Suggestion: Allow use of Inventory Kits with Production Orders

ideas
22

Hello guys this topic got me glued to my chair at least 20 minutes
reading and creating a scenario in my head for all of this.

after 2 cigarettes smoked looking the moon i got an conclusion

1- for inventory kits to be enabled in production orders @lubos must make some changes in the software
2- if Lubos can add inventory kits to production orders surely he can add an RECIPE somewere in the software
3 - if an recipe is implemented do anyone have need for inventory kits in production orders ? i think not
4- if the BOM is pre-specified can we add multiple items in one production orders ? Yes we can
5- does anyone need any enchantment from production orders that cant be fixed by implementing the recipe ? i have not seen any

  • end note why not grab a beer and enjoy until lubos decide what to do then we can bombard him with ideas
    cheers
23

This suggestion is simply for a method in which a predefined bill of materials (consisting of a list of existing inventory items and associated quantities) could be referenced as a shorthand in order to more easily specify the inputs to a production order. Nothing more, nothing less.

To be honest, I don’t fully comprehend @Brucanna’s objections to this idea, probably because of a misunderstanding on their part about what is actually being suggested. I think @Tut has done an admirable job clarifying the nature of this suggestion.

It doesn’t much matter what this mechanism is called, or whether it’s an extension of existing inventory kit functionality or something new that exists in parallel (eg. “recipe,” “bill of materials,” or “production kit”). It would simply provide a way of saving a commonly used BOM for use elsewhere within the application.

1 Like
24

Obviously true.

He already has. They are called inventory kits. The only question is what you are allowed to use them for. Right now, only for selling.

This is just about what you call them.

Not necessarily. That part of desired improvement is admittedly more difficult. Why? Because the current average cost of input inventory items in a production order is currently transferred 100% to the output inventory item. Multiple output items requires some form of cost apportionment. That might be simple, or it might be complex. But it does not currently exist, and there is no obvious way that it would commonly be done. A very simple example is sawing logs into boards. From one log, you obtain various sized boards. Perhaps you could apportion the cost of the input log based on volume of output boards; but that would at least necessitate geometric calculations. Accordingly, it might be seen as a simple advancement from producing X boards of the same size from one log, where you can simply calculate Cost / X. Now, imagine that you can make particle board from the sawdust, also. Things just got much more complex.

See above.

25

At the bottom line, you are right. That is all we are suggesting.

26

Tut, my concept of so called recipe is a prestored BOM, linked to 1 specific inventory item
example: 1 small board - 0.5 m3 logs
1 big board - 1m3 logs
Inventory kits dont appy for the simple reason

  • you have to choose them after you choose the item to produce
    -they are inventory kits the name explains it itself and they fulfill the needs they are designed to, the sell a group of inventory items all at once which is fine

Tut you are perfectly right but think about it what if the production form is implemented in the follows way:
we select the item to produce and quantity - item small board - qty 5
manager autofill BOM from the so called recipe which is a prestored BOM - 2.5m3 logs
so in the other row we select another item to produce
and manager again autofill BOM from the so called recipe
and so on
this is what i intended for multiple items, i see you thought about multiple items from 1 item

to simplify things : lets say you dont buy logs in m3 but as individual items 1 log 1 item
in this case is impossible to add a predefined bill of materials because logs are different one smaller one bigger you can produce 3 small bords from 1 log and 5 from another log
here the problem is not the recipe is the item (the log) because every log is a different item
the “recipe” is used for creation an item using a quantity of specific preselected items

the only solution i can think of for this log situation is:
you create a new item
“wood” - unit m3
you convert every log that you have cut using production orders in wood - m3
produce board items - using wood as used item (you can easily specify how much m3 is one board)
so you can use a “recipe” for this
with the qty that will advance from “wood” - m3 - produce sawdust ratio 1-1
from sawdust you can produce - another type of board if you want

the cost will transfer to every item you produce with little error margin
and tell the guys that make boards they own me a beer

however this discusion made me notice that there is some other thing that will be needed
produce in the same time 2 items from one item for example the waste
but this is more rarely used and we can use a workaround

27

My comment about recipes already being developed was intended to mean the processes have been developed. The question is what else they can be used for.

