Storage Location Capacity Checking

The PeopleSoft Inventory capacity-checking feature helps you manage storage capacity by identifying the best material storage locations for putaway transactions. In capacity-checking environments, transactions that update material storage location quantity balances also calculate and update the material storage location's current occupied capacity. For online transactions, the system issues a warning message if the transaction quantity exceeds the maximum capacity of the material storage location.

Note:

For stock stored in containers, the capacity-checking calculations consider only the weight and volume of the stock occupying the container; they do not consider the container's weight and volume.

You activate cubic-capacity checking, weight-capacity checking, or both at the SetID level on the Inventory Options page; the options that you select become the default values for new material storage locations. You can deactivate capacity checking for individual material storage locations on the Material Storage Locations page. For example, although you might want to enable capacity checking for most locations, you should disable the feature for material storage locations with unlimited capacity (locations that are unlikely ever to be overfilled, such as staging locations).

Note:

The system defines inspection locations as having unlimited capacity. You cannot activate capacity checking for material storage locations that are defined as inspection locations on the Material Storage Locations page.

You can always deactivate capacity checking for a given material storage location, but you can only activate it at the material storage location level if capacity checking is active for the SetID. Conversely, once capacity-checking storage locations are defined for a business unit, you cannot disable the feature at the SetID level until you disable it for all material storage locations in business units belonging to the SetID.

Weight Capacity Processing

Transactions that update a material storage location's weight capacity use the following processing steps:

  1. Retrieve the weight established for the item.

    Look first for the stocking weight defined on the Define Business Unit Item - Inventory: Weight/Volume page. If no weight is defined at this level, check for the stocking weight defined on the UOM Weight/Volume page, and finally for the stocking weight defined on the Define Item - General: Dimensions page. If there is still no weight information for the item, issue a warning that the weight cannot be calculated and checked against capacity.

  2. Convert the item's weight to the unit of measure defined for the material storage location's weight on the Inventory Options page, using the conversion factor established on the Units of Measure page.

    If no conversion factor exists, issue a warning that the weight cannot be calculated and checked against capacity.

  3. Multiply the converted weight by the adjustment quantity and add the result to the occupied weight recorded for the location.

  4. If the adjustment quantity for the material storage location is positive, compare the calculated weight with the maximum weight capacity established for the location on the Material Storage Locations page.

    If the new occupied weight exceeds the capacity of the material storage location, issue a warning.

  5. When saving the page, update the material storage location's occupied weight with the calculated weight.

Volume Capacity Processing

Transactions that update a material storage location's cubic capacity use the following processing steps:

  1. Retrieve the item's height, length, and width.

    Look first for the stocking dimensions defined on the Define Business Unit Item - Inventory: Weight/Volume page. If no volume is defined at this level, check for the stocking dimensions defined on the UOM Weight/Volume page, and finally for the stocking dimensions defined on the Define Item - General: Dimensions page. If there is still no volume information for the item, issue a warning that the volume cannot be calculated and checked against the cubic capacity.

  2. Convert the item's dimensions to the unit of measure defined for the material storage location's dimensions on the Inventory Options page, using the conversion factor established on the Units of Measure page.

    If no conversion factor exists, issue a warning that the volume cannot be calculated and checked against the cubic capacity.

  3. Multiply the converted item dimensions by the adjustment quantity and add the result to the occupied volume recorded for the material storage location.

  4. If the adjustment quantity for the material storage location is positive, compare result with the maximum cubic capacity calculated from the dimensions established for the location on the Material Storage Locations page.

    If the new occupied volume exceeds the cubic capacity of the material storage location, issue a warning.

  5. When saving the page, update the material storage location's occupied volume with the calculated volume.

Capacity Processing in Negative Inventory Environments

The occupied weight or volume of materials in a material storage location cannot be driven negative. In negative inventory environments, the system uses only the portion of the adjustment quantity that reduces the item quantity to zero to calculate the location's occupied weight or volume. For example, if you store 10 each of an item in a given material storage location and enter an adjustment for -12 each, the system uses -10 of each item to calculate the occupied weight or volume. Any transaction that drives the item quantity negative drives the occupied weight and volume for the material storage location to zero.

Online Capacity Recalculation

If you ignore warnings that capacity cannot be calculated because there is not enough data available to calculate weight or volume, the occupied weight and volume fields for the material storage location will not be accurate. If you supply the missing information (conversion factor, item weight, dimensions, and so forth) after the warning is issued, future transactions are accounted for correctly, but the occupied weight and volume of the material storage location does not reflect the transactions that occurred before the required data was available.

To update the capacity for the material storage location correctly, calculate the capacity online using the Volume/Weight Capacity Checking page. Select the Calc Capacity at save time (calculate capacity at save time) option, click OK, and then save the Material Storage Locations page.

Note:

Each time you recalculate the occupied capacity of a material storage location online, you must select the Calc capacity at save time option. Once the capacity of the location is recalculated and updated, the system clears the check box.

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