New Manufacturing Module

ERPNext User Forum
1
Dear all,

Just wanted to share some initial thoughts on the new manufacturing module. This is currently our weakest module.

What we are thinking is to scrap the Production Order and Production Planning Tool and instead merge Manufacturing with Projects. 

Here is the proposed workflow.

1. To plan for production, you will create a new Project. Select Item, Bill of Material. 
2. Once you select this, the "Tasks" will be automatically updated from the "Operations" table of the Bill of Material. If it is a multi-level, the it will find out all the tasks from all the child items (sub-assemblies).
3. You can assign these tasks to different Users and Workstations.
4. These tasks can be closed, updated by the users so you know how you are progressing on this Project.
5. You can also make the Project against a Sales Order and keep track of how much of the order is complete.
6. You can also push the start date of the Project so that all tasks are pushed along with the start date.
7. You can also get reports on how many Tasks are assigned to whom.
8. Based on Workstation capacity, you can get a rough-cut idea incase you are under capacity.
9. You can get a Gantt per Project, User or Workstation - this way you can adjust your capacity.
10. For material planning, you can get a report of all material that is expected to be short based on your Tasks. We can do a "simulation" of the Project so that you can know potential stockout's in advance. For this we will also need a "materials required" table in the Task that we can use to simulate the plan.

These are just initial thoughts, your inputs will be valuable.

best,
Rushabh


W: https://erpnext.com
T: @rushabh_mehta

2
Dear Rushabh,

Since you brought this up, it will also be an excellent time to upgrade the projects module to include resources, dependencies start and end dates, number of days required for tasks, definition of time increments, indents and outdents , and other standard stuff found in Microsoft projects.

It will be great if we can import existing projects from Microsoft projects into ERPnext .

Sorry couldn't contribute directly on manufacturing module .
From: Rushabh Mehta <rm...@gmail.com>
Sender: er...@googlegroups.com
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2012 17:05:29 +0530
To: er...@googlegroups.com Forum<er...@googlegroups.com>
ReplyTo: er...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [erpnext-user-forum] New Manufacturing Module

Dear all,

Just wanted to share some initial thoughts on the new manufacturing module. This is currently our weakest module.

What we are thinking is to scrap the Production Order and Production Planning Tool and instead merge Manufacturing with Projects. 

Here is the proposed workflow.

1. To plan for production, you will create a new Project. Select Item, Bill of Material. 
2. Once you select this, the "Tasks" will be automatically updated from the "Operations" table of the Bill of Material. If it is a multi-level, the it will find out all the tasks from all the child items (sub-assemblies).
3. You can assign these tasks to different Users and Workstations.
4. These tasks can be closed, updated by the users so you know how you are progressing on this Project.
5. You can also make the Project against a Sales Order and keep track of how much of the order is complete.
6. You can also push the start date of the Project so that all tasks are pushed along with the start date.
7. You can also get reports on how many Tasks are assigned to whom.
8. Based on Workstation capacity, you can get a rough-cut idea incase you are under capacity.
9. You can get a Gantt per Project, User or Workstation - this way you can adjust your capacity.
10. For material planning, you can get a report of all material that is expected to be short based on your Tasks. We can do a "simulation" of the Project so that you can know potential stockout's in advance. For this we will also need a "materials required" table in the Task that we can use to simulate the plan.

These are just initial thoughts, your inputs will be valuable.

best,
Rushabh


W: https://erpnext.com
T: @rushabh_mehta

3
Dear all,
Construction/manufacturing companies are probably exited.
However, I do you the "production" in its most simple form. Just repacking where an commodity bought in bulk is repacked in smaller bags for sales in the shop.
The current "production module" works fine with me.

I hope that during the redesign the whole process remains simple. For us it has no advantage to have a "project" just to repack.

Rgds Robert




On Monday, August 20, 2012 1:35:29 PM UTC+2, Rushabh Mehta wrote:
Dear all,

Just wanted to share some initial thoughts on the new manufacturing module. This is currently our weakest module.

What we are thinking is to scrap the Production Order and Production Planning Tool and instead merge Manufacturing with Projects. 

Here is the proposed workflow.

1. To plan for production, you will create a new Project. Select Item, Bill of Material. 
2. Once you select this, the "Tasks" will be automatically updated from the "Operations" table of the Bill of Material. If it is a multi-level, the it will find out all the tasks from all the child items (sub-assemblies).
3. You can assign these tasks to different Users and Workstations.
4. These tasks can be closed, updated by the users so you know how you are progressing on this Project.
5. You can also make the Project against a Sales Order and keep track of how much of the order is complete.
6. You can also push the start date of the Project so that all tasks are pushed along with the start date.
7. You can also get reports on how many Tasks are assigned to whom.
8. Based on Workstation capacity, you can get a rough-cut idea incase you are under capacity.
9. You can get a Gantt per Project, User or Workstation - this way you can adjust your capacity.
10. For material planning, you can get a report of all material that is expected to be short based on your Tasks. We can do a "simulation" of the Project so that you can know potential stockout's in advance. For this we will also need a "materials required" table in the Task that we can use to simulate the plan.

