What warrants a revision versus a new item??? Changes to UOM, cost, packaging, etc. are considered revisions while a "material change to the quality" would warrant the creation of a new item.
Type of Change
Revision
New Item
UOM
X
Packaging
Description
Specification
In situations where your supplier promoting a replacement or substitute sku (in other words, a new vendor item number), generally, a new item number will be warranted. One clear rule of thumb - if you are pulling product from the shelf and/or returning product to the supplier, a new Lawson item should be created for what you are replacing.
The mass change utility IC330 is helpful in organizing changes across locations. However, you must resolve open supply and demand orders. [This is a bit of a seek and destroy exercise although a ProcessFlow could be written to automate the procedure.] Kill open demand orders using WH25 and WH32. Remove open supply orders using PO23 and PO20. Inactivate the item on IC11 as soon as you are able, but make sure you complete a Return (if necessary) prior to inactivating.
Similar to the previous post, our basic guideline is if there's a material change to the product, we create a new Lawson number. Changes in UOM, conversion factors, or packaging do not constitute a material change…in those instances, the existing Lawson number should be revised. Advantages to creating a new Lawson number for material changes to products are: not unwittingly corrupting ancillary systems to which you may interface your Lawson item master (IC525), and creating a separation of old product from the new product in your purchase and inventory transaction histories (which can be crucial during recalls).
We use the IC11 Description 2 field to document the old Lawson number on the new item (we include the phrase “Formerly…”) and the new Lawson number on the old item (we include the phrase “Replaced By …”). By using daily auto-emailed Crystal Enterprise reports, our individual perpetual inventory teams monitor stock depletion of the “old” (“Replaced By…”) Lawson numbers and when SOH reaches zero, they inactivate the item, remove from par carts, then load the new number to par carts, begin ordering the new item, etc. From time-to-time, we’ll transfer (IC22) inventory from a slow-moving perpetual location to a faster moving location to deplete quicker across the company (i.e., if we need to make a hard change vs. a rolling change - where inventory is depleted at different rates by each location). Our Lawson item master team receives a report which identifies when an item has been inactivated at all IC12 locations so they know to then inactivate in IC11, ensure PO15 template changes are made, etc.
We’re on Lawson 9x and run Crystal XI. If you’d like a copy of our Policy and the Crystal reports, drop me your e-mail address…hope this is helpful!