Items - Variants etc for the Aerospace/Aviation Sector

ERPNext Stock/Inventory
1

I’m currently using an off the shelf ERP system that deals with the Aviation Sector, and I would love, long term to build something for the aviation industry for ERPNext.

The issue I have is how stock stored, and selected in the aviation industry, compared to the FIFO method in ERPNext, where multiple orders of items, are grouped together for valuation/selling/purchasing

With ERPNext, having the main model being an item. In aviation these are parts. Parts can have conditions. (New, Surplus, repaired etc) . Each part also has documentation that goes along with it, it can also have information about how many times its been flown/used, (Cycles).

There are also lots of other attributes, that are very specific to that stock line. I attempted to use the variants of ERPNext but, it just doesn’t fit well since there are so many attributes.

So when you quote the stock, you may quote 3 different lines for different stock lines that are the same item. One may have different documentation, extra cycles, and hence costs a bit more, vs another item, in the same condition.

In the off the shelf erp, every time you purchase buy sell etc, it stores it as a line in a stock table, and has the qty, condition, certification, cycles , price (valuation), serial number. The stock line has a link to the part (the part stores the part number, description, manufacturer, if its seralized, etc.

Any other thoughts as to how I could make this work, apart from forking the whole project, and making a frankenstein version ?

Thanks

2

Hi,
I have little experience with aerospace / aviation processes but not with ERPNext.

Question : How parts conditions get updated/changed, what is the trigger if any?

can you give a simple part workflow life cycle?

my understanding that how you identify parts with different conditions in stock right?

rgds
Nofal

3

Hi Nofal, Parts can be repaired - and go from a “as removed” condition, to a overhauled condition for example.

Parts that are new are manufactured directly from the OEM. after they have been used on an aircraft, they become serviceable. Once they hit limits of usage, they can become “as removed” from the aircraft, and will have to be repaired to go back to the overhauled condition.

A single part may go through this lifecycle 20 times, before it gets to limits whereby it becomes BER condition (Beyond ecomical repair). After doing some more searching and looking at the table structure of ERPNext, I think “batches” may be the solution. Every time a part comes in or a batch of parts is purchased, the details of that part purchase could be stored on the batch.
When selling the parts, i would just need to show the batches when quoting, and the sales team would need to select the batches they are going to quote, and then when a sales order is raised, those batches are selected/used to deduct inventory. So i think it will be doable…

4

Pl PM me your details and lets connect as have serviced for Aviation sector and understand the custom business process, esp with regards flight scheduling and log book maintenance.
Alternatively share your email address so could share more info

5

Hi,
Yes correct batch can hold as much information as you want plus an updatable batch status field to reflect parts condition.

a batch is used if you have more than one unit for the same item but in your case I think serial number is more convenient since each part has a unique lifecycle right? you can use both if required also.

batch or serial are techniques to identify items inside stock and used for traceability.

thanks.

6

Yes, @cjpit what you are referring to is a full fledged MRO system that can assist a aviation company in not only maintaining the fleet but also the maintenance schedules, instrument log books and compliance. ERPnext system has a good capability to handle all the processes of an MRO along with integrations to various other verticals of aviation like instrument log books, pilot log books and many more. Me and My team has already done some work in automating the pilot log books and few other process automation and understand this industry very well, should you be interested in exploring it do let me know. Will be happy to take it forward.

7

Hi @suryanamha and @cjpit

Have you made any progress on the aviation feature?

What im looking to do is add an additional cost method to ERPNext and wanted to know if you have done any work on this regard.

Specifically - we also use batch (Lots) and each item movement in and out of stores need to keep track of their incoming rate and use this as its valuation rate. There are obviously alot of moving parts and touch points when changing item valuation rates and before I start the project wanted to know if any of you have started work on this already?

Kind regards
Hemant

8

Hi Hemant

We have done some bits for our client but we are looking for a project sponsor for making further custom developments. In case you are interested in developments further and ready to sponsor the developments. We can discuss more over email.

Regards