Where Is My Whopper?

Body

In MAM 7.5, supply chain management features got an overhaul. A slew of new features were introduced in purchasing area out of which purchase order revision is one of them. We will refer to purchase order revisioning as PO revision from this point onwards. PO revision lets you make changes to an existing approved purchase order without the fuss of changing statuses. Buyers can simply go to the purchase order, and through ‘Select Actions’ choose ‘Revise Purchase Order’ action. Maximo users are not new to the concept of revisions as revisions are heavily used on the Contracts side as well. So what is in it for a Maximo user?

If you recall, prior to MAM 7.5, users would employ the change status or change order feature to make changes to an approved purchase order depending on whether any goods or services has been received or not. Both of these options, as our customers pointed out, created headaches for enterprises in the downstream purchasing processes. Changing status route led to loosing important historical information on the purchase order and creating an audit nightmare; while change order route created complex management problems. Change order created a new purchase order and introduced a new challenge in the already complex world of supplier relationship management. Multiple shipments were delivered to the buyer under the assumption that a new order has been requested whereas the “new” order was simply an update to the previous order.

PO revision streamlines demand (purchase order) change process. The feature lets users create revisions of purchase order without loosing any valuable information. Purchase order number is preserved while a newly added attribute on the purchase order called “revision number” keeps track of the changes behind the scene. Users enter edited information and resubmit the purchase order for approval. The resubmit process validates the changes and can be routed via workflow to obtain the correct approval for the changes. Once the revised purchase order is approved, the old revision of the purchase order becomes a history record and the newly approved revision of the purchase order becomes active.

A purchase order can be revised as many times as the user wants. The changes are tracked in the database and may be viewed through the “View Revision History” screen or download as an excel file. I plan on posting additional information on PO revision such as impact on downstream processing, best practices, and any tips while you design your business processes around this new feature. In the mean time, if you cannot change the status of an approved purchase order to waiting on approval, you at least know how to proceed further. A co-worker of mine posted a link that has more information on MAM 7.5 features: http://bit.ly/iH1Pwu. Check it out!  

Till we talk next time, happy revisioning…