Production planning report

Production planning is a great functionality if your company is producing items, such as furniture, cosmetics, alcohol etc. or something with a recipe.

To start production planning, you need to have an Inventory module where you can learn more about the production planning report and integration with ERPLY POS & Inventory. Read here about how to start integration.

You need to create projects and project groups if you haven’t done it already or you are starting from the beginning.

 

Adding an inventory module

To add an inventory module, you need to add a global (search “Global Parameter” on dashboard):

  • Name: GLOBAL_SHOW_INVENTORY_MENU

Save the global and refresh the page. When page is refreshed, you will see that a new module called “INVENTORY” has been added at the top.

Adding a project dimension field

A project dimension field can be added under configuration (“Settings” -> “Configuration”) by looking up the rule “Location project group”. Then, select what project group you want to connect.

Save your changes and refresh the page. Then you will see a field called “Project” in the production planning report. 

 

Adding a product in ERPLY and synchronization with ERPLY Books

To make product planning work, you need to add products to the warehouse (ERPLY) and then synchronize them with ERPLY Books. 

Read here about how to add products in ERPLY. You can find all information about how to use ERPLY POS & Inventory here. 

When you are adding a product in ERPLY, don’t forget to add the recipe and set the type as “Assembly”.

Having an assembly product means that it is produced from different items and it has a recipe inside the recipe.

To synchronize products from ERPLY to ERPLY Books, you need to add a global (find “Global Parameters” on the dashboard):

  • Name: ATTRIBUTE_ERPLY_SYNC_GET_ALL_PRODUCTS
  • Value: true

When the products are synchronized, you can find them in “Sales”/”Purchases” -> “Purchase and Sales Articles”. 

Production rules

First, you need to add production rules. To add them, search “Production rules” on the dashboard. 

Then, a module will open where you can add them. If you haven’t done anything yet, then the module will be empty:

  • Article: name of the product
  • Alignment: the order in which the product is made (what the process is)
  • Hour: how many hours it will take to make the product
  • Project: name of the machine, can be manual labor
  • Name: description of what will be done

The system is set up in such a way that you cannot go to the third process before the second one is done and you cannot go to fourth until the third one is done (Alignment).

If one machine (Project) is in use, then you cannot use it to produce the next product. This means that if you select one machine to produce multiple products, then you have to wait for the machine to finish with the first batch of products. The machine can be manual labor too.

As an example, let’s produce wine glasses. In this example, you need to add all processes which are completed during wine glass production.

When all steps in the process have been added, save your changes.

Production goals

To open this module, write “Production goals” in the dashboard search grid. If you haven’t done anything yet, then the module will be empty:

Here you can add general information about the product, such as:

  • Article: name of the product
  • Qty: batch – a quantity produced in one go 
  • From: date when the production will start
  • To: date when the production should be finished

Here you need to add what product you are producing. You can find more details about production under “Production rules”.

When all things have been added, save your changes.

Production planning report

NB! If you don’t have integration with ERPLY POS & Inventory, then you will receive an error message when you try to press “Search”. 

You can open the Production planning report when you go to “Inventory” -> “Production planning report”. If you haven’t done anything yet, then the module will be empty or when you open it, you will see:

Here you can set dates, the project, working hours and if you want to find something specific, then you can do it under “Add filter”. 

NB! Before searching, you have to enter the same dates as in “Production goals”; otherwise it will display an error message.

  • Hour: every hour of the day (if you don’t choose anything from the “From (Hour)” and “To (Hour)” fields)
  • Date: date of the month
  • Products under dev: here the name (Article) of the product and its description (Name) will appear
  • Machines: which machine is in use at that time
  • Machines (Pending): here you will see machines’ names which are waiting to make another product (if the company has multiple on-going productions at the same time and are using the same machine for other products as well)
  • Finished products: finished products will appear here 
  • Used components: used products from the ERPLY back office will appear here. In ERPLY, you will see them under “Recipe” after you open the product.

When all rules have been set, this module will look as follows:

As you can see, everything you added under the rules is visible here. In the first row, you can see that we are using a “Raw Material Preparation” machine. If you have a second product and you need to use the same machine for that, then you cannot use this machine for the second item because it’s already in use for the selected number of hours needed to produce the first product. 

When something is finished, then we add here “Finished Product”. Then, the system takes the recipes from the ERPLY back office automatically and all the ingredients are added to “Used components” so that the user can see them. 

Under “Finished products” you will see the product name, its code and qty (batch). Under “Used components” you will see the code of the ingredients in the recipe (if you don’t have names for them, otherwise you will see the names) and balance of the ingredients.

If you’re using the production feature correctly, then you have the recipes connected to the items. If you see negative numbers (in red) under “Used components”, it means that the product is going out of the inventory. When the balance number is marked in green, it means that the product is not going out of the inventory and it shows how many products remain.