Understanding: The quantities required, finished and remaining at the operation and in total for the Shop Order

The shop order may require 1,000 pieces but only 950 are reported as finished in total for the shop order. The quantity required is what is planned on the SO and it may be a higher number than what is finished, factoring in that there can be scrap. If a 1,000 pieces are required to be produced, and there is always is scrap of 10 pieces, then plan for scheduling a quantity of 1,010.

The quantity finished for the end item is what is reported in the inventory application with a production order receipt transaction. At the operation level, if the quantity is reported at the operation, there will be a value in the PCS Complete field on the operation detail screen showing the pieces completed through that operation.

If you want to get a handle on the difference between the required quantity and the finished quantity, you may want to look into reporting quantities at the operation level as well as examining how scrap is controlled and reported.

Understanding: How many hours remain in total and at each operation?

Now let’s look at what information is being supplied from the shop floor.

It’s not uncommon for transaction reporting to be captured manually on the shop packet that was issued to the factory floor when the SO was released.

The big question is, is anything done with the data? Is it collected and keyed to a  spreadsheet and not shared, or is the transaction data keyed to SFC600? If it is being keyed, ask how often and by whom? Some companies use alternative methods to capture transaction data that do not require batch keying via a keyboard.

Not a lot of data is required to be keyed to SFC600 in order for the SO Inquiry to be useful. The data that should be reported for the transaction process is as follows:

• The type of hours being reported – machine, run labor, setup labor
• If reporting setup and run labor you want an employee clock number
• The shop order and the operation that is being reported
• Is the operation complete
• How many good were produced at this operation
• How many hours – the numbers of hours are critical. Do the employees estimate how many hours they worked, or do they track actual time started and stopped in order to calculate the actual number of hours.

Based on what is captured and how often will have an impact on the SO inquiry screen. Understanding the batch times as to when the transactions are keyed will provide you with the window as to the SO status at that point in time. Or, are they keyed as they happen in a near real time fashion so that you can have a more current view of the factory floor.

OPERATIONS: Update, Cancel or Remove Outbound Order Lines

FINANCE: Currency Differences Accounts

TECHNOLOGY: Advantages of Data Replication

Instead of sharing tables through logical linking, you can replicate table content between companies. This approach allows certain non-key attributes of a record to vary by company. For example, if you replicate bills of materials rather than sharing them, each company can associate a different warehouse with the same bill of material. This way, the bills of materials are consistent across companies, while the warehouses can differ.

Replication also enables selective availability of records in other companies. For instance, when replicating items, you might limit which items are available in a sales company based on their item group, only including end items. You can further refine replication to specific subsets, such as particular item groups.

Keep in mind that replication requires any referenced tables to be either replicated or shared as well.