Preferred materials locations
For maintenance locations, you can specify preferred materials locations that auto-reservation evaluates first when reserving inventory for part requests.
For a maintenance location within a supply location, you can specify first and second preferred materials locations that auto-reservation searches first and second before looking elsewhere in the supply location.
If hangars and stores are physically located far apart, you might set a preference for a materials location that's closest to a maintenance location. For a maintenance location that specializes in one type of work, you might prefer a materials location that stocks specialized inventory for that type of work.
- LINE
- TRK (track)
- SHOP
If you designate a SRVSTORE location as preferred, the children of that location are also preferred.
If part requests are created for maintenance locations with preferred locations, then available inventory in those preferred locations is reserved even if the preferred location is also on the auto-reservation ignore list.
If preferred locations are specified but inventory is not available in the preferred locations, auto-reservation searches the rest of the supply location (minus ignored locations), then searches the remote supplier location if one is specified (minus ignored locations).
Considerations when setting up preferred locations
Preferred locations do not impact how auto-reservation ranks part requests but preferred locations do impact how ranked inventory is reserved. This is because auto-reservation searches, ranks, and reserves inventory in preferred locations first. If inventory is available in preferred locations it is reserved even if there is higher ranked inventory in non-preferred locations. The result is that inventory with later shelf-life expiry dates can be reserved before inventory that's expiring sooner or inventory first in is not necessarily first out.
Likewise when preferred locations are set up, there could be an increase in stealing from reserved batches, reservation of partial batches, and splitting of part requests. This depends on how preferred locations are stocked, so when implementing preferred locations, set preferred materials locations for one maintenance location and test before proceeding with additional locations.