Auto-assembly

Auto-assembly

Assembly is when component products are assembled into a finished product. Manual assembly keeps components in your inventory until you create an assembly order for the finished product. Stock availability shows the number of components in stock, and the number of assembled finished product in stock.

With auto-assembly, you keep only the component products in stock. When a sale for an auto-assembled product comes in, this triggers an assembly order for the finished product. Stock availability shows the number of components in stock. Stock availability for the finished product is calculated as what could be assembled from available components.

Auto-assembly is useful for products or kits which can be assembled from components with little preparation, such as a multi-pack of different colored shirts.

Prerequisites

  • You will need to create an Assembly BOM for the parent product.

  • Parent products costing method must be FIFO, FIFO (Batch), FIFO (Special), or Special (Batch).

Important information

  • You cannot manually adjust the quantity of components and wastage during auto-assembly.

  • You will not trigger auto-assembly if you do not have enough components in stock at the sale location. Auto-assembly limits picking to the same location of the sale, regardless of your pick settings.

  • Auto-assembly assembles enough to fulfill order quantities first, then assembles enough to replace negative stock quantities if your settings allow this, until you run out of components.

  • Auto-assembly will never create a partial assembly.

  • If you undo and reauthorize a sale, auto-assembly date uses the new sale authorization date.

  • If there are not enough components in stock, you can backorder out-of-stock components or the Using Out-of-Stock Components for Auto-Assembly Report.

Turn on auto-assembly for a product

  1. Select Inventory from the main menu, then Products.

  2. Select the product you wish to assemble automatically.

  3. Go to the Bill of materials tab.

  4. Check Auto-assembly.

  5. Save the product.

         

Configure auto-assembly quantity

You can factor in stock availability at the sale location when processing auto-assemblies by changing your Sale process settings.

There are three options:

  • Quantity required: Auto-assembly quantity is the same as sales order quantity. Stock availability or other settings are not taken into account.

  • Quantity required and maintain minimum stock level quantity: Auto-assembly quantity is calculated as: Sales Order quantity - (Minimum Before Reorder + Reorder Quantity + On Order - Available). Even if Availability is negative, it is considered in the formula and added to the quantity to produce.

  • Difference between available quantity and quantity required to cover a shortage: Auto-assembly quantity is calculated as: Quantity in Sales Order - Available - On Order.

Auto-assembly and ecommerce channels

Most of our ecommerce integrations allow you to factor in available stock at the sale location when you process sale orders for auto-assembled items.

You can find the Process auto-assembly as setting on the Setup page of each integration, with these options:

  • For ordered quantity: Does not check stock quantity. Sale triggers auto-assembly of only the sale quantity.

  • For minimum quantity required for picking: Assemble stock required to meet the quantity of specific sale order.

    • If stock availability is negative, auto-assembly will produce a finished goods quantity which is more than the quantity ordered through sale order.

    • If there is already stock available in inventory but not enough to fulfill the sale order quantity, auto-assembly will assemble the difference in quantity needed to meet the sale order requirement.

    • If stock availability exceeds sale order quantity, auto-assembly is not triggered.

Check component availability

Cin7 Core automatically calculates auto-assembled finished product availability based on available components. View availability using the Product Availability Report or Product Stock Level Report.

For example, in the case of an item which can be sold in components or assembled, when you look at the availability report, you can see that both the components on hand, and the assembled product available.

  

Furthermore, if you have tags or attributes specifically for finished goods SKUs, then you can filter the report further to only show those finished goods SKUs.

You can also see how many finished good availability from the sale order screen. When selecting a product to add to the order, you will see as many units available for sale as you have component quantities in stock for. This does not apply to manually assembled products.

Using Out-of-Stock Components for Auto-Assembly Report

This report simplifies reordering auto-assembly components. You can read more detailed information about the report at Out-of-Stock Components for Auto-Assembly Report. This is an alternative to Backordering Out-of-Stock Components.

  1. A sale order is authorized for a finished good which is out of stock and has auto-assemble enabled. This can also be a sale order from an e-commerce channel.
         

  2. Upon authorization, a notification will appear telling you that requested stock exceeds available stock. Click Backorder.
         

  3. The finished good will not be assembled, and components to be added to the Out-of-Stock Components for Auto-Assembly Report.

  4. Go to Reports → Out-of-Stock Components Auto-Assembly Report. You will see out-of-stock components, organized by Location and Finished good SKU.
         

  5. You can now use this information to create a purchase order for the out of stock components. Make sure that stock is received in the location indicated on the report.

  6. Authorize the Stock received tab.

  7. Now the components are back in stock, return to your original sale order.

  8. Undo the sale order, then Authorize the sale order again. With the components back in stock, auto-assembly will trigger and the sale order can be completed.

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