Inventory Cycle Counting in Maximo

As per the Wikipedia on Cycle Counting, it is an inventory auditing procedure, which falls under inventory management. Inventory Cycle Counting is the process of continually validating the accuracy of the inventory in your system by regularly counting a portion of your inventory on a scheduled basis, so that every item in your inventory is counted within a set time period appropriate for the item.

Cycle Counting is the process of counting inventory items throughout the year on a schedule so that all items are counted at least once a year. The cycle counting approach in Maximo is a technique that segregates or categorizes inventory based on an ABC analysis and sets up a time schedule for when items should be counted throughout the year so that when the time frame of one year passes, all items have been counted at least one time.

ABC Analysis – Selective Inventory Control Usage in Maximo

ABC Analysis, also known as Selective Inventory Control is used for categorizing inventory into three categories, A, B, and C. It is a technique that identifies the items that represent the greatest investment for your department in terms of monetary value and turnover rate. The three categories are defined as:

1. A Items: very tight control, high cost, complex parts - requires most management attention
2. B Items: less tightly control, medium cost, medium complexity
3. C Items: simplest control possible, low cost - marginally important

The ABC approach states that, when reviewing inventory, a company can also rate items from A to C, basing its ratings on annual consumption value, with highest for ‘A’ items, medium for ‘B’ items and lowest consumption value for ‘C’ items. The ABC Type value for an item is determined by running an ABC Analysis report, which multiplies the current YTD issued quantity by the last cost of the item. The items are then sorted in descending order of the dollar value reached by this calculation. MAXIMO sets the type to A, B, or C based on a percentage that the system administrator sets in in the Inventory Defaults dialog box in the Organization's application. You can set the ABC type to N, for no category, to exclude this item from the ABC analysis.

Also, system has the provision to record the cycle count at each item level in Inventory application. In Maximo, it is located in Inventory Module > Inventory application > Inventory tab > ABC Analysis section. 

In Maximo, system employs the ABC analysis as a cycle count tool to assist with the Inventory physical count process. The administrative settings allow an organization to group its items into A, B, or C categories and determine at what interval an item needs to be physically counted and reconciled (if the physical count and bin balance do not match) to the Maximo system balance. The breakpoint percentiles are designed to support a standard Maximo Inventory report, the Inventory ABC Analysis report.

The ABC Analysis report assists users in determining the ABC value of an item by multiplying its historical issue volume by the unit cost. The below listed steps can be followed for classifying items:

Find out the unit cost and the usage of each material over a given period (say one year).

Maximo stores historical data for Issue and Return transactions each year (or for any user-defined period) in the inventory table. Year to Date (YTD) quantities refer to the number of items issued from a specific storeroom location for the current year. The 'zero year to date quantities' action is found in the Inventory application. It is manually initiated by the user either at the beginning or the end of a material management time period.

By adjusting the YTD quantities, Maximo will move all year to date quantities back one year and change the current year to date quantity to zero.

Year to Date Quantity (INVENTORY.ISSUEYTD) specifies the Total year-to-date quantity issued from this location for the current year. Last Year quantity (INVENTORY.ISSUE1YRAGO) specifies the Total year-to-date quantity issued from this location for the previous year.

Multiply the unit cost by the estimated annual usage (INVENTORY. ISSUEYTD) to obtain the net value. List out all the items and arrange them in the descending value (Annual Value). Accumulate value and add up number of items and calculate percentage on total inventory in value and in number.

For example, let us assume that we have below set of breakpoints for A, B, C type for the Organization:

The following table is an example of an ABC ranking and classification:

Cycle Counting Procedure

The process of running an Inventory Cycle Count, in Maximo, involves printing of the Inventory Cycle Count report, manually performing the inventory count, and reconciling the quantity information in the Maximo Inventory application.

Inventory managers can develop scheduled reports to manage cycle count assignments. Managers can use the ABC Analysis tool to prioritize inventory as presented in above section. Once the inventory cycle count frequency is established, inventory managers can distribute cycle count reports to their team to perform the actual counts. The reports can be configured to restrict the data that is presented to the person performing the count. The person performing the inventory count will rely on the provided cycle count report which defines what items to count by storeroom locations, bins, etc. Once the cycle count is complete, the results can be entered in the system. The related inventory item balance can be adjusted by reconciling the actual count with the recorded inventory count.

