Materials Planning vs Shared Components — what's the difference?

Materials Planning is a cross-run shortage dashboard; Shared Components on a production run is where you allocate and generate POs.

Collection: Work Orders: FAQ & Troubleshooting
Priority: P1

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Short answer

View	Location	Purpose
Materials Planning	Inventory → Work Orders → Materials Planning tab	Cross-run shortage dashboard (with cross-run shortage coverage actions)
Shared Components	Production run detail page	Actionable per-run material table

Materials Planning

• Aggregates demand across all active work orders / runs
• Shows On Hand, Incoming, Demand, Shortage by material
• Expand a material row to Cover the shortage across runs — Automatically allocate, Stage transfers, or Stage purchase
• Best for weekly planning meetings and purchasing prioritization

See Use Materials Planning.

Shared Components

• Shows materials for one production run only
• Supports Allocate from Incoming, Generate Purchase Orders, Create PO
• Drives day-to-day purchasing for that batch

See Understand material shortages.

Workflow

1. Use Materials Planning to see big-picture shortages
2. Open the specific production run → Shared Components to take action

Related articles

• Use Materials Planning
• Allocate from Incoming
• Generate purchase orders

Still stuck?

Contact support if totals differ between views — include material SKU and run numbers.