Use Case: Variance
Identify Stock Discrepancies between ERP and Power Pick
Summary
Inventory Control Specialists can eliminate manual, time-consuming audits by using the Variance app to automatically identify discrepancies between their ERP and Power Pick inventory records. This seamless integration instantly triggers Count Orders via Order Builder, ensuring rapid, proactive resolution of all stock variances to maintain data accuracy.
Persona
Inventory Control Specialist
Challenge
Stock discrepancies between systems cause errors and lost labour time searching for phantom parts. Manually running comparison reports and creating separate count orders to reconcile variances is a slow, reactive process that never keeps pace with the daily volume of errors.
Feature and Solution
The Variance app is configured to join ERP’s inventory data with Power Pick’s location contents, specifically looking for materials where the quantity fields do not match. Since counting materials can take considerable time, depending on the number of materials being counted, the app can be configured to cache data for a specified length of time to ensure enough time is given to complete counts before the Variance data is refreshed.
Example:
An Inventory Control Specialist establishes a fully automated process to identify and correct any variances.
A Variance integration is configured, and set to cache data for 1 hour, refreshing at the top of each hour.
A Variance report is created in ItemPath and filtered to show only the materials where the difference in quantity between the two systems is not “0”.
An automatic Order Builder integration is configured to count the materials identified in this report.
A Workflow is then set to run every hour at 5 minutes after the hour, and check to see if the Variance report has 1 or more rows. If the criteria is met, the Workflow then triggers the Order Builder integration and a high-priority count order is created.
The Variance app refreshes the cached data every hour as requested, identifying a variance at 11:00am.
Warehouse staff receive a count order at 11:05am, and proceed to count and validate the exact amounts of each material in the specified location(s).
Confirmed count data is automatically sent to the ERP to update records, via the Data Push app.
At 12:00pm, the report is refreshed, repeating the process for any identified variances.
Key Results and Benefits
By converting system discrepancies into actionable Count orders, this eliminates lost labour time, safeguarding material compliance, and ensuring the ERP remains a trusted source of truth for all inventory decisions.
Top Capabilities
- Timed Data Caching: Configure the Variance app to cache inventory comparison data for a specified duration (e.g., 1 hour), ensuring floor staff have adequate time to execute and finalize count orders before the next data refresh.
- Workflow-Driven Reconciliation: Automate the entire correction cycle by using Workflows to schedule an hourly check of the variance report, instantly triggering an Order Builder Count Order when any discrepancy is detected.
- Closed-Loop Data Integrity: Achieve full system synchronization using the Data Push app to automatically send the confirmed physical count data from ItemPath back to the ERP system, closing the loop on the inventory variance.
Operational Benefits
- Near-Real-Time Accuracy: Establish a regular schedule for identifying and correcting stock differences, achieving a level of inventory accuracy far superior to manual or nightly batch processes.
- Reduced Labour Wait Time: Guarantee that floor staff receive count orders immediately following variance detection, reducing idle time and minimizing the impact of stock errors on production schedules.
- Minimized Risk Exposure: By proactively validating and correcting discrepancies hourly, this drastically reduces the chance of critical stock errors causing compliance issues, production line stoppages, or incorrect purchasing decisions.
Additional Resources
To learn more about how to leverage the Variance app, here are some helpful resources:
Master System Reconciliation
Learn how to bridge the gap between Power Pick inventory records and your external system. This guide covers how to configure data caching and set up the automated comparison logic needed to identify stock variances.
Monitor Your Accuracy
Discover how to transform variance data into high-visibility dashboard widgets. Learn to track historical trends, monitor real-time stock health, and visualize your progress toward total data integrity.
