Making It Happen
Accounting and Information Technology Assistance and Support
Simple Low Cost Manufacturing for Sage 50

This solution uses purchase orders as works orders and suppliers each representing the different manufacturing lines, for subcontract processes you can use the actual supplier.

The method is simple.

You place a purchase order with a supplier/ this would be yourself if manufacturing internally, the purchase order becomes the job card.  This can be automated by using our purchase ordering system, to raise purchase orders based on sales orders and/or stock requirements.

Form a day to day operational point of view, the manufacturing planner would have a filtered view of purchase ordering to just show the items to manufacture. Each purchase order can be printed off, you can use a modified layout to make your own custom job cards/work sheets.  When the goods are complete you deliver goods into stock. 

At this moment, sage will have the items in stock, but it will also still have the raw materials, and the cost on the finish goods will be incorrect.

This is when you run the MiniMan process it identifies unprocessed GI (Goods In) transactions associated with Manufacturing orders, it generates a list of all the BOM (Bill of Materials) items needed it adjusts those items out of stock creating MI (Manufacturing Out) transactions and then alters the GI (Goods In) transaction to be a MI (Manufacturing In) transaction and replace the cost price with the actual cost (derived from the sum of the BOM components used).

Sandwich Example:

We need a Cheese and Pickle Sandwich to be made.

We place an order with our supplier "Kitchen" for the sandwich.

When the sandwich is delivered from the kitchen into stock, the process will

Take out of stock 2 slices of bread, 5 grams of butter and 10 grams of pickle, (These are defined in the BOM of the sandwich product) it will add up the cost of the raw materials and alter the existing GI (Goods In) transaction for the Sandwich to be a MI (Manufacturing In) transaction with the cost of the sum of the component parts.

The system can be altered to your needs, so 

• We could define which suppliers are manufacturers based on different criteria.  
• We could add the cost of the BOM items onto the cost on the Purchase order rather than replacing it, this may be useful with subcontractors who are paid variable rates for their work.
• We could take the BOM items out of stock when the purchase order is approved and move them into temporary part numbers representing stock in manufacturing.
• We could create temporary part numbers as required and remove them after use.

You can include "intangible" products in the BOM such a labour and tooling to add on costs.

This is by no means a fully fledged MRP system, however, it is probably enough for small manufacturers and companies using sub contract manufacturing. 

Please call for a costing for your implementation.