These are just initial thoughts, your inputs will be valuable.

best,
Rushabh


W: https://erpnext.com
T: @rushabh_mehta

4

Dear Rushabh, 


Great to hear your plans. My company needs a strong manufacturing module. I agree that it is your weakest module.

I agree with your workflow, except I do not think you should merge Projects and Production. Not every project a company undertakes, even a manufacturing company, is for manufacturing. There are sales and marketing projects. Projects to remodel or redesign something, or to plan a move. This would keep Robert’s concerns under control. I think Projects should be expanded to do just that… project management. 

Now does this mean it needs to emulate Microsoft project? Probably not. But some of those features are required for a robust project management module.

The Production module could link to Projects, or a special version of Projects that adds all the nice the features in your workflow.

I am more concerned with BOM management as I cannot use ERPNext until I can put my items and BOMs into it. Currently, we have 2500 items with over 200 sub-assemblies. Main product BOM has 11 sub-assemblies levels (indented levels) to explode the entire BOM.
  • We need a way to price out an exploded BOM so all parts at every level below the top level are included in the cost.
  • We need to print out a Kit List so we can use this to pull the parts from stock.
  • We need some way we can see an exploded BOM, either on the screen or in a report. Preferably both.
  • We need to find out where an item is used (what BOMs have the item included)
  • We need a way to input supplier prices based on quantity purchased into the price table for each supplier.
    • When issuing a PO, the item price should come from the table above, based on the quantity we are ordering.
  • We need to flag a supplier as primary so we know which costs to use and who to order from. Perhaps this can just be the first row of the Supplier table since rows can be easily moved up and down.
  • It would be nice to have some simple math in reports so we can sum columns (I think you have that now?).
  • It would be nice to have a “Made From” feature that enables us to buy a product, disassemble it and use some of the components in our product. Then assign the costs for these “made from” parts based on a percentage or ratio of the entire purchased product. We do this now for a number of items.
  • We would like an Item Status field so parts can be separated by Released, Unreleased or Obsolete (Released means no changes by unauthorized users).

In general, I like all of your ideas. Just need to focus more on the BOM for my needs to be met. I think this is all pretty easy stuff. Just linking tables. 

Any non-manufacturing company that has inventory or items can still benefit from kitting at one or two levels. So the changes I’m asking for are usable by just about everyone at some level.

I’m excited to participate in making ERPNext even more amazing. Keep the ideas coming.

Best regards,
Paul Stary
Virtual-E Corporation


On Monday, August 20, 2012 4:35:29 AM UTC-7, Rushabh Mehta wrote:
Dear all,

Just wanted to share some initial thoughts on the new manufacturing module. This is currently our weakest module.

What we are thinking is to scrap the Production Order and Production Planning Tool and instead merge Manufacturing with Projects. 

Here is the proposed workflow.

1. To plan for production, you will create a new Project. Select Item, Bill of Material. 
2. Once you select this, the “Tasks” will be automatically updated from the “Operations” table of the Bill of Material. If it is a multi-level, the it will find out all the tasks from all the child items (sub-assemblies).
3. You can assign these tasks to different Users and Workstations.
4. These tasks can be closed, updated by the users so you know how you are progressing on this Project.
5. You can also make the Project against a Sales Order and keep track of how much of the order is complete.
6. You can also push the start date of the Project so that all tasks are pushed along with the start date.
7. You can also get reports on how many Tasks are assigned to whom.
8. Based on Workstation capacity, you can get a rough-cut idea incase you are under capacity.
9. You can get a Gantt per Project, User or Workstation - this way you can adjust your capacity.
10. For material planning, you can get a report of all material that is expected to be short based on your Tasks. We can do a “simulation” of the Project so that you can know potential stockout’s in advance. For this we will also need a “materials required” table in the Task that we can use to simulate the plan.

These are just initial thoughts, your inputs will be valuable.

best,
Rushabh



W: https://erpnext.com
T: @rushabh_mehta

5

Hi Rushabh,


I have 2 factories with 2 different manufacturing processes - discrete and process.

All the features you and others have mentioned so far are great for discrete manufacturing and also work for process manufacturing but the later needs much more due to many factors such as raw material and finished goods expiry dates, FDA regulations and requirements which differ from country to country and the fact that raw material once used to any extent cannot be counted as inventory again as it can never revert to its previous form.

