How is a bill of manufacturing different than a bill of materials?
Unlike a bill of materials, which is limited to a listing of the components that comprise an item, the bill of manufacturing encompasses all manufacturing specifications, including revisions, the routing, components, and outputs.
It goes beyond components
There is much more to a bill of manufacturing than a list of components. Revisions provide engineering control and enable you to track specifications for current, pending, and past product versions. The routing lists all labor and subcontract service processes and associated details in sequential order and is the basis for product costing, work center scheduling, labor tracking, and job subcontracting. Multiple outputs accommodate byproducts and co-products and are ideal for disassembly and remanufacturing jobs.
Can be used with virtually any product
The bill of manufacturing fits almost any type of product, including standard items, subassemblies, batch type items, one-off custom items, byproducts, co-products, disassembled items, and remanufactured items. It accommodates ultra-simple single-level items on up to highly complex multi-level product structures.
Drives MRP and shop control
The bill of manufacturing provides all the specifications needed to drive MRP and shop control. MRP uses parent and component requirements to compare net demand with stock on hand to generate jobs and POs when needed. Routing cycle times are used to calculate item Job Days settings that determine job start and finish dates in the master schedule. Routings are the basis for job sequence scheduling within work centers out on the shop floor.
Enables total control over all manufacturing processes
When you operate solely with a bill of materials, you are using a “light manufacturing” system that is limited to inventory processes and forces you to use manual processes to run the shop. With a bill of manufacturing, however, you now have total control over all manufacturing processes, including job release, work center scheduling, job labor tracking, and subcontract service processing.
Provides instructions to the shop floor
The bill of manufacturing enables you to define detailed notes and task details within each labor sequence. This information prints on the shop traveler and provides process instructions out on the shop floor, which improve quality and reduce errors.
Makes you less reliant on key employees for process knowledge
When process knowledge primarily resides with key employees, you are vulnerable when the one person who knows how to perform a critical process happens to be sick or on vacation or leaves the company. Bills of manufacturing enable you to transfer all this knowledge to your database so that it is protected and can be accessed by anyone who needs it.
Helps with ISO-9000 and other documentation requirements
The bill of manufacturing provides extensive process documentation, augmented with the ability to attach documents to items for automatic linking to jobs, which can help you comply with ISO-9000 and other documentation requirements.