28

And that is exactly what the Ideas topic Production Orders - Enhancements has at the start:

A) Bill of Materials.
This will enable a “recipe” to be created for a single unit of output and then allow that “recipe” to be selected within the Production Order and be multiplied.

So this topic puts nothing new on the table, except that the “recipe” could come from Inventory Kits which would be an absolutely disastrous concept which will explained further later.

I don’t object nor have a misunderstanding of the concept as explained per the first quotation in this response. As the creator of the Production Orders - Enhancements topic I have a totally comprehensive understanding of the required improvements to Production Orders .

What I am fervently opposed to is that an Inventory Kit itself can create a Bill of Materials.

Within a manufacturing process there maybe intermediate stages which aren’t finished goods. If a user is given the illusion that Inventory Kits can equal BOM, then you have a disaster, especially as Inventory Kits don’t create Quantity on Hand balances.

So as the topic currently stands a User could potentially create Inventory Kit A and/or Inventory Kit B assuming that their attached BOM could be used to create those intermediate production orders - where in reality those inventory kits can’t create diddly twat.

This is the abuse and the kit on kit problems highlighted previously. Currently supporters of this topic are purely seeing Inventory Kits BOM and production orders being substitutes for each other, whereas the Inventory Kits BOM could advertently be created to generate non finished goods outputs.

To resolve this potential conflict of the Inventory Kit becoming the intermediate BOM I have already mentioned in post 18 of this topic: "The overall problem with this topic is two things

One - that the proposed processes are in reverse progression:
Inventory Kits are a final transaction - occurring only at the point of sale, whereas
Production Orders are an intermediate transaction - occurring prior to a sale (or as a point of sale).

Therefore, having a final transaction constructing an intermediate transaction is counter intuitive.

However if you take the initial suggestion and put it in a positive hierarchal progression you have:
“Allow use of Production Orders to create Inventory Kits”.

Furthermore in post 18 I gave an illustration how that functionality can operate.

Its not that this topic is wrong, it just that a) it’s already catered for in the ideas topic Production Orders - Enhancements under (A) and that point (G) has been added and b) it not seeing the ramifications of allowing Users to create Inventory kits which aren’t also finished goods.

Therefore for a second time I am removing this topic from the ideas category as the principal point of the topic is already being embraced elsewhere, but without the potential user conflicts.

And @Genti_Ge after a bottle of red, I agree whole heartedly:
3 - if a recipe is implemented does anyone have need for inventory kits in production orders ? I think not

1 Like
29

No, they could not. And this is what you apparently keep misunderstanding and misrepresenting. Whether used to sell groups of inventory items or list components for a production order, inventory kits, bills of material, or recipes (whatever they might be called) do not generate anything. They are just lists. And the only thing being suggested is that those lists could be used for more than one thing. When used, they would function exactly the same way, removing (not adding) items from inventory and transferring their costs elsewhere. In the case of a sale, the costs would be transferred to Inventory - cost. In the case of a production order, the costs would be transferred to the produced inventory item. Only a few lines of code would be necessary to test which type of transaction is involved and transfer costs accordingly.

This has been the core of your position and your apparent misunderstanding of the suggestion. Inventory kits do not presently create finished goods and would not if allowed to be used for production orders. Only the production order creates new goods.

30

No I don’t.

Yes they do, when used, they generate an outcome. If not, then why even create the “list” item.

Yes, but that is why I stated “If a user is given the illusion that [a created] Inventory Kit can equal [a Production Order] BOM, then you have a disaster”.

