Managing At-Risk Inventory
At-Risk is a Quality Control status that refers to material that is assumed good inventory. Materials can be released and marked as At-Risk when finishing inventory on Jobs or receiving inventory on Purchase Orders. Releasing material to At-Risk is a good option if material will be issued, reserved, and/or shipped prior to performing Quality Control Tests. Note that At-Risk material cannot be used when Producing Assemblies.
Material may be released to At-Risk manually or automatically as discussed in the "Configuration" section below. Upon initial release, material marked At-Risk is placed in the "Inventory" inventory segment in DEACOM. The material may be moved to other Inventory Segments depending on how it is used in the system. For example, At-Risk material could be reserved to a Sales Order. At this point, the material is moved from the "Inventory" segment to the "Reserved" segment. The system always maintains a record of the materials QC Status, allowing QC Tests to be performed at a later time.
It is important to know that for a Subassembly or Finished Good that is finished off of a Job where an At-Risk item was used, the Subassembly or Finished Good will also be marked "At-Risk" until QC tests on the Raw Materials or Components are completed. If a QC test fails for an At-Risk item used on a Job or shipped to a customer, the Finished Goods produced or shipped using that item will have their QC status updated to "Failed QC".
When QC testing is ready to be performed on At-Risk items, the transaction used depends on how materials were released into inventory. Materials released following Purchase Order receipt are tested via Purchasing > QC Result Entry and materials released following Job finishing are tested via Production > QC Result Entry. More information on entering QC Test results can be found on the Entering Purchasing and Stability QC Test Results and Entering Production and Stability QC Test Results pages.
Configuration
Marking inventory At-Risk is an option within the Purchasing and Production QC testing processes. If using At-Risk for both purchasing and production situations, the setup steps detailed in the "Configuration" sections on the Entering Production and Stability QC Test Results and Entering Purchasing and Stability QC Test Results pages will need to be completed first.
The configuration options specific to the At-Risk option are indicated in the list below. The first two may be used if companies wish to have materials automatically released to At-Risk. The use of these fields is beneficial in situations where specific items are always meant to be released to At-Risk or if companies do not want users to decide when items should be marked At-Risk. The manual release of items to At-Risk is handled by users with the correct permission, via the "Mark At-Risk" button, when entering and completing QC Tests. Companies may use both methods.
- "Receive To At-Risk" flag - Located on the Item Master QC/Stability Tests tab, if this flag is checked and an active QC Group is present, the item will be received directly into the At-Risk QC Status instead of the Pending QC Status.
- "Finish To At-Risk" flag - Located on the Formula or BOM Revision QC/Stability Tests tab, if this flag is checked and an active QC Group is present, the item specified in the "Part Number" field on the General tab will be finished directly into the At-Risk QC Status instead of the Pending QC Status.
- "At-Risk Inv. Implosion" field - Located on the Inventory > Options > QC tab, this field allows companies to determine how the system will handle Lots previously marked At-Risk when failing QC results during Production QC Result Entry.
- "Quality Control -- mark inventory as At-Risk" - Security setting that allows users to click the "Mark At-Risk" button and release inventory to At-Risk via the Quality Control Results form, both for purchasing and production scenarios.
- "Sales Orders -- ship At-Risk inventory" - Security setting that allows users to ship inventory Lots marked as At-Risk.
- Require QC For At-Risk - Located on the Inventory > Options > QC tab, if this field is checked, when a lot (with QC attached) has QC values entered and approved, if any other lower level lots have not had their qc results approved, the materials will be placed into an at risk status.
