Day 2: More MRP System Training
I have had some thoughts on the MRS module overnight. My realisation is that with its current feature set it is really only applicable for fairly
A couple of features I think should be added:
Ability to select a finished product and the system will automatically load all associated componentry down to n levels. Then allow the user to enter the required quantity of the finished item and the system calculate shortfalls and raise PO's or SO's.
Ability to save "sets" of products to be used in forecasting - the current method of manually adding and removing products would be
unuseable if 100's of components were involved.Ability to do live forecasts based on current PO's, SO's and MO's.
Ability to import forecasted quantities.
So on to day 2....
Machine/Equipment maintenance was the first topic covered. This module is an enhancement of the community module "IT assets" in V9. It now has specific features required for an MRP environment including:
- Machines can be categorised for viewing and grouping
- Maintenance teams assigned to a machine
- Maintenance requests of two types - Preventative and Corrective. Preventative requests are cyclical and can be triggered via a
Maintenance requests can go through several user defined stages and the system keeps track of such KPI's as:
"Mean time between failures" - (time between first and last maintenance request/(total requests -1))
"Mean time to repair" - mean time between close date (stage
done ) and creation date
Unfortunately, there is only one maintenance request that can be assigned to a machine and even that does not have a description. In
There is no link to assets from a machine and no way to record maintenance costs. There is the possibility to use the repair module but this does not have a link to assets either. So this module adequately fills the operational needs of a maintenance department but falls short of a complete solution as there is no integration to the asset module and depreciation etc. Conceivably analytic accounts could be created to keep track of machine costs,
Lots and serial numbers are handled well but can inevitably complicate the workflow, e.g. if a single MO produces multiple finished products requiring a serial number and consumes components requiring lots then only one of the finished items can be created at a time at an individual work centre. The last sentence may need to be read twice and this in itself indicates that this workflow can potentially require multiple user interventions! A smart implementation of barcoding would make such a complex workflow feasible. Initially the system seems unintuitive as it requests finished product serial/lot numbers at each work centre,
When it comes to product traceability, I have always been a little confused by the terminology "upstream" and "downstream". To remember the "upstream" direction the presenter (Jos) uses an image of a fish swimming upstream to its source - i.e. from the customer to the supplier, and visa-
Quick note: component attachments are now directly available
Units of measure are now available at the finish item level and on the components - so you can define a BoM for an item by say the Kilo rather than the
OK now for some bad news - BoM parameters are GONE in V10. You may not have used this feature at all but it allowed you to do fairly rudimentary product configuration whilst entering a Sales Order by entering parameters against a BoM component. The parameters are then prompted for when entering a Sales Order and only components with matching parameters are selected when generating the manufacturing BoM. This feature was used heavily in the OCA (Odoo Community Association) product configurator.
On the plus
As in V9, variant attribute values can be placed against BoM components to select the correct variant to be used in a MO based on the product variant selected to be manufactured. However, this does not really give the same flexibility for configuring BoM's based on parameters.
I hope all the above makes sense. Possibly if you have not used parameters for product configuration before it may seem a little esoteric, but it will mean some rethinking of custom configurator models built using this feature.
There is now a complete log of all costs used in a manufacturing order and a nicely formatted report is created. The final cost of the manufactured item is then used to update the cost of stock as the product is completed using the costing method chosen on the product (standard, average or real). When I tested this it appeared to have a bug which Jos ensured me would be fixed quickly.
Another nice feature is the ability to create "Unbuild" orders that are like manufacturing orders in reverse and which therefore naturally include lot traceability etc.
I did not have time to test all the financial and accounting implications of moving components into WIP and finished goods out of
So what are my final thoughts on the new MRP modules? Broadly speaking they have done a good job on the operational aspects of MRP from planning and tracking orders and through the manufacturing workflow. The integration with quality control, PLM and machine maintenance is truly impressive. The Master Production Schedule is definitely a work in progress and I believe will require changes before being used in live production environments.
Full MRP II implementations are extremely
--Jon Wilson 2016.10.05