Establish the criteria
Planning Contracts are the processes by which an enterprise documents its products, services, and result requirements, as well as identifying potential sellers. The primary purpose of Planning Contracts is to generate procurement documents and establish the criteria by which these products, services, and results can be evaluated.
A procurement plan is a product of the planning process. It indicates how procuring entities might plan their procurement activities over a given period, and advises as to what needs assessment and market studies may be carried out during the life of a particular contract. Put differently, all processes germane to deciding what to contract for, when, and how fall under the Planning Contract heading.
Epicor ERP 10.1 features the ability to create purchasing demand in situations where previous versions of the software required users to prepossess demand as triggered by database values in fields such as Sales Order, Job, or Inventory Minimum. The importance of this new functionality cannot be underestimated to an enterprise focused on growth. It provides the necessary flexibility by which a company can proactively engineer its processes rather than stumbling into the hard wall thrown up by “just in time” forecast models.
Mature enterprises routinely face situations where expansion and gain hinge on thinking ahead. On this point, the best piece of advice we can offer is the one taught to young, prospective car drivers in driver education schools across the country. When you’re driving a busy highway, don’t just watch the car in front of you. Watch the next several cars!
It doesn’t take much to pull this off — just a glance at the road and the willingness to keep an open mind about what could potentially happen. But this tiny effort can offer tremendous payoff. As any experienced driver knows, when pile-ups happen (as pile-ups do), the people best prepared to swerve and keep going are the ones who’ve been scanning the road ahead.
And that’s why Epicor 10.1’s new ERP Planning Contract function is so important. It gives your company the ability to manage long lead-time items before a concrete trigger appears to demand that those items have been procured. Best of all, the database allows you to earmark these items for specific needs even if a Job code or Sales Order hasn’t been generated yet.
Your enterprise can chart its own course.
As with many new Epicor ERP 10.1 features, ERP Planning Contract functionality puts your enterprise right where it should be: in charge of its own destiny and able to respond quickly to any challenge your business can offer.
Read our other informative blogs about Epicor 10.1 new upgrades and features:
