Production Planning and Manufacturing Management in MRPeasy

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Transcript:

Welcome! In this video, we’ll explore how MRPeasy helps you streamline production planning and management.

We will cover the “Production planning” section which is for production planners and managers and that enables scheduling manufacturing orders, and planning materials and capacity.

The “Manufacturing orders” tab provides a detailed overview of all production orders.

Under “Production Schedule,” you’ll find a color-coded calendar showing manufacturing orders and individual operations.

The schedule is also available as a Gantt chart with two views:

A project view of manufacturing orders.

An operations view across all workstations.

There are further calendars and reports in each workstation’s reports. 

To check a worker’s schedule, go to “Human Resources” under “Settings” and open the user’s reports.

MRPeasy automatically schedules the operation of a manufacturing order and calculates material requirements.

To understand how that works, we must explain some key concepts.

Four key documents are involved in production planning:

First, the Manufacturing Orders are in the Production Planning section. A Manufacturing Order captures performed labor and used raw materials and outputs finished goods.

Second, items that define your parts and products are listed in the Stock section.

Third, a product item has a Bill of Materials that lists used materials per product.

Fourth, the product item’s Routing describes the manufacturing steps of making the product.

When scheduling production, consider three key factors: 

First, limited materials and workstations constrain the process. 

Second, operations must be performed in their correct order.

Third, the operations can be scheduled using forward or backward scheduling.

By default, MRPeasy uses Forward Scheduling to assign operations to the earliest available time slots when materials and workstations are available. 

Backward Scheduling, which you can use starting from the Enterprise edition, allows setting a due date and scheduling operations in reverse order to finish as late as possible before the due date, considering only workstation availability.

In MRPeasy, we have “workstations” that define the production capacity.

A workstation could be a machine, a bench, an assembly table, etc. Similar workstations are organized into “workstation groups”.

In this example, there is a “Woodworks” group with three woodworks stations, a “Paint room” group with one painting station, and a “Packing” group with one packing station.

One operation can be done at one time in one workstation, which means that three operations can be done in parallel in the “Woodworks” group”, one in the “Paint room”, and one in the “Packing station”.

In a multi-step production process, by default, the previous operation must be fully completed before the next starts. 

However, you can also configure the next operation to start after a certain quantity has passed the previous step. We call this “Overlap”.

You can divide a large operation among multiple workstations for faster processing. We call this “Parallelization”.

Finally, you could have more complex sequences of operations, for example, when several independent operations must finish before the next operation can start.

For make-to-stock operations, you can plan manufacturing orders manually, or do so based on low inventory alerts, forecasts, or long- and mid-term plans.

To manually create a new manufacturing order, click the “Create” button in the “Manufacturing Orders” tab.

Select the product and enter the quantity, for example, 100 products.

Now, we review the suggested start and end times. We can choose from several bills of materials if multiple options exist.

We can adjust the planning start date if needed; the system will find the earliest times after that.

Or, if we set the due date, the system will find the latest start time before that date, while only considering workstations.

If we investigate the proposed schedule, the “Parts” section will show the status of materials and estimated availability dates. In the “Routings” section, we can review operations details, select an alternative routing, reassign workers, or change workstations and other details.

For now, let’s confirm the schedule and save the order.

The “Critical On-Hand” report in the “Stock” section shows products needing production. It functions similarly for both make-to-stock and make-to-order processes.

If a product’s available stock falls below its Reorder Point, it will appear on this report.

To use this feature, set a Reorder Point for your products. Set it to 0, if you don’t keep safety stock and only produce upon confirmed sales; set it higher if you produce to stock.

To create an MO, click the button at the end of the report line. You can change any details, for example, increase the quantity. Once saved, the products will now be expected to be in stock.

For materials with long lead times, use the procurement forecasting function in the “Procurement” section to calculate material requirements and schedule MOs.

Decide whether the forecast should consider current inventory and planned purchases.

After calculation, review the required purchases and create both MOs and purchase orders.

MRPeasy offers Master Production Scheduling for middle- and long-term planning. The MPS allows you to:

Combine inventory levels, sales forecasts, confirmed orders, workstation capacity, and purchasing plans.

Prepare a production plan that aligns with your long-term strategy.

For detailed guidance, please watch our dedicated Master Production Scheduling video.

When operating on a make-to-order basis, you create manufacturing orders in response to customer orders. 

If you have the Tracing functionality enabled, then manufacturing orders are tightly connected with customer orders through stock lot tracking.

To plan production based on a customer order, open the customer order, and press the “Check Stock and Book Items” button. On this page you can select the option to automatically generate manufacturing orders.

One manufacturing order will be generated for each customer order line.

In the customer order’s “Check Stock and Book Items” page, you can press “Book all items” without selecting the option to generate MOs. As a result, demand will be raised for all missing products.

You can repeat this action for several customer orders.

Next, create the manufacturing order from the “Critical on-hand” report, by pressing the wrench button at the end of the product’s line. Again, to use this report, please ensure the product’s reorder point is set.

Once the MO is saved, the products are allocated to these customer orders.

For full manual control, you can create MOs in the Production planning section, or from the the customer order’s “Check Stock and Book Items” page, by pressing the “Book Manually” button.

After the MO is created, return to the customer order’s manual booking page to reserve goods from the MO’s target lot.

If you have the Tracing functionality turned off, planned production is always matched to confirmed sales in the order of promised delivery dates. For example, if the planned delivery dates change, available products will be redistributed to earlier deliveries in the first order.

