Manufacturing overview
What the Manufacturing module is for, who uses it, and the key terms you meet in every guide.
What Manufacturing does
Manufacturing turns components into finished goods and keeps the cost of doing so. You describe how a product is made, plan what has to be made, run the work on the shop floor, receive the finished goods into stock, and see what each order really cost against what you expected.
One engine covers light assembly, discrete production, batch or process production, make-to-stock, make-to-order and subcontracting. A production profile switches on only the parts a business needs.
Who uses it
- Engineers draw up bills of materials and routes.
- Planners run material planning, create and release manufacturing orders.
- Supervisors and operators issue material, run work orders on a tablet, register output and record scrap.
- Quality staff record checks, raise non-conformance reports and approve deviations.
- Cost accountants watch work in progress, close orders and read variances.
- Administrators set up work centres, calendars and company rules.
Key terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Bill of materials (BOM) | The list of components and quantities needed to make one unit of a product. It has versions: Draft, Approved, Active. |
| Route | The ordered operations (cutting, assembly) with the work centre and minutes for each. |
| Work centre | A machine, line or cell that does an operation. It has a calendar, a capacity and hourly rates. |
| Manufacturing order (MO) | The instruction to make a quantity of a product. It moves Draft, Planned, Firmed, Released, In Progress, Completed, Closed. |
| Work order (WO) | One operation of a released order, for example "Cutting on CUT". |
| MRP | Material requirements planning: works out what to make and buy from demand, stock and lead times. |
| WIP | Work in progress: the cost of material and work put into an order that has not yet become finished goods. |
| NCR | Non-conformance report: a record of a quality problem, its root cause and the corrective action. |
How it connects to other modules
- Inventory supplies components and receives finished goods. Material issues and returns are internal transfers between the warehouse stock and a production location (
<warehouse>/PROD). Lots are created in Inventory. - Sales supplies demand. Confirmed sales orders show on the Demand screen, and an order can be made for a sales order.
- Purchasing receives purchase orders raised from material shortages, planned orders and subcontracting.
- Accounting receives journals for production cost when you switch on cost posting in the settings.
- HR supplies employees for operators and resources.
The life of an order in one paragraph
An engineer approves a BOM and route. A planner creates an order, which picks the active BOM and route, calculates components and work orders, and estimates the cost. The planner plans, firms and releases it; release freezes the BOM and route and reserves components. Material is issued, operators complete work orders, finished goods are registered into stock, and the order is completed and then closed. Closing settles what is left in WIP into variances.
Start with Getting started.