[Proposal] Manufacturing Roadmap Apr - Jun 2020

ERPNext Manufacturing
1

Hi

Currently we are working on the manufacturing roadmap, we have identified few features which are as below.

Production Planning

Make to order based manufacturing companies needs to do production planning of the raw materials. We have built a report which will give the information about available quantity of the finished goods and the raw materials. User can do the production planning against the open sales orders, open materials requests(with type as Manufactured) and open work orders.

Based on Sales Order

Based on Material Request

Based on Work Order

Scheduling

Scheduling is important for the manufacturing industry to understand the workstations / machines load as well the lead time requires to complete the finished goods. In ERPNext, based on the operations defined in the BOM we do scheduling. The Job card will be create based on the BOM Operations in which expected start time and end time will be calculate based on the time defined in the BOM. We are planning to add the calendar which will tell users that workstation wise allocation of the work orders and the operations.

Dashbaord

ERPNext don’t have the dashboards for the manufacturing module, below is the list of dashboards we have finalized for the roadmap.

Downtime

To capture the downtime of the machine we will add the doctype using which users will understand which workstation/machine has maximum downtime.

Manufacturing Execution System

Every manufacturing company has one common problem is that a data entry in the system. To make it simple we are thinking to create a mobile app for the manufacturing module. The Work Orders / Job Cards can be complete using the mobile device. Also using mobile app operator can consume the raw materials against the Work Order / Job Card.

Inventory Forecasting

Inventory forecasting is helpful for the manufacturing industry which follows the make to stock method. Based on the sales data of the last year we can forecast the inventory for the upcoming month, below is the example (Using exponential smoothing method).

Kindly share your feedback.

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Can we also add a check box Quick Transfer to automatically complete the transfer of raw material to WIP as well as consumption of raw material and sending the finished product to finish product WH.

This would be good to also configure to be on by default

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Hi
These features look promising. In addition to this, would like to know community’s view on the following

Work Order Progress Dashboard
Right now the Work Order Progress Dashboard only shows three Statuses = Started, In Progress and Finished.
It would be good to have some sort of Dashboard to show the WIP status of Work Orders.
Some sort of visual indication on what is the status of a particular Work Order, what stage is the production.
For example, if there was a Work Order for 100 EA of FG, (BOM : 1 FG = 2 x SA1 + 3 x SA2 + 2 RM1)
[SA= Sub Assembly
RM = Raw Material]

  1. Some visual representation of how many items are in the following staging
    a. Raw Material Issued = 100 EA
    b. Under Production/WIP = 80 EA
    c. Produced = 20 EA
    All Quantities in terms of FG UOM

  2. Break-up of WIP (on Work Order page of FG)
    Component-wise Report/Graphical Representation
    a. Raw Material Issued
    b. Under Production
    c. Produced

Graphical Representation may be difficult if the BOM has like 100s of components like in case of Electronics Manufacturing, in this case even a Report should do the job.

Job Sequence

Right now we are not storing the sequence of Operations. Is there any particular practical problem due to which we are not storing the sequence?
A lot of industries want to store the sequence to enforce a sort of Workflow in the Production Process.
If we store the sequence of Operations and have a Mobile App for Production, it may solve a lot of problems like Material Transfer and WIP tracking.

If this makes sense, with community’s help our team will be happy to contribute, to get these features developed.

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We need to define the actions on which system can Transfer / Consume the raw materials and add the finished goods. For example in JOB Card case, once the operator has complete the operation then system will automatically consume the raw materials which has been assigned against the respective operations in the Job Card. Also completion of all the operations system will complete the finished good entry. Here only one problem is that if the raw materials are serialized then system will pickup the serial no / batch no based on FEFO (first expired first out) method.

But what if user don’t want to use the Job Card and want to use the work order only?

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Instead of showing the graphical representation in the dashboard, can we create a report?

We can add this feature, right now we have the routings. We will add the sequence ID to order the sequence and also add the configuration which will enforce operator to complete the operations as per the sequence ID.

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Very nice proposal. These features are needed and they will help to plan the production more efficiently.

-Amit

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As SAP’s MRP is infinite capacity based, so we are using https://frepple.com/ as our APS engine, I developed the needed interface between our MES and frepple system, I have good knowledge on Frepple, considering Odoo already fully integrated with Frepple, I am wondering whether there is enough interest from community to integrate ERPNext and Frepple?

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Yes Reports should work too

Sounds good

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For customized manufacturing(config to order) scenario, consider my [New Feature] Config to order: ERPNext version of SAP's variant configuration -- APP published, testing needed - #21 by szufisher as part of the total solution?

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@szufisher

We Can allow to make BOM against the template Item and when user will create the Work Order against the Variant Item then system will pull the raw materials from Template BOM. Also we will allow user to edit the raw materials in the work order.

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Agree, this is badly needed

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This is great! I don’t mean to be a sour puss, but I think that Manufacturing is a layer that needs to be built on top of ERPNext and is very context sensitive for the Industry, Vertical, Domain, Country, etc. etc. And because it is context sensitive, it cannot be “one approach fits all”.

Plus it would be nice to build this collaboratively with a user organization that actually contributes to develop the requirements and helps implement it so that there is instant feedback and corrections are made as part of the development.

