Manufacturing – Forward ERP

Manufacturing Orders and Components

Materials and components default from the selected bill of material
Should the planning change for a manufacturing order, the materials and components may be amended for the order (user permissions permitting). Full change history of material amendments is retained
Materials may be issued either by using a mobile barcode scanner, the ForwardERP interface, automated issuing (backflushing) or a combination of the three methods.
Stock allocations (reserving of stock) can be performed where it is required that specific batches or stock from specific locations are used
Where applicable and allowed in settings, materials may be over-issued (for example, where the nature of the material does not allow the issuing of the exact required quantity, such as lengths of steel). The remaining material can be returned and is not included in the cost of the manufacturing order
Full traceability and transaction history of issuing and reversing of issuing of materials are retained on the manufacturing order. This includes the date time, person, batch or serial number, quantity and value
Where procurement of materials/components is specific to manufacturing orders, purchase orders can be created directly from a manufacturing order in which case the purchase order is reserved for use by the manufacturing order

Rules to define material substitution can be created
Substitution may be generic (an item may always be substituted by another item)
Or, substitution may be specific (an item may be substituted by another item only for specific manufactured items or bills of material)

The planned manufacturing cost is calculated per manufacturing order
The detailed planning of the manufacturing order is used to calculate the planned cost
The planned cost may be calculated whilst planning the order, or be automated to be recalculated at the time of the first manufacturing transaction
The option exists to use the standard cost of the manufactured item as the planned manufacturing cost
Manufacturing variances are finally calculated when the manufacturing order is closed
Optionally the manufactured stock can be revalued with the manufacturing variance upon closing of the manufacturing order
The close matrix rules can be used to enforce that orders with bigger variances may be closed only by higher authority users

Phasing out of a material can be specified
This may be required where an item is replaced by another item, but the stock of the item to be phased out should be consumed first
Phase-out rules are applied automatically when a manufacturing order is created

Simulation of the cost of bills of material and comparison of different bills of material is possible
The bills of material of the same or different manufactured items can be compared
The source of component cost and price escalation per line item may be specified
The use of a simulated costing as the planned cost on a manufacturing order can be allowed

Scrap transactions, including a predefined reason code, can be recorded
Scrapping may be performed for the manufactured stock, or materials/components issued to the manufacturing order
Rework operations can be created and the time and cost for rework recorded
Non-conformances related to manufacturing orders can be recorded
Corrective actions as a result of non-conformances are provided for, including preventative action and root cause recording. Corrective actions are approved with an approval life cycle
Concession capability where applicable is possible

Full visibility of work in progress is provided, both on an order/item level as well as in the general ledger
Materials/components may be planned and issued for a specified operation

Item structures provide for an unlimited number of sub-levels
A scrap allowance in the item structure may be specified
The manufacturing operation at which a material/component is required can be indicated. Different quantities of a material/component may be required at different operations in a bill of material
Multiple active item structures per item where differences exist in the possible manufacturing processes available to manufacture the item can be created
Should a permanent change in a bill of material occur, the current instance of the bill of material can be deactivated and a new active instance can be created. A new instance can be created by copying a previous instance and amending as required where appropriate

Manufacturing operations as per specified routing that is customised per manufacturing order can be used
Planned time and cost may be used, and the actual time and cost collated either by batch capture or by real-time capture from the shop floor. This may be by using scanning and/or biometric feedback
Operators and operations that are allowed in a work centre can be managed
Operation sequence rules, including per manufactured serial number, may be applied

Though not an APS system, the schedule as a result of manually planned manufacturing orders is visible in a Gantt chart format
The manufacturing schedule interface allows for manual and bulk moving of manufacturing order start and end times

Shifts and shift schedules/cycles may be set up
Shifts are linked to work centres, and non-productive times such as lunch breaks can be specified
Up to three shifts per work centre per day are allowed
Scanning or biometric clocking on manufacturing operations may be performed