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A site can take batch ingredients from more than one location. The production floor is one; a freezer or a chiller can be another, so frozen stock is used where it sits rather than being moved to the production floor first.

Each location decides for itself whether batches may pick from it, and each ingredient records the location its stock actually came from — so the stock comes off there when the batch is released, not off wherever the site happens to point.

Where to find it: the location itself, under Setup → Inventory → Locations; and the Location on a batch’s ingredient screen.

The words used here

Quick start

1. Go to Setup → Inventory → Locations and open the freezer (or chiller) you pick from.
2. Tick Production location and save.
3. Open the batch, and open the ingredient you are picking.
4. Choose the supplier, batch number and dates as you always have.
5. Look at Location. If the screen asks, choose the location the stock was taken from; if only one holds that lot, it is recorded for you and the screen says “Taken from FREEZER.”
6. Save. When the batch is released, that ingredient’s stock comes off that location.

Marking a location as a production location

Open the location under Setup → Inventory → Locations. Production location is a tick box, with the note “Batches can take ingredients from stock held here.” beneath it.

Ticking it changes nothing about how stock is received, moved or counted. It only decides one thing: whether a batch’s ingredient picker offers the stock held there.

The site’s main production location is ticked for you. Every site’s existing Production Location was ticked when this was released, so nothing changed until somebody ticked a second location. Pointing the site at a different Production Location later ticks the new one — but it does not untick the old one. If the old location should no longer be picked from, untick it yourself.

Picking where an ingredient came from

The ingredient screen now reads the stock of every production location of the site, not just the main one, and a Location select appears in the same row as Supplier, where there is one. Supplier is only shown for a stocked raw material, so on a part-made (WIP) ingredient Location stands on its own.

• The list is the locations that actually hold the product, each shown once with its stock: the location’s code, and Onhand: beneath it. A production location holding none of this product is not offered, because there is nothing there to take — with one exception: the location this ingredient has already recorded stays on the list even when nothing of the product is left there, so you can always see, and keep, where the line points.
• Choosing a location narrows the lot lists below it. The batch number, best-before and use-by lists, and the on-hand figure the screen checks the quantity against, are all that location’s. The supplier list is not narrowed: it stays every supplier holding this product in any production location.
• Clearing the Location puts it back to any location. Changing the supplier clears it for you, and so does substituting the product — that is different stock, held in different places, and leaving the old filter on would empty the lot lists with nothing on screen to say why.

When the lot is in one location, nothing is asked

If exactly one production location holds the lot you picked, that location is recorded without asking, and the screen says so beneath the select: “Taken from CHILL1.” This is the ordinary case, and it costs a planner nothing.

When it has to ask

When the screen does not ask

The Location is only asked for where the ingredient’s consumption actually posts. It is not shown, and never asked for, on:

• a recipe note, which consumes nothing;
• a raw material that is not stocked, which consumes nothing either — and this is judged on the ingredient the recipe names, so a stocked raw material swapped for an unstocked substitute is still asked;
• a line with no batch number and no dates, where the supplier records no lot detail at all. There is nothing to post, so there is nowhere to post it from.

What changed for raw materials

An ingredient that has recorded a location is consumed from exactly that location. It is never worked out again from the site — so a location unticked since the pick is still where the stock left from, which is right: the stock did leave from there.

Everything else keeps the rule it had before:

• An ingredient recorded before this change has no location, and its consumption goes to the site’s main production location.
• Every ingredient, while Use Stock Locations is switched off, records no location at all. Nothing on the ingredient screen changes, and consumption posts as before.
• An ingredient of a product no production location holds keeps that same rule. The screen has nothing to put in the Location select, so it does not ask, and the consumption goes to the main production location.
• Every ingredient is judged on its own. Editing one line of a batch that was part-recorded before this release changes nothing about its untouched neighbours — they keep the rule above until somebody saves them too.