For example, a user creates these Inventory Kits as allowable under the more than one thing list.
Then the PO non saleable items become available under the Item column in the Sales Invoice.
Inventory kit 0000000%20Bug%202 Sales Invoice 0000000%20Bug%202a

Which is why I also stated “it not seeing the ramifications of allowing Users to create Inventory kits which aren’t also finished goods”. Inventory Kits which can’t be sold.

This is far to simplistic.
When ever a programme has a generalised multi purpose list, it has to have incorporated coded argument: is this list item allowable for a particular process, such as - is the item allowable for Sale Invoices.

Whereas, if a programme has segmented specific purpose list, such as Inventory Kit or BOM, then it only has to contend with the list that’s related to the process without the clutter of coded argument.

But presently, Inventory Kits create a combination of Inventory Items which can be sold, whereas this topic will inadvertently allow the user to create an Inventory Kit item which can’t be sold - unless it has significate programming conditioning argument.

Anyhow, as stated previous, with no improvements being implemented to the production orders process for several years now, this topic’s target of combination lists remains in dreamtime.

31

No, they definitely do note create an outcome. Kits create a shortcut that can be used. Rather than list a bunch of individual items on a sales invoice, you include the kit, which calls up all its constituent items. But you can create an inventory kit with no outcome whatsoever. Nothing moves, nothing is allocated, nothing happens—in other words, there is no outcome from creating the kit. The outcome results from the sales invoice. If kits can be used for other things, the outcome would result from the production order or whatever else they were allowed to be used for.

Your example assumes all kits would be shown in all contexts. If a kit were designated as being for production orders only, it would not show up when selecting items on a sales invoice. Just as elsewhere in the program, lists would be context-dependent.

Yes, and that is exactly what the program does now in situations such as non-inventory items. You designate whether the item can be purchased and/or sold. It then appears in the appropriate lists. This is trivial coding.

32

any news!

1 Like
33

No. Any implementation will be announced on this thread.

34

Hello all…

Interesting discussion over there.
What lead me to this thread was the “Standard Bill of Materials” I was looking for in Manager.io.
In all my previous employments, there is items that have standardized components no matter what.
So for each production order, I needed to specify which production items are to be manufactured, expecting the software to prompt me to chose a standard bill of materials that I already saved for each composed item, with option to add or substract components from that bill of materials, to account for customized items.
I assumed I’d find a tab of the software, labeled “Standard BOM” for example, to feed those Standard BOMs to the software…
Reading the posts above, it appeared to me as if the post was initiated with the perception that the “inventory kit” is also a “standard bill of materials”, while the actual use for it is: “a bundle of sales inventory items”. This lead to the idea of making production orders using inventory kits.
That was interesting for me since recently I was transitioning from a job in a manufacturing industry to another in the Food and Beverage sector, being a chain of restaurants.
In the restaurants chain, the POS sales module operates in conjunction with the production module in reverse order of other manufacturing industries:
Any sales from the POS, triggers a sales invoices, and also triggers automatically a production order, that automatically executes for the items sold a production operation, substracting from inventory all raw materials that are saved in a “Standard Recipe” for each sales item, the F&B term for “Standard Bill of Materials”, adding to the finished products inventory and then substracting these finished products again by the sales invoice, and throwing COGS and revenues JV entries.
While in my previous manufacturing job, that was a tailoring business, a production order was put first in the system for the items to be produced, using the bill of materials to substract from raw materials inventory and add to the finished products inventory quantities once the order is finished… After that when the sales happens and delivery of sold products happen: the delivery substracts from the finished products inventory quantities as sold items, while the sales invoice throws COGS, Revenues, and Aging Payables journal entries.
Perhaps the “Standard Bill of Materials” for any item, was it salable or not is already there in the software but I couldn’t find it yet since I am new to the software… It is needed in both cases mentioned above… I’d be grateful for any assistance.

1 Like
35

You can start by reading the old guides here.
Not everything applies anymore, but are a lot more helpful then the new guides.