In this configuration, to schedule production for a customer order:

First, you should set the Customer Order status to “Confirmed”.

Next, create the Manufacturing Order from the Production Planning section, setting the planned quantity accordingly.

Looking back at the customer order, we see that the products have been automatically allocated to it.

Alternatively, once you have set the Customer order status to “Confirmed” you can use the “Critical on-hand” report in the “Stock” section, to create MOs for the total required quantity. To use this report, please ensure the product’s reorder point is set, even zero.

Once the MO is saved, the planned products automatically match confirmed customer orders in the CRM.

The MO Administrative screen, which you can open from the Production planning section is designed for the production managers.

For a demonstration of the worker reporting interface which you can access by pressing “Go to production” please see our separate shop-floor reporting video.

The header of the MO details screen displays general information, like the quantity, total duration, costs, and current status. You can also print documents from here.

The Parts section of the manufacturing orders shows the status of all required materials.

Here you can adjust required quantities or add new materials as needed.

You can add other parts with the plus button from the top right corner.

You can increase a part’s quantity with the plus button on its line.

You can decrease a parts quantity by using the “return to stock” button on its line.

With Tracing enabled, be aware that materials must be booked – that means “allocated” – from specific stock lots to this MO before these can be used up. Therefore, if you see a red “Not booked” line, know that these are not yet reserved to this MO and cannot be used.

You can use the “Book All Parts” button to auto-book any missing parts from the available stock of parts.

Meanwhile the “Release all booked parts” button will do the opposite action and release all bookings.

For detailed control you can click the plus button on individual lines to book materials from specific stock lots, or the “Return to stock” button to unbook them. 

With Tracing disabled, no manual management of bookings is necessary. You can freely decrease and increase the quantities of parts, and the availability of parts will be immediately updated.

Please note that in this mode, even if you see the “Not enough” parts status, you can still use up parts as long as they are in stock.

The Operations Section displays details of operations. 

First, here, you can assign workers.

When you open the operation details for editing, for example, you can change the workstation or add another one.

You can edit the planned times and the overhead or labor cost.

You can add additional workers, and also adjust any planned and reported times.

At the bottom of the MO details page, you will find a notes section. Here, users can enter notes, but also some system-generated alerts are saved here. 

If necessary, it is possible to mark a note as important, in which case the MO will be seen on the list of manufacturing orders together with a red flag. 

Now, let’s cover some more common special situations that may come up.

It may be that the quantity that was initially planned should be changed.

If you have not started the MO yet, you can simply change the quantity, and as a result, the MO will be completely replanned and rescheduled.

However, if production has already started, then there are several things to know:

First, updating the quantity will not automatically change any materials or operations.

Secondly, depending on the specific situation, the MO quantity field in the header may or may not be directly editable. 

If it is editable, feel free to update it as necessary.

If it is not editable, then the quantity matches what is reported by the workers in their final operation. You can update it by editing the last operation details.

In the MO details page, it is possible to finish the MO with one click. This is useful e.g. when production was already finished and the MO was entered after the fact.

The “Finish production as planned” button will try to finish the MO according to the planned times and booked materials. 

This button should be used with some caution, as finishing according to the plan is not always possible. 

Before you press it, make sure that you do not have any “Not booked” material lines, which you are not comfortable with. You should book all actually used parts before using this function.

Please check for any alerts in the MO notes, for example about materials that the system failed to consume.

If the manufacturing order was marked finished by error, for returning the order to production press the Return to production button at the bottom of the Manufacturing Order details page.

Note that this button is visible only to users with the “Lock handler” user right.

Suppose you need to reschedule an entire manufacturing order or an individual operation. 

First, you can do so by simply dragging and dropping it to a new date in the production schedule or the Gantt chart.

Furthermore, you can use the “Unscheduled Manufacturing Orders” functionality to remove MOs from the schedule and drop them back to reschedule them.

Or, lastly, you can manually reschedule individual operations by editing their planned times by opening the administrative view and editing the dates by hand.

Often, if you change the order of planned works, materials should also be reallocated.

With Tracing enabled, rebooking the materials is a task on its own.

To automatically rebook materials using the FIFO principle, so that earlier planned MOs get earlier materials, open the Production Schedule and use the “Rebook Parts for planned MOs” function. 

Otherwise, for example, if you have in-progress MOs, you should manually use the options on the MO details page to manage material bookings. 

However, with Tracing disabled, the reallocation of materials is performed fully automatically. If you change the order of manufacturing orders, the materials will be immediately reallocated, as these are always prioritized to MOs with the earliest start dates first.

There are several approaches for partially completing manufacturing, depending on the specific situation.

If you want to complete a manufacturing order in parts, for example, to start using the finished goods right away, you can enable the ‘MO partial completion’ setting. Then, all quantities reported finished in the last operation will be immediately taken into stock.

In other cases, for example in case of equipment failure or new rush orders, it may be worthwhile to finish the partly completed MO with a smaller quantity. And then create a new Manufacturing Order for the remainder.

When you update a bill of materials (BOM) or a routing, these changes are not automatically applied to existing manufacturing orders. 

After saving you will be shown the list of active manufacturing orders. The software can replan and reschedule any planned orders that have not yet started.

If an order is already in progress, you can only manually edit it.

In this video, we covered the most important parts of the production planning section – how to plan production, and how to manage your manufacturing orders.

Thank you for watching! For more in-depth guides on MRPeasy’s powerful production planning features, check out our other videos.

Read more about Production Planning.