Cycle Counting Continuation...

Schedule Cycle Counts are two Types

1.Automatic Scheduling

2.Manual Scheduling

Automatic Scheduling
 
Oracle Inventory uses the number of items in each cycle count class, the count frequency of each class, and the workday calendar of your organization to determine how many and which items you need to count during the scheduling frequency.

In order for Inventory to perform automatic scheduling you must:

Set the Cycle Count Enabled item attribute to Yes at inventory tab for the items you want to include in the cycle count.

Enable automatic scheduling when you define your cycle count.

Request the schedule using the Generate Automatic Schedule Requests window.

Each time the auto scheduler runs, it schedules counts only for the schedule interval you defined for the cycle count header. So if your schedule interval is weeks, Inventory schedules all items that need to be counted on all of the workdays in the current week. If your schedule interval is days, then Inventory only schedules those items that are due for counting on the current date.
To generate automatic schedules:

1) Navigate to the Cycle Counts window and query for MI-CC04.

2) Select a cycle count MI-CC04 and choose Cycle Count Scheduler from the Tools menu. The Cycle Count Scheduler Parameters window appears.

3) Indicate whether to include items belonging to the control group in the list of items for which to generate schedule requests.

4) Choose OK to submit the request to the concurrent manager.

Logic for Cycle Count Auto Schedule (As given in Meta link): The first criteria of selecting the items to schedule, is whether these items are marked as a control group items or not and what is the criterion on which the Cycle count scheduler is being run (Include Control Group Items is checked or not). Based on this the scheduler will select the Control Group Items or Non Control Group Items to schedule counts.

The second criteria are Max items to Schedule, which is defined as:

Max Items to Schedule = (Total Items in Class * Working Days) /Class Count Interval + 1;

where,

Total Items In Class = the number of items defined in the class

Working Days = Begin Date - End Date + 1 (this will be printed in the concurrent log file of the scheduler).

Class Count Interval = Num Work Days This Year / Num Counts per Year (these will also be printed in the concurrent log file of the scheduler).

Once Max Items to Schedule is calculated, this number of items is picked randomly and will get scheduled and will be marked, so that these not picked in the scheduled run.

Now let’s consider the following possible cases:

CASE-1:

No. of items in class = 100

Counts per year for class = 1

No. of working days in the year = 200 (taken, for easy calculation)

Count Frequency = Daily

Now since the count frequency is 'Daily' we can run the scheduler on every working day. Using the above formula, Maximum Items to schedule = ((100*1*1)/200) +1 = 0+1 = 1 the above formula has integer division and so instead of 0.5+1 we have 0+1.

So, in this case all the 100 items in the class will be counted twice in a year. But, now if we change the count frequency from 'Daily' to 'Weekly' as shown in as Case 2.

CASE-2:

No. of items in class = 100

Counts per year for class = 1

No. of working days in the year = 200 (taken, for easy calculation)

Count Frequency = Weekly (say 5 work days in a week)

Maximum Items to schedule = ((100*1*5)/200)+1 = 3

Here, all the 100 items will be counted at least once, but some of the items may be counted twice since in our formula we are doing the ROUNDING off. In this case 80 items were counted only once and 20 items got counted twice.

If we do not do the rounding off (using integer division and adding 1), then in the above case we will have 2.5 items to schedule. Now, we can schedule either 2 or 3 items. So, if we schedule 2 items then all the 100 items will not be scheduled at least once (20 items will be left out). So we do the rounding off so that all the items are scheduled at least once.

You can see that by changing the count frequency from 'Daily' to 'Weekly' the number of items that are getting counted twice have been reduced from 100 as in Case 1, to 20 in Case 2. Since we are doing 'Rounding off' in the formula, some items of the class may be counted more than the number of counts specified. But, as I have mentioned before, Counts per year is the minimum guaranteed number of counts per year for all items in the class.

In cases where you have very few items and count frequency is 'Daily', the magnitude of the difference between 'actual number of counts' and 'counts per year specified' will be much higher. In these cases, by changing the count frequency from 'Daily' to 'weekly/period’ will reduce the magnitude of difference. Also, we allow the user to change the 'Counts per year' at any point in time

in the year. So, once this value is changed then all the items in the class are scheduled afresh, irrespective of their scheduling before the change of value for counts per year.

The logic for Cycle counting is forward looking.

1. The counts per year for a class ensures that all items in that class are scheduled at least that many items in a year. That is, if the counts per year for a class are 10 and the class has 100 items, then each of the 100 items in the class is scheduled at least 10 times.

2. In cases where you have very few items in the class and have high count frequency (say Daily), there are chances that it will be counted more number of times, then specified in its class. However, in those cases you would ideally like to reduce the count frequency (say, from 'daily' to 'weekly').