Else we run the danger of building something from a systems perspective and not from a user organization’s perspective.

Thanks

Jay

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Therefore we always tries to keep the design simple and generic and not specific. Most of the features we have put in the roadmap are based on the customers feedback.

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Hi Rohit,

No, I understand that my post may not have been very helpful. I have been able to, for two fairly complex organizations in India, help them flush out raw materials and obtain their cost of goods sold of raw materials. One is in the Industrial Machinery business and the other is in the Made to order retail furniture business.

Other than a small customization for pulling short raw material (as per BOM), we are just using virtual warehouses to help us monitor and control what’s happening on the Shopfloor.

In both cases, things are so complex on the shopfloor that getting the raw materials flushed out and arriving at the cost of goods sold itself has been a huge accomplishment.

However, I am in the process of implementing for an Injection Moulding business and things are really complicated, yet streamlined. When the customer is ready, we will start building the manufacturing module for his business and that will be an interesting journey.

I shall watch what you build keenly, and if feasible to be extended to my existing clients, I will extend these functionality and let you know how it goes and get back with you with any inputs.

Great job and please continue building what you guys are building.

Thanks

Jay

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I think this is already possible in current version, like ERPNext have a check box of Skip Material Transfer?

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I agree the need for another aproach for Config to Order other tan Variants that are very limited and hard to maintain, or even imposible in products with rich customization

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Hi All
if every operation is mapped wrt start and end time then…
if every operation has already been fixed with a process time (the time taken to complete an operation on a work centre IN-HOUSE considering all required aspects) then
A job ticket can be issued to an operator on a work center
The Operator logs in the start time and end time of an operation in the job ticket
The operators Incentive can be calculated at the month end for incentive payments
the average percentage time taken by an operator to complete an operation
this can map operator and work centre efficiency

Have begun using the work order and job card features
my observations are
Changes to workstation and operation are not possible once the bom is submitted
Use Case
A particular operation is designated to a particular work center and the bom is created
what if that work center is under maintenance
then i may have to process the operation in a different work center
what if i dont have a similar work center that could do this operation, then i might have to outsource the operation
In all above case, i might have to create different bom’s which is tediuos
In my opinion, the operation should be selected at the work order level
Because, at the time of issuing a work order, i should be able to select the operation and work station
Operation Number is also required so that each operation can be numbered
Use case 2
what if i need to add another process
Imagine my steel frame goes to the customer without painting
but, for this particular batch, he needs the steel frame to be painted
then again the bom should be remade
Any thoughts on this
Regards
Hemanth

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Warranty Claim
it culd be something like this
the Repairable product is made inward through material reciept ( serial number if available can fetch additional info)
user selects the form “Warranty and Repair”
the form opens
user selects Serial No
details of the serial No like product, customer, date of sale, address and other details gets populated
then a drop down box > to select “under warranty” “warranty expired”
if “under warranty” then
select “product re-placement” “product repair”
if “product replacement” then in table> select product > assign serial no
if “product repair” then
in table
select components that needs to be replaced
here the material consumed must be adjusted in stock with cost to company ( cost incurred for doing a free repair or replacement)
if “warrant expired” then
all those shown above
charges on components changed
labour
tax on above
invoicing
stock adjustment and accounts updation
experts can bring in a concrete workflow
regards
hemanth

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I put hear an idea for the ConfigToOrder functionality that is needed I posted on [New Feature] Config to order: ERPNext version of SAP’s variant configuration – APP published, testing needed

The BOM can have a checkbox “hasVariants” and if you check it, it transforms itself in a “BOM Template” (like the actual functionality in ItemTemplates).

A Bom Template is a regular BOM with its usual ItemList, plus an ItemTemplateList, where you can add ItemTemplates.

So, maybe you have a CustomizeblePC where the user can select only the keyboard, mouse and headphones (each one in 50 colors/textures, so normal Variations became a problem).

The BOM Template has the ItemList with the standards:

  • The Monitor
  • Case, CPU
  • All the standard components for that item.

The Bom Template has the ItemTemplateList with:

  • KeyboardTemplate
  • MouseTemplate
  • HeadphoneTemplate

Instead of generating predefined variations of that BOM (it would be the same as having ItemVariants), you can create new BOMs on demand, and when you create it, the system ask you to fill which Keyboard, Mouse and Headphones you want. Each ItemTemplate in the list can be mandatory or not, so maybe one user leave out the Headphones. Maybe the user can modify the quantity of each one, if the BOM Template allows that.

A big plus : BOMs are multilevel, so the “CPU” could be another template, and you could customize it too (hard-drive, processor, memory, etc). Maybe an exploded ItemTemplateList on the BOM Template could do the trick.

Or instead of BOM Template we can make ProductBundle Template, or have another DocType (like when the ProductBundle was added)

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@rohit_w This seems very exciting. Looking forward.
One thing: Data entry issue mentioned is really a challenge, but using app to solve this could also pose practical issues- in many facilities operators are not allowed or don’t have appropriate environment to operate phone. I would suggest if a QR/Bar code based mechanism could be explored.

As @JayRam suggested to involve user organization; I could involve, I represent a ‘Made to Order’ manufacturing firm.

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