Grouping Multiple Inventory Items as One into a Portal

[stovin]

I have created a basic Contact-> Order-> Line Item <-Inventory database but am at a loss how to go about creating the next stage.

 

Our company signs out equipment to its employees.  Each Order can be made of multiple individual items from our inventory.  This is basically your typical Invoice solution except we are not selling items, but rather signing them out.

 

The trick is how to assign individual Inventory items to a “Kit number & category which then can be pulled up in an Order portal.  Once that Kit number is pulled up in the portal, the line items automatically become populated with all the items associated with that specific Kit/category.

 

Additionally the Order portal would also be able to pull up individual items from the Inventory which have no kit association.

 

Items from the established kits could not be rented out individually until that particular item in the Inventory has it’s kit number association turned off / deleted.  This is to allow for upgrading, fixing, or moving equipment around to other employees which may have been assigned.

[Klypto]

So, you need a sort of Bill Of Materials (BOM) system?

 

How complex does a kit have to be?  Can there ever be kits within kits / multiple levels or are they always 1-level builds?

 

Can some inventory items / sub-kits be used in multiple kits?

 

Do you identify inventory items by part number or by some other unique means?

 

 

Typically, kit / assembly numbers and inventory item identifiers (part numbers) would reside in the same inventory table so that they can easily be put into orders or even be able to track locations within warehousing or storage for pre-made kits / assemblies, used for MRP etc.

 

You would then use a table for matching part numbers in the inventory table to their parents / children.

 

Our system uses two sets of tables to do this because we have multiple parts and kits within multiple kits on multiple levels with multiple revisions of the kits over time, where a single table would not be able to keep track of unique builds (And soon will be adding versions of a kit with interchangeable parts like colors, options etc., which has been an interesting new dimension ._. ).

 

The one used by engineering is for assigning & building kits and assemblies by connecting numbers, and the other is for the other is generated through that to create a set of records that serve as a unique index for that kit which can be used by MRP, orders, and other things (key importance is that each child within an assembly is able to identify their parents uniquely)~

 

 

 

For the automatic populating of a kit's child items, you would need a script that gets a list of the kit number's child items & qty's then adds them as line items to the order after an event is triggered (submitting / printing / emailing / checking the order).

 

Also, for items added to the portal, the field of the item identifier (part number) can check on validate to see if there are any parent items (kit numbers) and if so, notify the user that it can't be used.  This is of course assuming that 100% of the time, an inventory item can NEVER be rented out if it has a parent kit number, otherwise, use flags on the items that default to identifying that it can't be used if there are parent items.

 

 

 

Other things:

 

Are orders / pick lists printed?

 

Do you need to know in the future when looking at the order that kit number xyz was used to populate some of these line items?  

 

Does that need to show up on any email / printed copies?

 

Do you need to keep track of revisions?

 

Do you need to have the ability to have multiple "versions"?

[stovin]

Thanks for such a detailed response.  You have given me some great questions to think about.

 

I think they are 1- level builds.... I'll give you a real workd example.

 

We are a photography company, and I assign equipment out to said employees... ( alot )  40 plus+

 

Each assignemnt requires particular equipment items.  Many assignments utilize the same equipment needs, but other assignments have more or less. 

 

For example Assignment A requires:

1 - Camera Kit (assigned to :  Kit 18 )     [ the camera kit consists of a camera, a lens, a battery, a charger, a SD card, a bag etc..... so on and on ]

1 - Lighting Kit ( assigned to : Kit 18 )     [ the Lighting Kit consists of a Box, 4 Heads, Power Pack, AC Cable, Power Bar etc......... ]

1 - Laptop Kit ( assigned to : Kit 18 )     [ the Laptop Kit consists of a Bag, Laptop, AC Adapter, USB Cables, exeternal HDD etc................ ]

 

literally there can be hundreds of pieces going out the door per assignment.

 

I would like to enter all the above individual items in Inventory... maybe even all the individual USB cables...  ( 80 plus records for USB cables ugh.. ) anyway....

Once the Inventory items have been entered ( Table ) I would like the ability to assign each individual item to a Kit number.  This would not be a pernament thing once assigned because sometimes equipment gets moved around from one Kit to another, and some equipment remains un-assigned to a Kit.....  Im guessing changing or deleting the assigned_kit_# field in Inventory would take care of this.

 

SUB kits:::?  No I don't think I have ever had a situation where I had to take a Camera Kit #18 and assign it as part of another Camera Kit lets say #34.  The indiviudal items would just get pulled (un-assigned ) from Kit #18 in Inventory and re-assigned to Kit#34 in Inventory.  This would just be a manual entry on my part.

 

Would I create fields for the Inventory::_kp_product_id     and  Inventory::assigned_kit_#  ,   then relate both of those fields as being required in another Inventory Table occurance ?

 

The auto populate seems a bit daunting  but I know I'll get it eventually.   The other issue is to make the drop down list  ( or another solution ) in the Order Line Items Portal which would be the :::Inventory::_kp_product_id not just display a more meaningful Item description which I know how to do via the Value List ( also display values from second field ) BUT...   what happens when you have   10000 products,  and 40 plus Kits * 10 possible categories ( camera, lighting, laptop etc,,,,, )   That drop down list becomes uneffective...

 

Yes and finally a Printed Work Order  is required so that they can go through the items and check them off.

 

              "Do I need to know if xyz ...."       Wouldn't it be possible to just add the assigned_kit field to the line items ?  Not sure if I answered your question.

 

Yes I would like to send a pdf copy of the print to the Employee as well.

 

Revisions:::   An order is put together usually all at once, and is picked up all at once... so there would only ever be 1 Order ID.   Any changes would involve creating a new Work Order.    IF they return some of the equipment than I can just check off indiviual line item returned dates  which I have set up NOw with my Inventory->line items<- Work Order.... I just dont have the assign items to set part....    What revisions might you be thinking of ?

 

Multiple versions

Do you mean would there ever be 2 or more Camera Set #18 ?   If so, the answer would be No.   Similar Kit #'s but different categories.

 

 

I have more questions to ask about laying out Printing, and creating Headers which match to the filtered item_category sort in Portals but that won't happen until I get this first part done.....

 

thanks for your attention.