[OFBiz] Users - Automatic Purchasing

[Christopher Farley]

For various reasons, I do not want to use the OFBiz Order Requirements to 
automate purchasing for my business. I would rather duplicate the 
functionality of my existing purchasing system. This will also be my first
attempt to create an OFBiz application, so I'm hoping somebody will tell
me if I'm re-inventing the wheel here.

My application will automatically generate purchase orders based upon the
ProductFacility entity's minimumStock and reorderQuantity. There will be
a screen for the user to select:
   [] Facility - which facility are you ordering for?
   [] Supplier, or "All Suppliers"
   [] Product, or "All Products"
   [] ATP/QOH Preference: Should we use the ATP or QOH numbers to generate
      the purchase order?
   [] Order Quantity Preference: if the suggested order quantity is less 
      than the supplier's minumum order quantity, then does the user want 
      to omit the item, or increase the quantity to match the vendor's 
      minimum order quantity?

Clicking a "Generate" button will examine the inventory at that facility. 
Each item that has a ATP/QOH less than the minimumStock will be ordered 
up to the reoderQuantity. Purchase orders will be automatically created, 
and the user can approve them or cancel them.

MAJOR ISSUE:
 o "Primary Suppliers" need to be defined. Because each product can and
    often does have multiple suppliers, there needs to be a notion of 
    a Primary Supplier. This would ideally be part of the ProductFacility
    entity, but I could create a new entity called, say, 
    ProductFacilityPrimarySuppliers to avoid messing with the native 
    ofbiz entities.


I currently use a system like this, and I don't think I can live without
it. Does this seem like a reasonably non-complicated OFBiz cusomization 
project?  Would anybody else find this valuable, or does this somehow 
violate some sort of 'best practices' with regard to OFBiz purchasing 
management?

-- 
Christopher Farley
www.northernbrewer.com