The Item > Supplier Details form included Manufacturer and Manufacturer Part Number, but this seems missing in v12.
Are the manufacturer fields still implemented but not visible in default configuration? If so, how do I make them visible? If the manufacturer fields were removed entirey, does anyone have a workaround?
Item > Supplier Details from Dec 2017 (v11? v10?):
As numerous other posts have described, capturing the manufacturer and manufacturer part number is a MUST HAVE for electronics-type product manufacturing (and presumably other industry domains) where the designer specifies a specific manufacturer and manufacturer part number to be used, but the item is purchased from distributors or catalog vendors (typically because the manufacturer does not sell direct to anyone but very very large customers (e.g. Apple).
Currently, the manufacturer and manufacturer part numbers are separate masters. Please search the same through the search bar. Once the information is filled for the same and the item code is specified, it will be linked to your item master via the dashboard.
Found it, thanks. More clicks… I hope someone is working on an improved UX, IMHO Mfr/MfrPN and Vendor/VendorPN should be side-by-side for clarity and visibility. As-is, critical information is hidden. From an engineering perspective, the Mfr/MfrPN is the most critical meta-data a COTS part has, the Vendor/VendorPN list is just who we can buy from.
Thank you @michelle for steering me in the right direction. Are you aware of any development being done to improve the visibility of the Vendor/VendorPN and Mfr/MfrPN relationship?
IMHO the older view was better because the Mfr/MfrPN was shown beside the Vendor/VendorPN table, making it easy to see the relationships. Seeing the same information side-by-side in v12 requires two views (or one screenshot and one view), and it doesn’t seem easy to navigate back to a list of Items (or a BOM) from a MfrPN once one is there. Depending on how pendantic one is about creating new part numbers vs tolerating “minor” FFF variations among the approved Vendor/VendorPNs, an Item may have many MfrPNs and many many VendorPNs, and I fear the UX as-is in v12 will become very frustrating.
However, I wouldn’t mind if I knew that the current behavior was only a required intermediate step on the way to something much much better…
@Dale_Scott I have to agree with you that the older view is better and more practical. For almost every electronic-type company older view is a preferred view and as you said there is an easy view of the relationship between Mfr/MfrPN and Vendor/VendorPN which leads to fewer mistakes.
Moreover, there is now one more step in creating the item and for now, I don’t see any additional value in this change.
@michelle is there any workaround for now? Also, can we expect any development regarding this?
This is an almost critical requirement for manufacturing organizations in which engineering specifies the Mfr/MfrPN. If this is front and center, it is too easy for purchasing people to make accidental mistake.
MfrPNs (especially electronics) are often complicated smart part numbers, making mistakes easy. It is critical to make the purchasing process as simple as possible otherwise more work and delays later.
