Marking in Microsoft Dynamics AX, Part 2: More advanced topics

In part 1 of this article, we examined the basics of marking functionality Microsoft Dynamics AX, which dates back to the early releases of the product and remains much the same today. Here in part 2, we will explore more complex ways in which marking impacts firming planned orders, pegged supply, the production order cost sheet. We conclude with some thoughts on manual marking (and un-marking).

Firming planned production orders in MTO/ETO scenarios

As we have seen in part 1 in the paragraph about production orders, the release and start status with the use of the checkbox "referenced orders" makes a lot of sense in a Make-to-Order or Engineer-to-Order scenario. But we should take a step back and start in Master Planning. 

In an MTO or ETO scenario, the BOM is order-specific and has to be created especially for a customer. MRP can not wait for that BOM to be finished, so MRP will typically have run many times already before the customer-BOM is finally completed. This means that MRP will be exploding an active but still changing BOM. Also, the growing BOM does not always grow in a linear fashion. Corrections are often made where part numbers are removed and replaced by others.

When we are not using ‘pegged supply', we will have planned production orders on many BOM levels, some planned prod orders will not change, others will come and go, before the BOM is completed.

In Standard AX, the decision to firm a planned order is mostly a manual one, (although the option of automatic firming exists in the coverage group)

If I am a planner/buyer and I face a firming decision ...