Re: Input for BPCS Manufacturing Module

Start with the on-line documentation.  Poorly organized & poorly indexed, it 
does have several key pieces of information you need to know.

One is that to implement a particular module, you have to do other particular 
modules as prerequisites, so now you have a high level flow chart of what 
overall steps are needed.

Similarly is a sequence of populating files.

For example MBM has Bill of Materials - parent items use how many child 
items, but before tacking that you gotta populate your IIM - Item Master File.

There are also some diagrams of different kinds of manufacturing models - 
which model are you - this serves as an additional guide how to make the 
whole thing work.

We are on 405 CD with an almost closed loop.  Our business is extremely 
volatile with many customers on JIT in which when they say jump, we had 
better deliver in 7 days or a competitor will get the business.

The Customer Orders drive the Material Requirements Planning which uses the 
Bill of Materials & from this we launch Factory Orders that reprint our 
Routings (FRT file data copied to FOD for each particular shop order) with 
additional description notes spelling out step by step how to manufacture the 
parts.  The MRP also tells the Purchasing Department what items to order on 
what schedule to make the shop orders & as the inventory is used & consumed 
there are transactions tracking the whole thing.  We also have re-supply 
orders since we have more than one factory & there are parts we make in-house 
that are used at all the factories.

We do have some summary reports driven off the customer orders & on-hand 
inventory that ignore the MRP reality.

What makes sense for you depends on the complexity of the parts you are 
making.

If you are on AS/400 & the system you are now using that you want to copy the 
data from is also on AS/400, may I suggest you look at the software product 
FILE TRACK http://www.outlookcomputing.com which we used in our BPCS 
conversion.  It permits you to play jig saw puzzle ... move this field from 
this file to that file, change this field structure based on current 
contents, logic based on contents of several related files to build 
replacement fields.  Not only can it handle incredibly complicated logic, you 
can have non-technical people keying in some of the specifications if you are 
in a time crunch needing technical people very focused.

> From: atohkvc@netvigator.com (Victor Chan)
>  
>  We are in BPCS version 6.0.02 Cum Mar98 C/S, and we use only the Accounts 
> and Order Processing modules.
>   
>  Current Operation
>    1.. We capture the Sales, Stock, Purchase information from BPCS, after 
> going thru our own Inventory Management System, we generate the listing for 
> products required to be produced by our plant monthly (this listing has the 
> item code and quantity required for each product to be produced). 
>    2.. With refer to this list, our plant will use their own Manufacturing 
> System to produce accordingly.
>  
>  What We Want
>  
>  If we want to keep the Step 1 (i.e. generating the product request listing 
> by ourselves) and switch to use BPCS's Manufacturing Modules for Step 2, 
> which area you think we have to pay more attention to ?
>  
>  In other words, can we upload our list of "Product Request for Production" 
> to BPCS's manufacturing modules ?  Which table(s) are used to store the 
item 
> code and quantity required for each product to be produced ?
>  
>  Thanks in advance for your advice.
>  
>  Best Regards,
>  
>  Victor
>  Atofina Hong Kong

Al Macintyre  ©¿©
MIS Manager Green Screen Programmer & Computer Janitor of BPCS 405 CD Rel-02 
running on AS/400 V4R3 http://www.cen-elec.com Central Industries of 
Indiana--->Quality manufacturer of wire harnesses and electrical 
sub-assemblies
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