One thing did move for raw materials in this same release. A raw-material consumption with no location of its own used to be posted to the site’s default receipt location; it now goes to the main production location, like every other consumption. That is the location the batch picked from, so it is where the stock should come off — but if your site’s receipt and production locations are different ones, older ingredients will post somewhere new. Where the two are the same location, nothing changes at all.

An ingredient the screen has asked about needs a location. Once an ingredient has been saved from the ingredient screen, it is expected to say where its stock came from — so if it has none, and the product really is held in one of the site’s production locations, the consumption is refused rather than posted to a guessed location: “SUGAR has no location to consume from. Pick where its stock was taken from.” More than one line missing a location is named in one message, so it is one round of fixing rather than several. The ingredient screen asks the same question before it will let you save, and it stands down in exactly the cases the refusal stands down in — but the refusal happens where you cannot see it, so if a release seems to have worked and the ingredients never came off stock, read on.

If a release is refused anyway

The refusal happens in the background, after the button has already answered. There is nothing on screen: the release appears to succeed and the batch shows as released. What actually happened is this.

• Nothing at all is posted. The check runs before anything is written, so the batch is left exactly as it was: no ingredient is taken off stock, and nothing the batch made is put into stock either. That holds on every path — a finished-goods release, a part-made (WIP) clearance, a rework and a disposal alike.
• Pressing release again does nothing. Once a batch shows as released the button is a no-op: it answers successfully and changes nothing.

So the symptom to recognise is a released batch whose ingredients never came off stock. Record the missing location on the ingredient, then have the posting re-run — that needs an administrator. The one case that recovers by itself is a batch left partially released: releasing it again posts the lines that never posted, once the location is there.

A rework or a disposal refused for the same reason behaves the same way: the batch moves to Rework or Disposed, nothing is posted, and the posting has to be re-run once the location is recorded.

Changing it after the batch is released

Once a batch is released, its ingredients are locked like every other field on them. A QA manager can unlock an ingredient, and Location unlocks with the rest of it.

Moving a posted ingredient to another location moves its stock movement too: the consumption is re-pointed at the new location, and the stock at the location it left is put back. You do not have to adjust anything by hand.

Availability and permissions

• All of this applies only when Use Stock Locations is on in Account Settings. With it off there is no Location on an ingredient, nothing records one, and consumption posts as it did before. See Account settings.
• Marking a location needs the same role as editing locations at all: an administrator or a setup administrator. Everyone except an operator can see the locations list.
• Picking an ingredient’s location is part of editing that ingredient, so whoever can record the ingredient can record where it came from.
• Changing a location after the batch is released needs a QA manager to unlock the ingredient first.
• Locations belong to a site, and a batch may only take ingredients from its own site’s production locations.

Things to know

• Packaging is not part of this. A batch’s packaging consumption is still posted against the site’s main production location, whatever its ingredients did — and it is drawn from stock in any location, not only the ticked ones. Packaging does not follow the rules on this page.
• Production output still goes to the main production location. Only ingredient consumption follows the location that was picked; what the batch makes is put where it always was.
• “Frozen storage” is a separate tick. It tells planning to count stock there as usable past its date; it does not make a location one that batches pick from. A freezer you take ingredients from needs both ticks. See Demand Plans for what Frozen storage does.
• Re-pointing a site’s Production Location does not untick the old one. The new location is ticked automatically; the old one stays a production location until somebody unticks it, and batches go on being offered its stock.
• Unticking a location does not disturb ingredients that already recorded it. They still consume from it, they still show it, and editing something else on such a line — a quantity, a comment — is not refused over a field nobody touched.
• Stock in a location nobody has ticked is invisible to a batch while Use Stock Locations is on. If a lot you expect is missing from the batch number list, check whether its location is a production location before hunting for the stock. With the switch off no location is used to narrow anything, and every location’s stock is offered.
• A location that is not one of this site’s production locations is refused — “COLD2 is not a production location for this site.” The select offers valid ones, with one exception: the location an ingredient already recorded stays on the list even after the site unticks it, so choosing it afresh is refused with that message.