Manufacturing

In a snapshot, there are three steps in the manufacturing process:

1. Create job
2. Start
3. Finish

The process is simple and efficient, provides real-time stock levels of raw materials, and provides you the capacity to add complex logics.

Watch a quick video demonstrating the manufacturing process:

Key words & abbreviations

• Finished good (FG): the end product of a manufacturing/production job made using raw materials.
  Example: a teddy bear.
• Bill of material (BOM): another name for a finished good.
• Raw material (RM): a material/component used in the manufacturing/production of a finished good.
  Example: fabric, stuffing, thread, fur, and glass eyes. 

Create a production job

1. Set up a bill of material (BOM), also known as a finished good, if you haven't already.
2. On the manufacturing page, click +Add production job.
3. Select the finished good product to be made and enter the quantity that will be produced.
4. Based on the BOM recipe, the amount of each raw material (RM) required is automatically calculated and added to the job.
5. Before starting production, check that your recipe of RMs is correct. You can add, remove or edit RMs while on this page.
6. Once you click Start production, the status of this job will become In progress. The other two statuses of a production job are Open and Completed.
7. Once the job is completed:
   • Stock levels of the RMs are reduced by how much was used.
   • Stock level of the FG is increased by the quantity produced.
   • Unit cost of the FG is calculated from the total cost of RMs used.
   • If the FG has batch tracking enabled, a production batch number is created.

Optional: a production stage for the production job can be recorded so that from the jobs overview page, you can see what stage each production job is at.

To import bill of materials in bulk, go to Products menu > Import data > choose "Bill of materials" from the data type dropdown, then click to download the data template. It requires just three columns, see below:

A. BOM SKU (mandatory)
B. BOM description (readonly)
C. Item SKU (mandatory)
D. Item description (readonly)
E. Quantity (mandatory)

Non-diminishing or non-stock products

Non-diminishing (non-stock) products can be added to a BOM or a production job.

For example, to include labour in your production job, create a product SKU and name it, e.g. LABOUR. Set it as non-diminishing, the unit to hour (or similar), and input the labour cost into the Last buy price field.

Reverse a production job

1. On the manufacturing production jobs page, search for and click on the production job you want to reverse. 
   Tip: filter the list by Completed using the status dropdown list to display only completed production jobs.
   
2. Click Reverse production to create a reversal copy of the job.
   
3. Once ready, click Finish & complete to commit the reversal.
   

The reversal job is an exact reverse copy of the original job - just with negative values to offset what the original job did:

• Negative production (output) quantity
• Negative raw material/service (input) quantities
• Reversal of batch number entries for both raw materials and the finished good

Stock levels of raw materials and the finished good will be restored to what it was before the original production job.

If you wish to discuss your requirements, please email help@zeablue.com.

Both a BOM and a kitset

A product can be setup or configured as a BOM and a kitset.

A BOM consists of the raw material products that are required to manufacture one unit of the finished goods product. A BOM holds stock, cost and it can be sold and purchased.

A kitset consists of the products to be sold as a bundle. For example: A burger meal as a kitset that consists of a burger, chips and a drink. A kitset does not hold stock, cost and can be sold. When sold, the cost for the kitset is the sum of it's items costs. It's inventory level is the lowest available inventory from it's items.

This is a flexible way of creating a product that can be used in a production job as well as selling it with different units.

For example:

Product: ABCDE-GALLON

Manufacturing unit: GALLON

Selling unit: LITRE or multiples of LITRE

It is a BOM that consist of RM-X, RM-Y, LABOUR, OVERHEAD, CLEANTIME and so on.

It is also a kitset that consist of 3 units of ABCDE-LITRE

Create a new production job to make 100 ABCDE-GALLON

The result:

1. inventory level of ABCDE-LITRE is increased by 100 times 3 = 300 litres

2. sell one unit of ABCDE-GALLON, it comes with 3 units of ABCDE-LITRE, and the inventory level of ABCDE-LITRE is reduced by 3.