Combine and uncombine inventory items manually

Sometimes suppliers cannot provide the stock material in the specific lengths you require. Materials then need to be uncombined and recombined.

You can manually combine items in the Inventory dialog by activating the manual combine mode. You can select pieces to combine them into a stock length, or uncombine pieces from a stock length.

Combine inventory items manually

Use the Add Items command to combine materials into a selected stock length.

In the Inventory dialog, click the Inventory ribbon tab.
On the menu, select Switch to Manual Combine Mode.

The manual combine mode is activated. New buttons appear at the bottom of the dialog to enable adding and removing combined items from the selected item.
In the Inventory dialog, select a stock length.
At the bottom of the dialog, click Add Items.

The Add Item dialog opens. You can see all available uncombined materials that can be combined into the selected length.

The available materials come from requisitions. If the items that you want to combine are in a production control job, you need to add them to a requisition before you can combine them manually.
Select an uncombined item.

You can modify the quantity of inventory items that you are combining materials to.

If the quantity is greater than 1, the materials should be multiples of that quantity in order to be displayed and selected in the Add Item dialog.
To allow material grade substitutions, select the Use Grade Substitutions checkbox.
Click Add.

The selected material items are combined to the selected stock length.

Uncombine materials

When you need to modify the original optimizations, use the Remove Item to uncombine material items from a selected stock length.

In the Inventory dialog, click a stock length to select it.
At the bottom of the dialog, click Remove Item.

If the selected stock length is not combined, the Remove Item button is not available.
In the Remove Item dialog, use the arrow buttons to move the materials that you want to uncombine to the Included list.

To only move one piece of the selected item, click the Qty 1 buttons.
Click OK.
In the confirmation dialog, do one of the following:
- To simply uncombine the pieces, click No.
  Select the No option if you are removing items to clear the material of items that are no longer linked.
- To uncombine the pieces and return the items to the requisition from which they were loaded to a purchase order, click Yes.
  The items are held in the requisition to be recombined and purchased, or combined into a different stock length.
  If the requisition no longer exists or the material item was never on a requisition, Tekla PowerFab asks you to select a requisition or add a new one.

The confirmation dialog and the Remove Item dialog close. The pieces are uncombined from the selected stock length.

If you want to revert to the original parts added to the requisition, and remove all the optimized items, click Uncombine. You can then reoptimize the items.

Switch back to the input mode

Click the Inventory ribbon tab.
On the menu, select Switch to Input Mode.

The Inventory dialog changes back to the input mode.