Reaching out to see if anyone has a working system and business process for item substitutes.
Inventory
Although Lawson has IC13 Substitute/Complementary items you can add, I have found it doesn't carry over to RQC yet so it isn't the best option. The IC11 Replacement item is great, however there can only be one replacement and it must be the same stock UOM as the main Lawson number. In the instance replacement item works, it's great but for other instances the item needs to be replaced on the par cart and templates (IC331) and/or the requester would need to be notified.
Non-Stock
Same goes to the IC13 process. I have read about PO20.6, but it doesn't look to be an appropriate option if the substitute item is actually another non-stock number. In the past I have seen if the item is unavailable and the replacement is suitable, the original non-stock item is canceled from the po line and a new item is added with the replacement item as a special. Is it worth the work effort to maintain multiple vendor items for one Lawson item in the system? How do you define what is an "approved" substitute and how do you maintain the data for items that aren't as frequently ordered? Is anyone using this functionality now?
Thanks in advance for sharing any ideas/thoughts. - Stephanie
Thanks Kat! How often do you request/receive the list from the distributor? I'd think with some vendors maybe PunchOut is a good option for non-stocks for this reason as well since you may rely more on the vendor and not want to or can't keep up with the maintenance. Then again it would all be specials at that point so probably not for the high moving items.