For example the Indian FDA for a soap manufacturing plant needs us to maintain records for the time, quantity, and specification of every ingredient added to a batch. We have an DOS based system that maintains the “Batch manufacturing record” with proper sign offs from each worker in the process and the container sticker of every ingredient added removed and stuck on this record for proof. Versions of this is required by every country.
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=211.188 

For discrete manufacturing batch and serial no are less important.

Please consider which type of manufacturing you will be catering to with your software. Its very difficult to cater to both and can be a later stage improvement for your team. Have a wonderful discrete manufacturing software that covers MRP2 implementation if you guys are interested you could check out the features and figure out which of those can be implemented in ERPNext.

Regards,
Sonal


On Monday, August 20, 2012 5:05:29 PM UTC+5:30, Rushabh Mehta wrote:
Dear all,

Just wanted to share some initial thoughts on the new manufacturing module. This is currently our weakest module.

What we are thinking is to scrap the Production Order and Production Planning Tool and instead merge Manufacturing with Projects. 

Here is the proposed workflow.

1. To plan for production, you will create a new Project. Select Item, Bill of Material. 
2. Once you select this, the “Tasks” will be automatically updated from the “Operations” table of the Bill of Material. If it is a multi-level, the it will find out all the tasks from all the child items (sub-assemblies).
3. You can assign these tasks to different Users and Workstations.
4. These tasks can be closed, updated by the users so you know how you are progressing on this Project.
5. You can also make the Project against a Sales Order and keep track of how much of the order is complete.
6. You can also push the start date of the Project so that all tasks are pushed along with the start date.
7. You can also get reports on how many Tasks are assigned to whom.
8. Based on Workstation capacity, you can get a rough-cut idea incase you are under capacity.
9. You can get a Gantt per Project, User or Workstation - this way you can adjust your capacity.
10. For material planning, you can get a report of all material that is expected to be short based on your Tasks. We can do a “simulation” of the Project so that you can know potential stockout’s in advance. For this we will also need a “materials required” table in the Task that we can use to simulate the plan.

These are just initial thoughts, your inputs will be valuable.

best,
Rushabh



W: https://erpnext.com
T: @rushabh_mehta

6

sorry forgot to include my comments on the work flow...

I agree with Paul - Projects should be partially integrated with manufacturing i.e. there should be a choice about whether its a manufacturing project or not.

After that choice is made your work flow would be great (for discrete manufacturing only, process manufacturing would require that each project is linked to a batch items to be made in the project are serialised, each raw material item in the BOM be linked to the test report, package details, and other GMP requirements for batch production records which should be collated to make the master production record)

For the exploded BOM maybe we could use the tree structure as in the chart of accounts that could specify child BOMs etc. where the top of the tree is the item while branches are intermediate goods and the roots are raw materials. You can "enter" at any level (branch) of the tree so make the item from scratch or assemble it. I assume kitting is for sales and refers to the packaging of one or more finished goods together which cannot be a part of this tree.

In addition to your work flow it would be great if you could figure out scheduling for work stations based on manufacturing shifts and life of equipment etc.

Thanks & regards,
Sonal




On Monday, August 20, 2012 5:05:29 PM UTC+5:30, Rushabh Mehta wrote:
Dear all,

Just wanted to share some initial thoughts on the new manufacturing module. This is currently our weakest module.

What we are thinking is to scrap the Production Order and Production Planning Tool and instead merge Manufacturing with Projects. 

Here is the proposed workflow.

1. To plan for production, you will create a new Project. Select Item, Bill of Material. 
2. Once you select this, the "Tasks" will be automatically updated from the "Operations" table of the Bill of Material. If it is a multi-level, the it will find out all the tasks from all the child items (sub-assemblies).
3. You can assign these tasks to different Users and Workstations.
4. These tasks can be closed, updated by the users so you know how you are progressing on this Project.
5. You can also make the Project against a Sales Order and keep track of how much of the order is complete.
6. You can also push the start date of the Project so that all tasks are pushed along with the start date.
7. You can also get reports on how many Tasks are assigned to whom.
8. Based on Workstation capacity, you can get a rough-cut idea incase you are under capacity.
9. You can get a Gantt per Project, User or Workstation - this way you can adjust your capacity.
10. For material planning, you can get a report of all material that is expected to be short based on your Tasks. We can do a "simulation" of the Project so that you can know potential stockout's in advance. For this we will also need a "materials required" table in the Task that we can use to simulate the plan.

These are just initial thoughts, your inputs will be valuable.

best,
Rushabh


W: https://erpnext.com
T: @rushabh_mehta

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