Richard Garraputa, Corning Data’s JD Edwards evangelist, recently presented a primer on License Plate Management at Collaborate17 in Las Vegas. This article kicks off a new blog series revealing the highlights of that presentation.
License plating is a key feature of the JD Edwards Warehouse Management module. It is designed to be used wherever managing groups of items is easier than managing individual items. License plating helps simplify the transaction processing while increasing visibility and control over inventory. It is particularly useful when the groups of items are mobile and move together. Furthermore, DSI data collection can significantly simplify and enhance the use of license plating.
Oracle describes license plating like this:
“You can use license plates to distinguish each product carton or item with a unique license plate number (LPN). The system stores the itemized part numbers, quantity, inventory status, location, lot number and creation date in the LPN record. Simply scanning a carton label, which contains the LPN in text and barcode form, enables you to completely identify goods in transactions, such as receiving, moving, production or shipping. Using license plates substantially reduces the number of scans necessary to enter a transaction since only one barcode must be scanned to identify all of the product information.”
License plating can be used to:
- speed up warehouse operations
- reduce transaction errors
- simplify receiving
- track inventory in the warehouse
- track inventory staged for production
- improve traceability and auditing
Common license plating transactions include:
- inventory transfer
- inventory issue
- inventory adjustment
- cycle count entry
- tag count entry
- work order completion
- purchase order receipts
- movement and disposition
- warehouse put away
- warehouse move confirmation
- warehouse pick
- warehouse replenishments
- manual replenishment
For example, if the Processing option on the Warehouse tab of your inventory transfer program is set for license plating, you can transfer inventory from a license plate. If the target Branch Plant for the transfer is configured for license plating, you can transfer inventory to a license plate, and either manually create a license plate or let the system automatically create it for you. What the system is doing is creating a unique identifier that groups the inventory items.
Sometimes it’s easier to understand what something is if you understand what it’s not.
I’ve seen these things confused with license plating pretty frequently. And that’s not hard to do in JD Edwards. With all of the functionality we have available, we often get creative on how we use that functionality. Sometimes that’s good. And, sometimes, not so good.
Keep an eye out for blog posts each Thursday. Next up … successes and failures in license plating.
Richard Garraputa is a Corning Data enterprise software evangelist with more than 20 years experience in helping drive real business benefits from improved processes and use of technology. He helps clients grow their top line revenues, reduce costs through more efficient and effective operations, and become more competitive through improved processes.
