The requisition with no supplier
What the user reports
Monday 2 November at Rockford. Last night's planning run proposed requisitions for impellers, motors and seal kits. The buyer converts them: impellers and motors go through; the seal-kit requisition has no supplier and can't become a purchase order. On Friday the buyer started renewing Ridgeline's seal-kit contract for next year.
The error: Purchase order for the seal-kit requisition refused: the requisition has no supplier (no purchasing info record for CP-SK200 in CP11).
What you'll do
- See the problem as the buyer: On MRP, run planning for CP11, material CP-SK200 only. Then on Purchase requisitions, convert the seal-kit requisition with purchasing organization PUUS and group P01.
- Find the cause: Ridgeline exists as a supplier with purchasing and company code data. MRP still proposed the seal kits, but the requisition has no supplier, and the MRP list shows a "no source" message. What is the cause, and what fixes it?
- Fix it as the buyer.
- Prove it: run the step that failed again.
The drill runs in the lab on its own prepared copy of the fictional Calder Pumpworks, saved in this browser apart from your company. All codes and values are fictional course labels.
Answer and explanation (open after the drill)
The fix: There is no purchasing info record for Ridgeline and seal kits in CP11, so MRP has no source to assign.
MRP finds a source for a bought material from the purchasing info records for that material and plant: the supplier, price and delivery time. Without one, it still plans the quantity (the requirement is real) but can't say who to buy from, so the requisition has no supplier and gets a no-source message. Ridgeline's supplier data is complete, and seal kits at this point are still planned by MRP, not by reorder point. Recreating the info record and planning again gives the requisition its supplier.
Why it broke
A purchasing info record links a supplier to a material in a plant with a price and a delivery time. MRP uses it to decide who supplies a requirement and when the order has to go out. Between deleting the old record and entering the new one, the planning run found no source for seal kits: it planned the quantity but couldn't name a supplier.
How teams prevent it
Renew a source by changing the existing info record (new price, new validity) or by adding the new one before removing the old, never the other way round. A daily look at MRP's no-source messages catches the gap before a buyer trips over it.
Across teams
The planner's run made the requisition, the buyer owns the info record and found the error, and production needs the seal kits. The gap was a change sequence inside purchasing that reached planning overnight.
Where AI fits
Listing no-source messages each morning is plain automation. An assistant can go one step further: for each one it finds the last supplier, the expired or deleted record and recent quotes, and drafts the info record for the buyer to confirm (retrieve). It shouldn't create the record or pick a supplier itself: sourcing decisions carry price and contract commitments.
Learn more: Plan to produce end to end