1. Inventory Cycle Count Report is available out of the box through the Run Reports action in the Select Action menu of Inventory Application. Enter or select the Storeroom and Site in the Request Page dialog box.
   
2. The person performing the cycle count will receive the report.
3. The report can be printed and the quantities entered on the paper for later manual entry into the Inventory application.
   
4. When the manual cycle count is complete, the results must be entered into the system in order to reconcile the system expected balances with the actual physical inventory balance. This process is performed using the Inventory Adjustments > Physical Counts action in the Select Action menu of the Inventory application. Security configurations can be set so that inventory adjustment function is accessible to authorized group(s) or person(s) only. From the Inventory application, the authorized user can filter the list based on the storeroom/site, and select Inventory Adjustments > Physical Counts to begin the bulk adjustment. A warning message appears to inform users that they are about to perform a bulk adjustment. 
    
                                                                                                                    In the Physical Count Adjustment dialog box, each record is displayed along with the Physical Count from the current system inventory. Count Date field contains the system date, user can change it accordingly. User can enter the actual count from the previous step in the New Count field. 
   
   
   
   
   
5.        Clicking OK in the Physical Count Adjustment dialog box, will complete the adjustment process. 
   

Confusion over data load/migration using Migration Manager and Maximo Integration Framework

Usually in layman terms, whenever we are talking about migration we refer to data migration. It may be related to data load/migration from a legacy system to Maximo, or it may be related to data load to Maximo tables. But Migration Manager application(s) in Maximo enables a structured set of steps to promote configurations from one product environment to another. Migration Manager helps to export the configuration changes made on the development environment in a package and helps to import the package into a test or production environment.

I had come across an interesting query that whether we are using migration manager or the integration framework we create an object structure, which allows to create the data model which will be used for import/export. And, we import/export data related to an object, and the configuration changes also get saved in Maximo objects. So, why don’t we use Integration Framework instead of Migration Manager to import/export the configuration changes using XML or flat files? To answer this we need to understand the purpose of these

The purpose of Maximo Integration Framework is used to manage the transactional integration to external applications and is used for export and import to and from external applications or existing applications. The MIF supports primarily the master and transactional data. The purpose of Migration Manager is used for package-based configuration export and import between similar production environments. Migration Manager supports import/export of metadata (configuration data).

To understand the usage of each framework, we need to understand which one we should select to execute the required tasks. For example, a developer has implemented a workflow for incident management using TPAE (Tivoli Process Automation Engine) Workflow Designer and related applications like, Roles, Actions, Communication Templates, etc. This workflow needs to be promoted to Test and Production environments. In this case we are going to use migration manager. We bundle all the related metadata (configuration changes to actions, roles, communication templates, workflow process, etc.) to a package definition using object structures and migration groups, create a package, and distribute the package in the development environment. This package is then imported and deployed in the test or production environment. This way the workflow for incident management is made available in the test or production environment.

Let us consider one more example. We have a set of requirements for which we have created two custom objects. We have created new domains and relationships to new or existing objects. Based on these configuration changes we have made some changes to the Preventive Maintenance application. We need to migrate the configuration changes to a UAT environment before deploying into the Production environment. Here also, we need to use the migration manager.

Let us consider another scenario where we need to integrate Tivoli Asset Management for IT with asset discovery tool TAD4D or we need to integrate the Tivoli Service Request Manager to an external ticket management application and also the historical tickets need to be loaded into Tivoli Product. Integration Framework (MEA) is the choice in this case. Existing data, such as tickets, can be loaded into Tivoli Service Request Manager using a number of methods, including flat files, interface tables, or XML. Further, we may need to add 500 asset records. We will use MEA for loading the data for 500 records into the Asset object.

Now there is a need to migrate foundation data, which is also known as the implementation data, from development to production to avoid having to re-enter huge amount of data, such as locations and classifications, units of measure, currency codes etc., in the production environment. Some people like to call it as Reference Data also. Typically, this type of data consists of discrete sets of data that do not have multiple or deep relationships with other data. The Migration Manager can be used to migrate such foundation data. However, with its queue based processing, message processing and resubmission capability, using MIF to load foundation/reference/implementation data is more efficient that using migration manager framework.

With this we can come to a conclusion that data load/migration from one Maximo environment to another or from external system to Maximo, we need to keep in mind what type of data we are migrating or promoting. When we refer to metadata, i.e. data about data, like configuration changes, we would be using migration manager. And when we refer to master or transactional data and reference/implementation data, we should selectively use the Integration Framework.