Units of Measure Issue – Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3

Issue with Units of Measure When Resetting Production Order Status

During a production project in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3, we ran into an issue which is difficult to handle once it has occurred. However, if the business analyst/user is aware of the problem, there is a hotfix that can solve the issue before it happens.

In many manufacturing environments we run into situations where the inventory unit of measure and the bill of material (BOM) unit of measure are not the same. This should not be a problem because we know how the unit conversions deal with this situation and how each functionality in Microsoft Dynamics AX would use the appropriate unit of measure by default, converting where necessary.

However, there is a known bug in the R3 version where the reset status functionality is used on a production order and a cancellation picking list journal is automatically created.

It does not handle the unit of measure conversions properly. Though the cancellation journal will post and the status of the order will reset, it will create problems when either trying to delete or to further process the order.

Let me demonstrate the situation where the issue would occur:

1. BOM uses the item in ‘cm’ but we inventory it in ‘each’.

2. Create a production order and process it to the point where the picking list would be posted and inventory flushed.

The quantity was consumed in the BOM unit into the picking journal.

3. Now we need to reset the status to either ‘Estimated’ or ‘Created’ to make sure the material consumption is going to be reversed. When we look at the reversing/cancellation picking list automatically created and posted, we see that the item is now listed with its inventory unit of measure. This would make sense as this particular journal is ‘putting the items back onto inventory’.

Now when you try to process the order further, an error message will appear as follows:

However, when looking at the transactions, you will not see any open transactions. This is a result of code not handling the reversal conversion properly.

Once you are in this situation, it is not possible to handle/resolve from the user interface and will require interference in the AOT.

To be proactive about this issue before going live, apply a hotfix to all R3 environments as follows:

Please contact us if you have any questions about Microsoft Dynamics AX.