Hi All. I want to create work orders only if enough stock is available in any of the locations within the factory and then release only if there are enough components. I have a 4 level BOM and it seems as though NS will only produce the lower sub assembly work orders if the work order status for the finished good is set to released...but I only want to release if there is enough stock. Has anyone found a way around planning work orders based on available stock and only releasing if there are enough components?

As far as I know, that is going to require scripting and is not a simple one. You would need to talk to a Developer or Architect to define requirements and design a project with a good approach to solve that and then development.

NetSuite's Demand Planning and/or MRP will take Planned Work Orders into account and still drive you to produce the lower sub assembly even if you haven't released the top level WO. We have many layers to our work orders/BOMs as well and we have struggled with this for year. Demand Planning wasn't great but it did give us the ability to leave work orders in Planned state until all the subassemblies were In Stock. Also we did build a custom Mass Create Work Orders screen that looked at Planned Work Orders AND released work orders to drive what subassemblies we would create. It wasn't easy but it works okay. We are implementing MRP right now and I think that will work well for us, but it is a complex/advanced module that takes some serious data management to make it effective

Thanks both. Al1 thank you for your detailed view into this. MRP certainly is another beast to contend with! I just tried running an MRP based on demand of SOs and Demand Plan - it's good, but haven't yet succeeded in getting components in other locations to be considered - NS just suggests transfers from those locations to the production location rather than showing the on hand across all locations. Will see if I can dig deeper.

@Paul Prystawsky yes unfortunately MRP will not provide that detailed of a view of inventory. The best it can do (as far as I know) is to recommend transfer orders based on the planning rule groups. With supply allocation you can get a view across locations of an available to promise date but that’s the farthest I’ve seen NetSuite planning go when it comes to looking across alll your locations inventory

For that you need to use Supply allocation feature and replenish location by transfer order, once your work order is released. Item available in different location will be allocated to that work order by replenish location by transfer order. Rest to release the work order once quantity is available may be do able by script.