Last Updated on November 17, 2022 by maximosecrets

To transfer an item from one storeroom to another you use the Usage Type of TRANSFER on the inventory usage record. The source storeroom, “From Storeroom”, is mandatory. The Inventory Owner field defaults from the same field in the Storerooms application for the From Storeroom. 

There are other fields associated with transfers in the header area above the Usage Lines table window, these appear later in the process if you ship the items to another storeroom. These fields are conditionally displayed using the feature of Maximo called Conditional User Interface where elements of the user interface display according to the security group and condition applied to the signature option (SIGOPTION). In the Inventory Usage application there are several pieces of conditional UI enabled against the MAXEVERYONE security group, 13 to be precise. As they are enabled against the MAXEVERYONE security group, and hence would apply to all users, they do not need to be enabled against other security groups.

With the Usage Type of Transfer there is no button for Select Items for Return.

The Select Asset Spare Parts button allows you to filter for the spare parts of an asset. I’ve entered asset 11430 and used the Refresh button and it filters down to the six spare parts of the asset. Note. Rotating asset 23972 with rotating item MOT10, a sub-assembly of asset 11430 is not shown.

I’ve picked two items 11453 and 12853 and after pressing OK they are copied to the inventory usage lines.

In the details of the inventory usage line the Inspection Required checkbox is shown. It is defaulted if its Item Master record shows as Inspect on Receipt. This is only shown for transfers and it will only have an effect when you go through the shipping process as inspection is performed in the Shipment Receiving application. If you just Complete the transfer without going through the Shipping step then this field has no effect.

On the Quantity and Costs section there are additional fields for the To Issue Unit and Conversion Factor. For example, in the CENTRAL storeroom an item may be stored in boxes or drums and another storeroom can order whole boxes or drums. But when they issue locally, they may issue by a different unit for which a conversion factor is needed. A box of 25 of an item (BOX25) may have a To Issue Unit of EACH with a Conversion Factor of 25. The To Issue Unit is blank in this case because I haven’t specified a To Storeroom yet.

The whole of the Transfer Details section is displayed when the inventory usage type on the line is of type Transfer. This is where you specify the destination storeroom, “To Storeroom”. The To Bin, and To Lot may be defaulted based on the balance information at the destination storeroom. The To Condition Code will be enabled for condition enabled items.

Notice the To Bin and To Lot fields are enterable. Item 11453 is a Lot item. If you try to save the inventory usage record you may get the following error message “BMXAA1931E – Please specify a To Lot and Bin.” I have entered 4-A-21 for the To Bin, and A-431 for the To Lot, neither could be selected because the item does not yet exist in the Garage storeroom. Similarly, for the other item 12853, I needed to enter the To Storeroom of GARAGE and a To Bin, I entered 4-A-22. 

The bottom half of the details of an inventory usage line when the usage type is Transfer is also different to what you see for Issues and Returns. There are no fields for work order, task, locationA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More and asset in the Charge Information section and instead of the Requisition and Requisition Line which are referring to material requisitions (MRNUM) they are replaced with PO and PO Line, a transfer request can use an internal PO to request items to be transferred. There is no checkbox for the “Returned Against Issue” which is only relevant to Returns.

Now I can save the Inventory Usage record, but I did receive the warning “BMXAA7862W – The lot number and expiration date of the destination storeroom do not match the lot number and expiration date of the supplying storeroom.”

You can change status for transfers direct to COMPLETE, in which case any Inspection Required fields are ignored. The action View Transactions can be used to verify that the transfer has taken place. Transfers create MATRECTRANS records, issues and returns create MATUSETRANS records. The quantity for transfers is positive.

There is no navigation to the item in the destination storeroom, a pity. Also, navigation from the item field on the inventory usage lines will only take you to the Inventory record for the From Storeroom, CENTRAL in this case.

I’ve navigated to the Inventory application and found item 11453 in the GARAGE storeroom. You can see that the current balance is 1, the default bin was 4-A-21, the Issue Unit defaulted to EACH, and the lot shown in Inventory Balances table window was A-431. There is no shelf life and expiration date, which is what the warning was about. But you can manually change this and align to what it was in the CENTRAL storeroom.

Notice the Issue Cost Type is set to STANDARD. This is defined by the SiteA structural element of a Maximo database that is used for data separation. More based setting in the OrganizationsA structural element of a Maximo database which is used for data sharing and is often aligned to a legal entity of an organisation. More application and action Inventory Costs. In the CENTRAL storeroom the Issue Cost Type was set to AVERAGE and so the average cost of 130.45 was used.

In the Inventory application the action View Inventory Transactions is useful as it gives you a peek onto the MATRECTRANS, MATUSETRANS, and INVTRANS tables, the three tables that hold inventory based financial records.

There are three tabs for Receipts & Transfers, Issues & Returns, and Adjustments. On the Adjustments tab we see the record of the item being inserted into the GARAGE storeroom, with a transaction type of INSERTITEM.

We will spend more time on both Issues and Transfers as we take some examples from a material requisition, work order or internal PO through the reservations that will be created and then explore the inventory usage process steps of staging and shipping.