Master data: one item list that planning, the warehouse and accounting can trust

Planning, the warehouse and accounting work from the same list of items: products, materials, spare parts. When one physical material is entered in that list twice, each function sees only a part of it. No report setting corrects this: the error is in the list, not in the report.

What one duplicate does

Take a material entered as two items, because it comes from two suppliers under two names. The bill of materials refers to the first, and the last receipt was posted to the second.

Planning sees a shortage and orders material that is already in the warehouse. The storekeeper cannot issue it against the item named in the production order. Each item has its own cost, so the cost of the product depends on which of the two was issued. Purchase statistics are divided between two lines.

One wrong record produces errors in several departments, and each corrects its own part without seeing the cause.

What a usable list looks like

A few questions test the list.

• Does every material and product have exactly one item with one base unit of measure? One name entered with two different units is also a duplicate.
• Do bills of materials, stock records and orders refer to the same items?
• Is the name built by a rule from the item's parameters, not typed freely?
• Are items with no stock and no open orders closed for selection?

Start with the groups used in planning and supply, such as main materials and spare parts. An intermediate part from engineering documentation needs its own item only when it is planned and counted.

Who decides what a duplicate is

The duplicate search built into 1C:ERP finds candidates. It cannot say whether two records are the same thing: that is a question about the material, not the database.

For materials and spare parts the answer belongs to engineering, which defines what production needs. Two items can be identical for every operation and still have two names, because purchasing named each one after its supplier. Two others look alike and cannot replace each other in one process. They stay separate.

IT prepares the candidates and performs the merge after the decision. Supplier names are kept: they are linked to the remaining item.

Control the entry before cleaning

Cleaning a list that anyone can extend does not end: while one group is checked, new duplicates appear in another. First control the creation of items, then clean the old records.

Control means that no item is created or changed without approval by the person responsible for its group. In 1C:ERP Holding Management this is a setting of the list: an item created by an ordinary user stays inactive and cannot be selected in documents until the change request is approved. A group of companies also chooses between one corporate list that subsidiaries cannot edit and separate lists matched at the head office.

For existing stock the rule is: new receipts are posted only to checked items. Old items are used up, and what remains after a few months is transferred to checked ones.

In a new system, loading the old item list unchanged is an early warning: when planning is switched on, the list has to be corrected, and functions already in use are implemented again.

A check for Monday

Four checks show the state of the item list without a project.

• List the items created last month and ask who approved each one.
• Sort one group of materials by name and read it: likely duplicates stand side by side.
• Take one current bill of materials and find every line in the stock records.
• Name the person who can say that two items in this group are the same material.

A missing answer shows where to begin. Control over new items comes first in every case.