Unlike bundles, assemblies do not require any external applications for inventory management, since the stock of an assembly and its components are managed completely separately by definition.

Assemblies have an assembly time (the time it takes to produce the assembly in days) and an assembly cycle (the breakdown of the production schedule), which Inventory Planner considers when generating assembly replenishment recommendations.

When a purchase order and/or an assembly order is received in Inventory Planner, Inventory Planner offers the ability to increase or decrease the stock levels for the assemblies and component variants in your store. Note that this functionality is only offered when purchase orders and assembly orders cannot sync to/from your platform.

You can learn more about how Inventory Planner can adjust stock in your store after receiving orders here.

Note that if any variant with components should be considered an assembly, you can enable the “Bundles as assemblies by default” setting under your account settings.

Configure new assemblies by going to Catalog > Assemblies and clicking the button to "Convert variant to assembly" in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen:

A modal window will open. In this window, select an existing variant to convert into a new assembly, then click “Apply”.

You’ll be taken back to the catalog, where you should see your new assembly. Click the “+” sign on the right-hand side of the screen, next to the new assembly, then choose whether to add an existing component variant, or create a new IP variant.

If adding an existing variant, select it in the popup. Click “Apply” to add the component:

If creating a new IP variant, fill in the form and click "Create and add to assembly":

Once all components are added, click "Save changes" to save your assembly.

Once you’ve added your component variants, you can define the quantities and save your changes to configure the assembly-component relationship.

You can also configure new assemblies in Replenishment by selecting the Details icon next to any variant. If the button isn’t displayed, select the gear icon in the top right corner to add the Details column.

Click into the “Bundles and production” tab, then add in components with their respective quantities.

You can either select a variant that already exists using “+ Existing Variant,” or create a new IP Variant using the “+ New IP Variant” option. Specify the component quantity per assembly, then select Save at the bottom left of the screen.

The total cost price for an assembly can be set from the sum of the cost of its components. Assembly costs are not automatically assigned.

Learn more about setting cost prices for assemblies here.

Assemblies can be configured in the “Replenishment” report. Once in the report, select “Assemblies” using the drop-down menu in the top left-hand side.

Assembly time is the time it takes to produce new assemblies if or when component stock is available. It dictates the expected by date for assembly orders, and can be set to zero to indicate a same-day assembly.

If an assembly contains components which are also assemblies (known as nested assemblies), its assembly time is based on the time to assemble it assuming its components are already assembled (i.e. it does not include the time required to assemble the components).

For example, take an assembly that is a 10-pack of cookies, made up of cookies, which are in turn made up of flour. The assembly time for the 10-pack may be one day (if/when the cookies are available), even though the assembly time for cookies may be five days (if/when flour is available).

Assembly cycle is a production schedule in days. For example, to set a weekly production schedule for replenishing assemblies, set the assembly cycle to “7”.

You can set the assembly cycle to zero, indicating no production schedule is needed. In this situation, the next to assemble quantity will match the replenishment quantity.

The components lead time is the amount of time it takes for component products to be replenished. It can be configured under Replenishment > Variants.

Lead times are automatically pulled into the “Assemblies” view, and are considered in the replenishment analysis (above and beyond what can be assembled from existing component stock).

The components days of stock indicates the number of days the replenished components should cover. It can be configured under Replenishment > Variants.

This value defines the full planning period for assemblies and their component variants.

In the below example, setting a lead time for 14 days and days of stock of 90 days defines the planning period as September 1 – December 14.

Increasing days of stock would increase the total replenishment at both the assembly and variant levels.