Hi,

We have a situation at a customer where we are implementing Scheduler with BaanIV. In order to produce a realistic schedule, we have added several operations to the routing by way of testing and documentation steps. However, we need to get the inventory out of wip and into stock before the completion of these operations, i.e. at the last "manufacturing" step. Unfortunately, if you post inventory before the last operation step is complete, any remaining operations are automatically updated as well. This is normally OK except when you still want to schedule the remaining steps using scheduler.

Has anyone been down this road before? We have toyed with idea of customising the Report Oders Complete session so that it does not update prodcution planning any more, but this is very tightly integrated and therefore risky. We are looking for a simpler approach if anyone has an idea?

Many thanks

Chris Holdsworth - Consultant - Softworx South Africa

Hi Chris,

Could you supply more information on the exact manufacturing environment you're talking about? I'm also a functional consultant, and I'm sure you know it's hard for functional consultant to offer alternatives without knowing the exact "dilemma". Thanks

Rgds,
Paul

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your response. I didn't want to bore people with too much detail unless there was some interest in the situation.
To expand ... what happens currently is that all operations in a routing are NOT count points, so if the session Report Orders Complete is used to post inventory at any time during the manufacuring process, any incomplete operation step will be updated (backflushing) with the quantity posted to inventory in Report Orders Complete. Standard Baan functionality.
In most cases, the customer has a number of operations which involve what I would call actual manufacturing steps, e.g. milling, mixing, packaging, etc. Following at the end of the routing are some operations for QA testing activities and documentation. In reality, a sample is taken from the product during the manufacturing process and the testing and documentation happens in parallel. So when the last actual "manufacturing" step is completed, we need to get the stock off the shop floor and into warhousing. This is so we have control, free up space on the floor, and can actually sell or transfer the stock before the last operations have physically been completed.
So far so good. Now we introduce Scheduler into the mix. We want Scheduler to recognise the QA and documentation steps and assign resources to them, which it does. But if we allow Report Orders Complete to backflush these operations, Scheduler will see a reduced capacity requirement and therefore our schedule becomes inaccurate. E.g. if we use Report Orders Complete to post all of the job quantity to inventory, Scheduler will not assign ANY capacity to the remaining operations.
If we make the remaining operations count points, Baan will not allow Report Orders Complete to post any quantity greater than that completed at the last count point operation. So this is no good either because we cant post inventory until the QA steps are completed, which can take days.
We looked at trying to somehow "decouple" the Report Orders Complete session and the Report Operations Complete functionality but the integration is very tight and is likely to cause more problems than we fix.

Looking for other ideas.
Regards,
Chris

Ah, I see. Well, since QC isn't manufacturing per se, have you considered the QC module in BaanIV? I know it's a rather awkward module to use, and for sure you can't monitor resource allocation using this. And for all you know, it might not even close to fit the QC business process in use there. I assume you've probably shopped around for built in alternatives in BaanIV and sort of hit a wall. And this thing you're asking is just probing for work around possibility.
Sorry for not being able to offer you a solution. But indeed what you're asking is probably too much for our little dear BaanIV :) . Massive customisation might provide what you need, but it costs, of course. Probably time for cost and benefit analysis and pointing out to the customer:
benefit of having QC & documentation steps monitored in software (incl resource allocation) vs cost of customisation
hassle of not having software monitoring QC & documentation vs saving that comes from not spending $$$$$ up front for customisation
But, then again, some other members of this lovely discussion board might have more elegant solution. Have a nice day

Rgds,
Paul