3. The counts per year for a class can be changed by the user at a later point in time. Cycle counting does not take into account the number of counts that have already been done before the change of value for 'counts per year'. It now takes into account the new value of 'counts per year' for all the items in the class. 
Manual Scheduling:

We can manually schedule counts in addition to, or instead of those generated with automatic scheduling. You can request counts for specific Subinventory, locators, and items, and set the count for any inventory date. For example, you could enter a request to count item A wherever it can be found in subinventory X. Or you could request to count all item quantities in subinventory Y, locator B–100.

Since manually scheduled counts have no impact on automatically scheduled counts, you can potentially count some items more frequently than you had initially planned.

To manually schedule cycle count requests:

1) Navigate to the Manual Requests window.

2) Enter the cycle count name you are scheduling.

3) Select the item or location (sub-inventory) for counting. You can manually schedule specific items by entering values in different combinations of the item, revision, lot, serial number, subinventory, and locator fields. If you do not enter an item, you must enter a subinventory. Inventory schedules a count of all items stocked in this subinventory. If you enter an item and a subinventory, Inventory schedules the item to be counted only in this subinventory.

4) Enter the date on which Inventory is to schedule the count you have specified. The date you enter cannot be before today’s date and must be a valid workday as defined by the workday calendar for your cycle count.

5) Indicate whether to generate count requests for this item, revision, lot, serial number, subinventory, or locator combination even if the system on–hand quantity is zero. This may be useful in performing exception–based counting to verify that the actual on–hand quantity is indeed zero.
Physical Location scheduling you can use this feature to execute location–based cycle counting. You first need to generate a schedule for counting each sub-inventory and locator. You then need to enter the schedule requests for each locator, specifying the schedule date. 
Count Requests
 
After you have successfully scheduled your counts, you can submit the process to generate count requests. This process takes the output of the automatic scheduler and your manual schedule entries, and generates a count request for each item number, revision, lot number, subinventory, and locator combination for which on–hand quantities exist. These count requests are ordered first by subinventory and locator, then by item, revision, and lot. Oracle Inventory assigns a unique sequence number to each count request that can be used for reporting, querying, and rapid count entry.

Because the count requests are derived from the state of on–hand balances at the time the Generate Cycle Count Requests process is run, you should wait to run it until you are ready to count. Note: When you schedule an item to be counted using manual scheduling, some schedule requests may have overlapping count requirements. The count request generator does not create duplicate count requests, but instead cross–references one count request back to each associated schedule request.

Count Requests for Items with Zero Count By default Inventory does not automatically generate requests to count items with an on–hand quantity of zero.

To include such items:

Define all sourcing details and inventory controls for the item. For example, if an item is under predefined locator control, be sure it is assigned to a subinventory and locator.

Select the Generate Zero Counts option when you define your cycle count.

The count request generation process then automatically creates a count request. If a quantity is found and counted, an adjustment is made. At count entry, you may receive a warning message stating, “Zero count, no adjustment performed.” Inventory generates this warning if it cannot find all levels of inventory control defined for the item. In this situation, enter the count, but no adjustment is performed. To make an adjustment and update the missing information, enter an unscheduled count using either the Cycle Count Entries or Approve Adjustments window.
To submit a request set to perform a full cycle count

1. Navigate to Cycle Counts Summary folder window or the Cycle Counts window.

2. Choose Perform Full Cycle Count from the Tools menu.

The set includes the following processes and report:

• Generate automatic schedule requests: Enter parameters for cycle count to use and indicate whether to include control items.

• Generate cycle count requests: Enter parameters for cycle count to use.

• Cycle count listing: Enter parameters for cycle count to use, start and end dates, recounts, and sub-inventory to count.

 
Go to Options and check the Save All Output File Check Box
 
3. Choose Submit.
To submit the program to generate cycle count requests:

1. Navigate to the Cycle Counts window.

2. Choose Generate Count Requests from the Tools menu to submit the process to the concurrent manager.

Requesting the Cycle Count List

After you generate count requests you can submit the request for the Cycle Count Listing report. This report lists all counts that you need to perform within a given date range. To request a cycle count list:

1. Navigate to the Cycle Counts window. You can also navigate to the ABC and Counting Reports window to submit the listing.

2. Choose Cycle Count Listing Report from the Tools menu.

3. Enter start and end dates for the list. Inventory reports counts falling on the start date through the end date.

4. Enter the specific subinventory for which to report scheduled counts.

5. Indicate whether the cycle count list includes only recounts or scheduled counts and recounts.

6. Choose OK to submit the request to the concurrent manager. 
Entering Cycle Counts
 
You can use the same window to enter counts of items requested via automatic or manual cycle count scheduling. If unscheduled count entries are allowed for your cycle counts, you can enter those also. Oracle Inventory automatically queries up all count requests for which you have not yet entered a count. You can use flexible search criteria to specify the group of count requests for which you want counts entered to speed up the count entry process. For example, you can specify a range of count request sequences assigned to one person so they can be entered in the same order they were printed on the count sheet.

Cycle Counting Continuation...