May 03, 2020 at 07:16 AM

Alternate BOM Items and Co-Products/By-Products in the Same BOM

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Is it possible to have both alternate BOM items and co-products/by-products in the same BOM? Essentially here is a very simple version of my problem:

There are 2 materials in the system:

Material A - Unit of Measure (EA), Description (Widget length 2 feet - output of the factory)
Material B - Unit of Measure (EA), Description (Widget length 6 feet - purchased raw material)

Sales orders for Material A drive production orders and the purchase of Material B.

The following is BOM for Material A:

Require Material B - Quantity 1: Produces 3 Material A's

The problem is, that when the Production Order Quantity is not divisible by 3, there is always wasted Material B. I want to eliminate the wasted material. Assuming we we cannot change the UoMs of materials A and B to FT from EA. Can I eliminate this waste by introducing a third material to the system?

Material C - Unit of Measure (EA), Description (Widget length 4 feet - produced in the plant and is not sold nor purchased)

I want the BOM of Material A to be the following: If Material C is available, use Material C to produce 2 Material As, if Material C is not available, use Material B to produce 3 Material As or use Material B to produce 1 Material A and 1 Material C depending on the production order quantity.

I'm guessing I would set up the part about using Material C first through the priority field in the Alternate BOM Item Data Window (set Material C to priority 1). So my questions:

How do I make it so that if Material C is produced, it is automatically issued back to stock? (Do I just use -1 in the BOM quantity? Do I also need to check the Co-product checkbox?)
How do I make it so that if Material C is used in the BOM, the output is only 2 material As, but if material B is used, the output can be either 3 Material As or 1 Material A and one Material C?