Internal vs External Item Numbers in JDE - Looking for Advice

Hi All,

My company (single global instance of E1 9.2) is facing dual sourcing challenges currently in our supply chain where we are sourcing identical product from multiple different suppliers located in different countries.

As such i'm looking to see if anyone in the JDE community is running the concept of internal vs external item numbers? I've been researching ways to handle this in JDE and would love to hear about how other companies handle it.

The two challenges we are looking to address is keeping a single item number for our external customers that doesn't change as we change supplier but then also running multiple internal item numbers based upon country of origin to effectively track costs/duties etc. without blending them under a single item number. Any feedback about the approach you used and the pros/cons would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance, Joel

@Joel Stewart Hello Joel. Another “Joel S” here. I wonder if you are describing the situation that has been called the “Global Single Part Number.” Where there is one global external customer-facing number, but unlimited internal numbers of the same item depending upon country and/or location to account for slight differences in packaging, chain of custody, or as you note tariff or other cost variations. That was studied as an enhancement possibility in both the Life Sciences (LSIUG) and M&D SIG’s back in 2013-2016 time frames. Those groups may have the ‘current’ or last write-ups on it; I have older presentations as I’m retired and no longer ‘active’ in the SIG’s. I could email one of those to you — write to me at Joel.m.schipper@gmail.com if you like.

@Joel Stewart Agree with Deron, you must go thru Item Cross Reference (P4104) and set up the Cross Reference codes (maybe more than 1 for Suppliers and just one for Customers) that is more convenient to your company. Since you must do the reference by your Item Number with the Supplier/Customer Item Number (by ITM and AN8 and x-ref Code you can create kind of matrix to combine all into a single ITM at your Company). This link can help you: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E64610_01/EOAIM/setup_inv_mgmnt_system.htm#EOAIM00211
Good luck,
Cristiano

@Joel Stewart This sounds like a use for the F4104 Item X-Reference to cross ref your internal item number to the item number you wish to present to your customer base.