Process
Understanding Pending QC vs At-Risk
|
Functionality: Pending QC vs. At-Risk Status |
Issue to Job |
Reserve to ICT |
hip ICT |
Reserve to SO |
Ship SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inventory is Pending QC | NO | Yes - If viewing Pending QC in the Apply Inventory form | YES | NO | NO |
| Inventory is At-Risk User does NOT have security to ship At-Risk |
YES | YES | YES | YES | NO |
| Inventory is At-Risk User has security to ship At-Risk |
YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
Marking items At-Risk
As explained in the "Configuration" section, marking purchased or produced items At-Risk can occur automatically upon receipt or finishing. Manually marking items At-Risk occurs by clicking the "Mark At-Risk" button available on the Quality Control Results form. To get to this form if it is not already open, navigate to either Purchasing > QC Result Entry or Production > QC Result Entry. Move the desired items/lines to the right-hand side of the mover form then click "Continue", which will open the Quality Control Results form. Once the "Mark At-Risk" button is clicked, the item will be marked as At-Risk, the Finish QC and Quality Control Results forms will be closed, and the PO or Job line/item will be moved back to the left hand side of the QC Result Entry form.
Once the above occurs, additional QC testing can be performed, the QC results can be updated at any point via the QC Result Entry form, and the lot status of "At-Risk" is removed if the QC tests pass. If a Subassembly or Finished Good is finished off a Job where an "At-Risk" item was used, the Finished Good is also marked as "At-Risk" until the QC tests on the Raw Materials or Components are completed. If a QC test fails for a Lot used "At-Risk", all inventory where this Lot was used will have its QC status updated to indicate that it "Failed QC".
Note: The QC history for a lot (maintained in the dtqc5 table) will maintain a history to show that a lot was released from testing "At-Risk". Items that are marked as “At-Risk” can be identified by the boolean flag in the dtfifo table called fi_atrisk that will show a “T” for lots that have been marked "At-Risk".
Finding At-Risk items
To get a list of all Lots currently in the At-Risk bucket, generate an Inventory "Lots" report for "QC Status" of "At-Risk". The QC history for a lot (maintained in the dtqc5 table) will maintain a log to show that a lot was released from testing "At-Risk". Items that are marked as “At-Risk” can be identified by the boolean flag in the dtfifo table called fi_atrisk that will show a “T” for lots that have been marked "At-Risk". When in the Apply Inventory form, users can add the fi_atrisk field to the Grid Layout so that it is easy to distinguish which Lots are At-Risk and which are regular inventory.
Transferring At-Risk Inventory
If inventory that is marked At-Risk is shipped on an Inter-Company Transfer, the system will allow QC tests to be performed in the Receiving Facility via Production > QC Result Entry. This option is designed to be used in connection with the header Job functionality. In this way, a header Job is created for an Inter-Company Transfer, the Job will contain the appropriate Bill of Material with the QC Group identified and flagged to "Finish At-Risk". When the Inter-Company Transfer is received, the entry of QC results is accomplished on the header Job via Production > QC Result Entry. This option was initially designed and is especially useful for situations where items are produced in one Facility and transferred to another Facility within the same company before the entry of QC results can be accomplished.
Shipping At-Risk inventory
Inventory marked At-Risk may be shipped on Sales Orders provided users have the security setting "Sales Orders -- Ship at-risk inventory" set to Yes. In this case, the entry and approval of QC results is handled via Production > QC Result Entry or Purchasing > QC Result Entry depending on where QC testing was originally performed. Production QC Testing is performed on At-Risk inventory when companies produce inventory, mark it At-risk, then ship it. QC Result Entry is performed on At-risk inventory in re-selling situations, which occur when companies purchase items, mark them At-risk, and then ship them. In most cases, companies will not perform QC testing in re-selling situations, but the option is available in DEACOM.
When shipping Sales Orders, the system does not filter out item/lots that are marked At-Risk since they are considered acceptable for shipment. If At-Risk visibility is needed, the "fi_atrisk" field may be added to the Apply Inventory (invout) form available via the “Select Lots” button on the Sales - Ship form. The "fi_atrisk" field will show a “T” for lots that have been marked "At-Risk". If line items on the Sales - Ship form have the word "System" in the Lot column, users are not required to select or verify lots and will not, therefore, be required to use the Apply Inventory form. In this case, users may, if desired, click the "Select Lots" button and view this form to see the At-Risk status, but it is not required in order to complete the shipping process.