A completed flock may have unconsumed feed in its bins at the end of its life, which should be handled and accounted for by farm managers. This remaining food remains in the bin until it can be utilized by the plan which is when the next flock in the house would start eating that particular feed type.

Bin Status

Statuses have been added to the bin definitions on the house form. By default, all existing bins have been given the status of Active. Newly created bins are defaulted to the status of Active.

Bins in an Inactive status will not be considered by the feed plan calculation, when determining which bins to deliver to.  (Inactive bins will still appear in lookups on forms like feed delivery and ending feed).

Managing Remaining Bin Inventory

At present, there is no way to automatically adjust off the balance for a previous flock, and automatically apply it to the bin inventory. Users will need to create feed delivery adjustments on the flock the inventory was originally delivered to, and then create a bin inventory balance.

Clicking the Bin Inventory Button will open the Feed Bin Inventory Form. This form will list all houses the flock is placed in, and can therefore be scheduled feed to. We can select a house to view it's bins, and a bin to view it's inventory balance. These balances do not belong to a flock, so any balances created can be viewed and utilized by the next flock placed in that house.

When we select a bin, its information will load in the header. This includes the Bin Type, Status and Capacities. These are read-only fields.

The grid is available to edit. When we want to add or adjust bin inventory we can add records to adjust it up or down.

Feed Type: This is required. We need to know what ration this belongs to, as the feed plan will not use this inventory until it hits that ration.

Formula: This is required. This is the specific formulation left behind by that ration. When we apply it to the flock, we'll assign this formulation to the planned record. When we commit this record to feed delivered (and therefore belonging) to this flock, we'll know what formulation was in there.

Added: When we want to add existing bin inventory, we'll put the amount in this column.

Removed: When we want to adjust inventory down, we'll put the amounts in this column.

Units: The unit of measure for this recorded amount.

Feed Plan ID: When a feed plan is generated and existing bin inventory gets scheduled to be consumed by a flock it will be associated to a feed plan record. That feed plan's ID will display here. Records with a feed plan id cannot be deleted or edited on this screen.

We added a custom total to the summary footer. If the user right-clicks the footer and selects "Total Balance", they can see the sum total of the added fields minus the sum total of the removed fields.

There are four functions on the bin inventory form:

Delete: This is a context menu option that is available when we right-click a record. this will soft-delete a record created on the form, that will be committed when the user clicks save.

Save: This will save any changes(including deletes) made for all bins on the screen.

Clear All: Whenever we would like to reset the ledger and start from scratch we'll click clear all. This will reset all history for all houses.

Close: Closes the form.

Applying Bin Inventory to a Feed Plan

I will generate a feed plan for a flock, with no bin inventory. Note that this plan utilized both feed bins, and that the first delivery of withdrawal feed is calculated to 20mt.

I open my bin inventory, and I create a balance of 15 mt. of WD2 feed for Bin 2. The formulation is required- when I turn it into a feed delivery to a future flock I'll need to know the formulation.

I save my changes, and close the dialog. When the dialog closes I am prompted to regenerate. When I do, I can see that bin 2 is not used until I reach the same ration as it's remaining inventory. When it does, that inventory is applied first (FIFO!) and planning continues from there.

The process will sum all of the records for remaining inventory and derive a balance for a feed type. Once that balance is determined, the feed plan will not utilize that bin until we've reached the rationed amount. When it does, it will use it. When the feed plan is saved, this usage is recorded on the bin inventory screen. You can open that screen to see how much is consumed and how much is remaining.

While it is possible to keep this history of balances across many flocks, it is recommended to use the "Clear All" option once the balances have been reviewed, to reduce the number of records in the ledger. Though these balance records are deleted during a clear all, feed plan records will never lose their "Existing Inventory" status, and the database now includes a separate field that tracks how much of a feed plan's amount comes from existing bin inventory.

Feed Orders and Remaining Inventory

"Existing Order" feed deliveries will appear on the feed order form, and will need to be committed like any planned delivery. When they are, they will be staged and eventually end up as feed deliveries belonging to the flock. This is necessary if we want bin inventory to be recorded as consumed by the flock, like any other feed delivery.

It is important to note, however, that these "Existing Orders" must not be sent to the order entry desk. Planned records from existing orders have already been delivered, and already take up space in a bin. If one of these get through, we will be scheduling the delivery of feed that already exists!

For this reason, we must include a filter that omits existing orders from the "Committed Delivery Report", the same way we filter any order that is not order confirmed. We can leverage the feed order form to turn bin inventory into feed deliveries, and guarantee that the order desk and mill never see them.