From the Maximo Support Desk - Get Started With Consignment Items

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A raw description of a consignment item in Maximo inventory would be an item that your site uses or sells, and which another entity pays you to do this.  You could think of it as purchasing, receiving, and otherwise maintaining and transacting an item in your Maximo environment, but you're essentially doing this on behalf of another company.  The consignment invoicing ability in Maximo facilitates this to make such an arrangement very feasible to undertake.  Of course, there are many other business scenarios where consignment inventory is used, but this is a basic example of the concept and functionality.

The following steps outline the procedures to create Consignment Items and Invoices.

-Create the item in Item Master and add it to Storeroom(s)
-Associate the appropriate inventory data such as order unit, issue unit, vendor, etc.

-Open the item in the Inventory application
-Select Action | View/Edit Consignment Details
-Click the Consignment checkbox to make it checked
-In the Consignment Vendor field, associate the Vendor
-In the Invoice Generation Type field, there are three choices, Consumption, Frequency, or Manual

• If the Invoice Generation Type is set to Frequency, you can enter values in the Frequency and Frequency Units fields; this will allow the automated generation of Invoices for the period that you designate with the Frequency and Frequency Units feild values.
• It's important to note there will not be an invoice generated if there is an issue and return for the consignment item within the same invoicing period, as this would not create a net debit or credit.

You will then proceed to purchase, receive, issue, and/or consume this item as any other inventory record.

To automatically create Invoices, you will use the ConsignmentInvoiceCronTask:
-Go To System Configuration | Platform Configuration | Cron Task Setup
-In the Cron Task field enter "consignment" and press Enter
-Click to open the ConsignmentInvoiceCronTask record to edit it
-You can expand the Details in the Cron Task Instances section to create the schedule of when this will run

• Please consider the invoicing periods that you have set up for your consignment items... for example, do not schedule this Cron Task to only run once per month, if you want invoices to generate every week for certain items.  Additionally, you can use the Organizational option to define the number of lines that will appear on a Consignment Invoice.

This is found in the Organizations application, then Purchasing Options | Invoice Options

You can enter a value in the field for "Maximum Number of Lines for a Consignment Invoice:"

This article is intended to be quick start guide to using this feature, and you should be able to be up and running with Consignment Items with the information presented here.

Tom Richardson is an IBM Maximo Support Engineer and frequent contributor to the Asset Management Blog community.  For a complete index of links to his articles, visit
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