Enhancing the Manufacturing Module

ERPNext Manufacturing
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A major development in the manufacturing environment would be better production planning capabilities.

Specifically:

  • Improving the operation scheduling system to include lead times for purchased parts
  • Allowing adjustment to the schedule based on changes to lead times, # of parts produced in a shift (move schedule up if parts completed faster than originally scheduled, add extra shifts if behind schedule)
  • More co-ordinated scheduling based on in stock quantities (can’t build assembly #2 until child assembly #1 is built, so scheduling parts so that their dependancies are built / arrived first)

Other things that would help:

  • Improved control of assembly documents (that tie into the operations for BOMs)
  • Better analysis tools for production (efficiency analytics, deadline delivery analysis tools)
  • Find parent BOMs by child item from the Item doc form

I’m sure there are many more things, but these are ones that my company will be looking for in the future (and that I likely will need to start working on in the next 6-12 months).

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I have a couple of issues in Github already (which Rmehta has shared) for the manufacturing module, but I think overall @Ben_Cornwell_Mott has nailed it.

More advanced and flexible production scheduling based on all the the information that’s already in the system is the way forward for ERPNext Manufacturing. ERPNext is a fantastic database that generates excellent reports on static data, but good scheduling is fluid, adaptable, and integrated with all departments. Also, easy visibility is a must. The new Gantt chart will be very useful.

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I believe basic Bin/Shelf/Location information would be useful for stock entry. When doing a production order, I would like to print out the order with the BOM material needed, the amount per item, the Bin/Shelf/Location where this item is stored, and instructions on how to create the product.

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Hi Jay Ram

I wish to have offline manufacturing execution system

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Related to the above is ERPNext: Git / Github for Open Source Hardware -- Call For Beta User(s) (“ERPNext: Git / Github for Open Source Hardware – Call For Beta User(s) – Announcement”)

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Another tack on determining mainstream requirements is to do a gap analysis of an existing ERP package focused on manufacturing. The documents below can provide details on one such package – DBA Software.

If this enhancement exercise moves forward, I would be happy to lead or assist with the gap analysis of ERPNext versus DBA Software.

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I’ve posted that requirement some time ago:

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I’m not totally sure if our request falls well in the “Manufacturing” module, so please let me know if doesn’t.

What we are usually doing in spreadsheets and would be great to have in ERPNext is a BOM comparison (as in the attachment). Hope it’s self-explanatory

bom comparison.png690×949 96 KB

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Ok, where to go from here? Many issues have been raised for the manufacturing module, what is the best way forward now?

Perhaps making a list of all the issues raised, creating Github issues for each one (if not already done), tagging them all “manufacturing”, and starting a bounty on the whole lot?

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@Dbone & all: There are a whole bunch of good suggestions on the manufacturing module. I am going to sit and compile all inputs and my thoughts together and present to the community my first cut approach by Monday, Jan 9.

We will then seek inputs from the community for another week and then come up with the roadmap for the manufacturing module. Yes, bounty seems to be the best way of going about it.

Thanks

Jay

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I think a custom report should be able to help you achieve this. @UmaG can you please guide @strixaluco about how to go about creating a custom report for their needs?

Thanks

Jay

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Hi @strixaluco,

I have done some similar reports on BOM through using custom script reports. You can take a look at them and change your code accordingly… nhance/nhance/nhance/report/bom_item_warehouse at master · umaepoch/nhance · GitHub

Regards
Uma

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Thanks a lot for sharing your report, @JayRam and @UmaG, I’ll try to tweak it for our needs.

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@UmaG @JayRam why not add it as a contribution :slight_smile:

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Hi Rushabh @rmehta

We would love to add this as a contribution. Can you please tell us how to go about it? Have never done it before.

Thanks
Uma

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@Boston_Nyer: Have no worries about using ERPNext for manufacturing. While there are challenges, for the type of operation you described, you should not have a lot of problems managing manufacturing for your organization.

Happy to help and provide you my inputs if you think it will help.

All of us subscribe to @rushabh_mehta’s and Frappe’s philosophy, that just because ERPNext is OpenSource, it shouldn’t be benchmarked against the best.

So our honest posts on this thread is to make an already good product great, when it comes to it’s suitability in manufacturing organizations.

Please proceed on implementing ERPNext, I’m sure it will work very well for your organization.

Thanks

Jay

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GitHub has a lot of documentation you can look at! Might take a couple of hours to understand, but it will be worth the investment.

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Hi @JayRam, the company I work for has been looking at several ERP solutions and we’re pretty sure that we want to go with ERPNext, but the manufacturing module in its current state isn’t flexible enough for our processes. I don’t have a complete list of all my requirements for improving it yet, but I know that we’re interested in sponsoring development to improve the manufacturing module so it can become a workable solution for us.

I think the biggest thing we’d like to see improved is more flexibility in allocating materials to a production order. Most ERP solutions I’ve been demoing allow you to allocate materials to a production order without forcing you to specify the quantity of product you plan to produce with said materials (in other words, you can partially build products). In addition, most solutions will let you remove materials without having to cancel the stock entry and add back in what you didn’t remove. They will also calculate what raw materials are still needed for the order when making a stock entry. And lastly, I think it would be really useful if you’re able to see at a glance on the production order screen the quantities of raw materials you’ve already pulled for an order (and potentially what’s remaining), similar to how stock levels work on the item screen.

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Thank you @JayRam, greatly appreciated. I’ll be in touch if we have any
further questions while we make our decision.

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