Manufacturing · Getting started · 7 min read

Getting started with Manufacturing

What to set up, in order, before you create the first manufacturing order.

Before you begin

Manufacturing depends on Inventory. You need at least one active warehouse, and the products you make and consume must exist as stocked goods. A service product cannot be made. If the company has no warehouse, the system says 'Set up a warehouse in Inventory first - production issues and receives through it.'

An administrator with manufacturing.configure does the setup below. Engineers need the BOM and route permissions, and a second engineer is needed to approve.

Set-up order

1. Check the products. In Inventory, make sure the finished product and its components exist, are stocked, and have a cost. Components that are tracked by lot need lots in stock.
2. Open Production Settings. Go to Manufacturing > Configuration > Production Settings. Review the defaults:
   • Default production profile (seeded: Discrete Manufacturing), default warehouse, default calendar.
   • Overhead percentage (default 10) and labour rate per hour (default AED 45) used where a work centre has none.
   • Reserve components at release (on), Allow release with short components (off), Over-issue tolerance (0 %).
   • Quality checks must pass to complete (on) and "A BOM is approved by someone other than its author" (on).
   • Scrap above this quantity needs approval (0 means never).
   • MRP horizon in days (default 60, from 7 to 730). Click Save. See Production settings.
3. Set up calendars. In Manufacturing > Configuration > Calendars the seeded calendar is "STD Standard week", Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 17:00 with a 60 minute break. Add more if you run shifts. See Work centres and calendars.
4. Create work centres. In Manufacturing > Configuration > Work Centers, add each machine or line with calendar, capacity, efficiency and hourly rates.
5. Review the lists. In Manufacturing > Configuration > Other Lists check scrap reasons, downtime reasons and non-conformance types. In Cost Categories check the cost categories.
6. Create operations (optional). Manufacturing > Configuration > Operations holds standard operations a route line can start from.
7. Create a BOM and a route for the first product, have a second engineer approve them, and activate both. See Create and approve a bill of materials and Routes and operations.
8. Create quality templates (optional) in Manufacturing > Configuration > Quality Templates if checks should be raised automatically. See Quality checks and non-conformance.
9. Decide on cost posting. If you tick Post production costs to the ledger (WIP) in the settings, the system creates any missing default accounts in the chart and posts a journal for every cost row. Agree this with Finance before the first order.
10. Create the first order. See Create, plan and release a manufacturing order.

Permissions and roles

The module ships with these roles. Assign them in Administration.

Cost figures (estimated and actual cost, WIP, rates in reports) appear only to people with manufacturing.cost.view.

Company switches

An administrator can turn parts of the app on or off under Administration > Applications > Manufacturing: MRP and planned orders, Quality checks and non-conformance, Subcontracting, Scrap and rework, By-products. Four fields (Source reference, Manufacturing order project, Customer complaint reference, Non-conformance due date) can be Normal, Hidden, Required or Read-only. A change is proposed by one administrator and approved by a second.

Good to know

• Demo data can be loaded for training; ask your implementation team.
• Numbers (MO-, WO-, SC-) run separately for each company.