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Rotating Items, Rotating Inventory and Rotating Assets...dizzy yet?

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Abstract

Rotating Items, Rotating Inventory and Rotating Assets...dizzy yet?

Body

I am often amazed how many times I receive questions regarding Maximo's rotating inventory functionality.  The surprise comes from the fact that this functionality has been in the product since at least the days of 3.x (maybe earlier...anyone have a copy of 2.1.1 and can tell me?)

Many customers are looking to implement or expand their usage of rotating inventory so it seemed appropriate to provide a bit more information on what all this rotating stuff is about.

 So what is a rotating item?  Functionally, it is an item record that has had the rotating flag set to true.  When you flag an item as rotating you are saying that this is an item for which the balance is made up of individual, serialized assets (or pieces of equipment if it helps with picturing it).  An example of this could be a replaceable motor in a pump, or even the pump itself.  Or in the IT space, laptops, servers and other IT gear are commonly considered rotating items.  The term rotating comes from the business process, that these are items that rotating from inventory into usage, if need be, thru repair, and ultimately back to inventory.  
 
Rotating inventory is what you have when you add a rotating item to a storeroom.  This will reflect the balances for that rotating item in a storeroom, including all of the usual inventory attributes such as bin info, reorder details, vendors etc.  Rotating assets are the individual asset records for the rotating item.  In Maximo this means that there are records, viewable in the assets application.  Each individual asset will conform to the form, fit and function specified in the rotating item record.  Indeed they are linked via the rotating item number.  When a rotating asset is located in a storeroom, the asset record will contribute in making up that storeroom's inventory balance.

Because rotating items are specified by individual assets, their use requires the specification by asset number.  For example, issuing a pump or a laptop from a  storeroom requires you not only specify the item number, but also the specific instance of that item number in the form of the rotating asset number.  

The financial information associated with rotating items also function a bit different than a non-rotating item.  Non-rotating items are sometimes referred to as 'consumables' because their inventory value is consumed by a charging entity when the item is issued out of a storeroom.  Similarly, a rotating asset's value is expensed (consumed) when the item is issued, however the value can be increased as a result of repair, overhaul or other service performed on the asset.  For more info regarding the financial aspects of rotating items review the 'Rotating Asset Accounting' document found here or: 

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/maximo/Inventory Best Practices

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ibm11134393

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