Reserving inventory in Dynamics Ax

Dynamics Ax is very well stocked with functionality in the area of SCM, it has a good functionality set around this area.

You can in a flexible manner configure whether or not you wish to use more or less "dimensions" to control any given items, where the dimensions denote either item dimension that are part of the SKU, or are so called storage dimensions whose purpose is to help you keep track of and trace your inventory as it flows through your business.

However in one area as regards reservations the system is a bit restrictive or lacking in flexibility.

When you reserve stock, it will always be done using the whole dimension set that you have activated for the item, the problem with this approach is that you often find that you want to move stock around in your warehouse prior to selling it or that you wish to f.ex. reserve against an incoming shipment.

For the later case in the previous product we had markings in the system which allowed a 2'nd level of reservation as you could mark an inflow against an outflow (they would automatically be marked against each other) and if you then changed the place of either both changed allowing a reservation to flow naturally from a marking.

This is not the case in Axapta, even though we have had re-introduced in V3 the marking functionality it does not behave in the same manner as in the previous product.

Anyhow that behaviour was not all to the good, actually what is needed is a 2 level reservation system where it is possible to reserve on a higher level dimension in the first instance and only when you do detail reservation have the full storage dimension associated as it is now.

This could simply be acheived by introducing, yet another tick box (why not we have enough of them in Ax) in the dimension group setup screen which allows the user to setup a level in the storage dimensions at which he/she wants this first level reservation to be carried out, then we add on to the inventory transaction a new inventdimid which follows the above setup, and we can now reserve on the appropriate inventsum the qty we need preferably in a new field of inventsum.

Of course the Inventory dimensions do not need the flag as you would always reserve at this level ? or would you perhaps no better in fact allow the definition at this level too as this would allow for some interesting first level reservations if f.ex. we are in a process industry where the same product is available in various pack sizes and or drum sizes and you do not wish to specify the exact details. No this requires other changes so another ideas article to be written :-).

For the storage dimensions the flag should function as the costing flag does, that is the lowest active level is always fully expanded, that is if you choose Aisle/Rack/Shelf then the warehouse is included even if you do not tick it.

I have tested the above solution in 2 different customer scenarios and the customers are quite happy with the results I think it would be beneficial for the product to have such functionality. What do you think ?

/Sven