Our production lines use the same inventory items across multiple buildings and production areas. Each work center has dedicated inventory locations that are physically closest to where the material is consumed. However, when material is issued to production, Acumatica defaults to the item's single "Default Issue From" location. We then have it set up to pull inventory from the next available location if there is none available in the Default location. We understand that each user can change the issue location during the Material release process, but we are faced with several challenges related to this task.
- Additional manual steps for every material issue to change locations.
-
Increased risk of selecting the wrong location.
-
Inventory inaccuracies when material is physically consumed from one location, but system transactions are recorded against another.
-
Difficulty maintaining accurate on-hand balances across multiple buildings and production areas.
We’d like the system to automatically determine the issue location based on the work center, production order, or warehouse location hierarchy. Releasing materials would proceed as such:
- First issue material from the location assigned to the work center.
- If insufficient quantity exists, issue from the nearest approved location based on predefined priority rules.
- Fall back to the item's Default Issue From location only when no work-center-specific inventory is available.
This would improve inventory accuracy, reduce manual intervention, and better support manufacturers that store and consume the same materials across multiple production areas or facilities.
Manufacturing organizations with decentralized inventory locations could maintain more accurate inventory balances, reduce transaction errors, and streamline production reporting by aligning material consumption with the location where inventory is actually used.
The newly added “Default Putaway To” location gave us a temporary secondary location to store inventory, but it still defaults to the “Default Issue From” bin location when inventory is released to work orders. It didn’t quite give us the automated control we were hoping for.