it as a Item Status field.

This does the following for us:
1. Adds work flow to the Item Definition Process.
2. Provides visibility as to where a Item is in the definition process.
3. Controls when Items can be purchased/built
4. Provides the framework for determining how long Items sit in each phase of definition

Some of the Phases we use are:

NI - New Item
EO - Engineering Design Start
BR - BOM Required
PR - Purchasing Setup required
RR - Routing Required
QR - Quality Review
CR - Cost Rollup Required
AA - Definition Complete

Interesting. That's not as robust as they'd like, but it's a lot closer than we have now. Combined with a change to DS for the R31410 they may be OK with this solution as it identifies where in the process the item is.

Thanks!

If you are not opposed to modification to the system, I created a stocking type for "Preliminary Item" (I used a special handling code of "X" so that it would not be hard coded). I then modified the manufacturing programs to not allow work orders or rate schedules to be created for any item with a stocking type that had a special handling code of "X".

Jeff,
another alternative is to set up your Prototype BOM and Rtg as non-M types. May be create a PTY = Prototype on the BOM & Routing Type. This method ensures users cannot "accidently" create a workorder and attach the P/L & rtg.

Thanks for all the responses.

We've gone through a few iterations and this is what we decided upon. We will not modify the WO entry application but handle this through vanilla configuration.

New items get entered with IBSTKT = D and IBLNTY = ZZ. No order activity rules set up using LNTY = ZZ. This prevents all sales and purchase order types from being entered. All versions of MRP have data selection that excludes STKT = D. All versions of R31410 also have data selection that excludes STKT = D. Though this does not prevent a savvy user from entering and processing a WO, they will be aware that there is something different going on.

Jeff