This week focuses on the controls you have with the concept of Bill of Materials (BOMs) and a Routing. Each manufactured item can have multiples BOMs and multiple Routings giving you virtually unlimited adaptability in your manufacturing processes. If you missed Part 1 – Costing and Inventory Control or Part 2 – Controlling Inventory Quantities using Microsoft Dynamics GP Manufacturing please read those before continuing to Part 3.
If the item in Inventory is marked as Make or Make/Buy, Microsoft Dynamics GP Manufacturing requires a Bill of Materials (BOM) to associate the different components needed to manufacture the Item. These components can be either raw materials, subassemblies or even outsourced processing.
The Bill of Material can be designated as one of several things:
- It can be one that the Engineering Department is currently doing design work on
- One that is ready for manufacturing.
- One that is a copy of the one you are no longer utilizing on a regular basis.
- Or one that allows for configuration at the time the sales order is taken.
The Routing for a Made item indicates the location, times (Setup, Cycle, Queue, and Move) that it takes to build the item at each stage of the manufacturing process. Here is also a great place to link the schematics, drawings, and/or videos so the production staff can see what they are to build without having to have papers moving around the manufacturing floor and getting misplaced or unreadable.
So that you can easily make changes, Microsoft Dynamics GP Manufacturing has utilities to be able to copy BOMs and Routings with an easy click of the mouse. Additionally, BOMs that need to change a specific raw material or subassembly can easily accomplish that task with a built-in utility called Level Code.
The Level code is used to describe how low in the BOM process this item will go. Level code is a part of MRP. A Work Center has to be set up as a site within GP; a site does not have to be a Work Center. BOM Mass update is a utility that is used similarly to Class ID’s for rollups or roll downs of changes to the BOM. The routine is located at Tools>Utilities>Manufacturing>MRP Low Level Codes.
Stoneridge Software can help you understand Bill of Materials and Routings. If you want further insight into how can help you improve your Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP), Stoneridge Software would like to talk with you.
Our next blog article will focus on the manufacturing processes. Stay tuned!
