The objective of this post is to show how easy we can create variations of the same article with the use of variants, in this example we will show how EWR manages the items needed for the segments of the wind turbines through one item with different sizes.
The product table in Dynamics 365 contains all the items needed for the company operations like raw materials, services, semi finished articles and finished products. Service and phantom items does not exists in the physical world but can be used in the supply chain processes.
What we first need to do is to create a shared product of type Product Master that will be shared between all the companies. The product number alone at the product master do not identify alone the item in the inventory but we need to release on the different companies the variants with the different sizes. In this case we only use size but we have also available color, configuration and style.
So lets start creating a product master at the product information management module, this product master will be called "Wind Tower Segment" and will use predefined variant configuration technology using the product dimension group Size were we have already defined the different sizes.
Once created we add the specific Size Group were we define which Sizes values apply for Wind Tower segments.
Next step is to release the variants of the product on the different companies where the product will be used, in this case the company is EWR. For that we go to the Variant suggestions form from the product master on the Product Variants menu at the toolbar. Here the system suggest us which products variants are available for our product. We select all of them.
The following step is to release the selected product variants through the Release Products option in the product master at the toolbar. Here starts a process where I show the steps. First we select the product master to release.
Second we select the product variants to release.
And last we select in which companies the products will be released. In this case EWR.
Finally we find in the Released Products from our released product, here the released product name is the one with code RMM001, do not get confused with the other items as they are Wind Tower segments not using variants.
If we go inside the product details we can see on the right the different variants (Sizes) that were released and we can process with filling the released product information so we can use it.
In order to test the new released variants we are going to create a purchase price agreement with the supplier Regional Castings gmbH were we specify which price the supplier will provide us at our main warehouse in Rostock for each size.
Once the purchase agreement journal is posted we can create a purchase order and we see that the system automatically gives us the purchase price for each of the sizes.
We receive the order and we immediately have in our main warehouse at Rostock the on-hand quantities for each of the different sizes that we can use for our project.
I hope you see how easy and nice is to work with this powerful ERP in the Cloud, making all the posts related to a fictive Wind Turbine manufacturer company makes everything more funny! Till the next time.