Manufacturing and MRP

Manufacturers looking to enhance customer service and raise production efficiency need software to do more than track work orders. Modern systems integrate manufacturing with commercial operations from quotation and sales through to dispatch and delivery to bring clarity and efficiency across the enterprise.

Solarsoft’s fully featured manufacturing software is optimized to meet the needs of medium sized businesses in discrete and process-based industries.  We support the specialist requirements of a wide range of  producers (see side bar).

With built-in support for shop floor data collection (SFDC) and full supply chain integration, Solarsoft gives manufacturers confidence in their ability to achieve the highest levels of performance and control.

Production Management and MRP

Production management is the heart of our manufacturing systems and is always fully integrated with enterprise operations from quotation and sales to purchasing, inventory management and fulfillment.  However, production management may be more or less “computerized” according to individual company needs. 

In smaller businesses employing highly skilled production managers the level of data collection required for automated production planning may not be warranted.  For these, Solarsoft will recommend a “light touch” approach based on the recording of finished goods output with materials consumption derived from production (by “back flushing”).

By contrast, in complex or volume production operations, the software may be fully embedded within the planning and manufacturing process.  A master production schedule feeding the Material Requirements Planning (MRP and MRP II) software will generate recommended purchase orders and inventory movements to support work orders and shop floor routing also generated by the software.

In other industries, production will be driven directly by demand.  In the automotive supply chain, just-in-time delivery is co-ordinated through electronic orders and “Kanban” cards.

Solarsoft system fits your business, our software will help you balance demand against available capacity to arrive at plant and production schedules that are cost-effective and realistic.  Common features across all Solarsoft for Manufacturing systems include:
Multi-plant scheduling

• Multiple capacity plans with drill down from plants and cost-centres to individual machines and operators
• Drag and drop control over production schedules with graphical presentation of current and planned production
• Rough-cut plant scheduling through to automated Materials Requirement Planning (MRP – see diagram)
• Infinite and finite capacity planning (MRP II) with Available to Promise calculations (ATP)
• Work orders and inventory movements

Materials Requirement Planning (MRP)

Bill of Materials (BOM) and Formula Management

Effective production management depends on complete and up to date product and process definitions.  Solarsoft ERP systems provide a full range of item, process and routing management capabilities to support discrete and process manufacturing environments, all with rich graphical user input screens and interfaces available to external CAD/CAM applications.

Depending on your type of business, you may define the bill of materials (BOM) and then add the process definition, or, you may start with an integrated process model and add materials requirements.  Either way, multi-stage process definitions allow accurate planning of material requirements, supporting more efficient scheduling of line-side call-offs and more accurate accounting for work in progress.

Solarsoft materials definitions support:

• Multiple methods of manufacture and flexible BOM configurations
• Products, co-products, by-products, waste, intermediates, materials and components including “phantom” parts
• Dimensional variables with flexible units of measure and conversion and correction factors
• Multiple barcode identifiers ANA and ITF14 and RFID coding
• Full version control and engineering change management to support the controlled introduction of new and revised products.
• Materials and specification tracking with QA documentation online

Process definitions give you the power to define how items are made and which resources (machines, skills, materials, utilities etc.) are used in their manufacture. Depending on the mode of production, process definitions include:

• Process inputs, outputs and run rates for resources: materials, catalysts, energy, plant and labour with multiple costing models for usage and overheads
• Serial, parallel, or overlapping process stages with intermediate products
• Tooling and machine set points
• Quality specifications and procedures required at each stage for inputs and outputs
• Batch sizes, costs, production rates and methods vary by plant or facility

Additional specialist features are included in our industry specific overlays.

Project Planning

Project definition, costing and tracking features are available for industries working on a project basis.  Our project management software supports nested activities, project milestones, task duration and resource assignments.

Timesheet and expense booking is available to run alongside tangible production recording.

Comprehensive tracking and reporting tools support target-to-complete, % complete and cost roll-up and progress reporting.

Shop Floor Data Collection (SFDC)

Consistent with our vision that ERP is not just for the back office, Solarsoft manufacturing systems include comprehensive support for shop floor integration:

• Touch screen shop floor data collection for production reporting
• Real-time production monitoring systems (see MES pages for more)
• Integrated barcode labeling and support for wireless readers

Shop floor systems yield significant benefits in data quality and operator efficiency in batch and serial controlled operations.

E-commerce and Supply Chain Integration

Solarsoft has deep experience in the automotive supply chain which pioneered traditional EDI messaging and which is built in to our manufacturing software. What’s more, our open services architecture supports modern XML based web services for lower cost and maximum flexibility.

Our manufacturing software can be set up to automate a wide range of supply chain operations.  See the E-commerce pages for details.