The increasingly competitive nature of business and the continual demands of key customers mean food and beverage companies have to deliver high volume production in short lead times.

Hence the availability of accurate sales forecasts which drive the key operations of the business – including materials ordering, costing, production scheduling and employee management – is a powerful business tool providing a clear competitive advantage.

The Production modules include:

Recipe Management (via Bills of Material (BOM))

• Multi level BOMs
• Drill down reporting on BOM structure
• Multiple ingredients and/or raw materials at each level
• Multiple labour processes at each level
• Handling for both fixed or variable material quantities
• Set-up times, run times and handling times available
• BOM copy facility for rapid creation of new recipes.

Costing

• Labour process codes with overhead absorption rate facilities
• Estimated costs, standard costs and actual costs available
• Manufactured cost break-downs prior to manufacture
• Unit manufactured cost and batch cost determination
• Comprehensive real time cost variance reporting
• Comprehensive item re-cost facilities.

Work Orders

• Automatic work order creation via sales quotes activation for ‘make to order’
• Internal manufacturing request (IMR) facility for ‘make to stock’ of individual items
• Bulk master production scheduling for ‘make to stock’ of multiple items
• Consolidation of complete assembly tree into a single work order, if required
• Work order detail tables include:
  • Estimated unit and extended labour process standard times and costs
  • Estimated unit and extended ingredient and raw material standard quantities and costs
  • Active standard cost rates at time of creation
  • Sales order cross reference codes
• Group work orders by internal manufacturing request ID, if required.

Material Issues

• Manual and bulk material issues either ahead of, during or after manufacture
• Back-flush raw material and ingredient stocks as production units are released
• Close out and issue materials for lower level assemblies, where appropriate (optional)
• Material issues adjustment facility
• Comprehensive costing of material issues at standard cost
• Automatic general ledger postings (consolidated) for material issues
• Comprehensive real time reporting and analysis of raw materials consumed.

Employee Timesheets

• Employee actual times may be recorded against each process stage
• Each timesheet may include multiple processes and multiple work orders for an employee
• Timesheets valued at standard cost for update into work in progress
• Employee standard times may be automatically recorded against each process stage closed out, if required
• Comprehensive real time labour times reporting and analysis.

Production Releases

• Work orders may be progressively released with or without back flushing of ingredients and raw materials
• Over or under runs may be accommodated
• Support for by- and/or co-products through alternate item releases
• General ledger updated at standard cost for finished goods production releases
• Comprehensive real time reporting and analysis of units produced

Work In Progress Tracking

• Work in progress tracking of:
  • Actual labour used
  • Ingredients and raw materials consumed
  • Final assembly and sub-assembly completions
  • Times and costs incurred
• Multiple works order status and variance reports available
• Comprehensive real time work in progress valuation and reporting at multiple levels
• Process load management
• Manufacturing scheduled date change facility
• Manufacturing process stage change facility
• Comprehensive real time scheduled process hours and process load reporting

Production Scheduling

• Multiple production process stages per work order
• Recipes (BOMs) may have multiple routing process stages
• Variable production routing using activation selection criteria
• Forward or backward scheduling (client specific methods by arrangement)
• Automatic scheduling optionally used as part of sales quote activation (make to order)
• Automatic scheduling used in manual work order activation via IMR (make to stock)
• Automatic scheduling used when processing an MPS run
• Real time schedule updates via bar code scanning methods, if required
• Comprehensive real time reporting and analysis

Barcode Tracking

• Customisable bar coded production routing documents and production labels
• Point to point / process to process bar code scanned work order tracking
• Real-time work order process stage reporting
• Daily production reporting capability
• Comprehensive real time employee performance reporting capability
• Bar code scans may trigger material issues of ingredients and raw materials
• Ingredient and raw material issues may occur at either the commencement of work, as each process stage is scanned or at completion of production
• Bar code scans may trigger back flushing of production standard times using work order standard time
• Last process scanned validates all prior stages and closes them out if missed including back flushing missed materials and production standard times
• Automatic scheduling status set upon process stage scan
• Automatic WIP updates upon process stage scan
• Automatic general ledger postings (in summary) upon process stage scan
• Automatic increment to finished goods and work order close out upon final process stage scan
• Comprehensive real time reporting and analysis

Material Requirements Planning (MRP)

• Rapid MRP re-generation using multiple MRP selection criteria
• Comprehensive material requirement reporting by item within category
• MRP reporting by critical item within preferred supplier
• MRP data includes current inventory levels optionally combined with:
  • All active work orders
  • All active forecast items
  • Active work orders and purchase orders
  • Active work orders, sales quotes pending and purchase orders
  • Forecast and purchase orders
  • Forecast, active work orders and sales quotes pending
  • Forecast and active work orders
  • Sales quotes pending activation
  • Sales quotes pending activation and active work orders
  • Active work orders, purchase orders, sales quotes pending and forecast combined

Capacity Planning

• Rough cut capacity planning
• Labour resource capacity planning
• Actual labour resource capacity with attendance scanning

Read more about the Food & Beverage finance and distribution modules.