SytelineMaster

If the actual work on an operation is performed at a location other than your shop floor, you must perform special steps to capture the status of the operation for accurate planning, scheduling, and costing. If you do not represent and manage an outside operation properly, the effects can ripple down through subsequent processes, resulting in an over-conservative plan and schedule.

To capture outside operation status, you can:

·         Post time or quantity remaining on the operation (the Operation Scheduling parameter on Shop Floor Control Parameters determines whether hours or pieces remaining are posted). You must specify the operation’s work center as "Outside" on the Scheduling tab on the Work Centers form. Use this method only if you have accurate status information for the outside operation.

·      Cross reference the outside operation to one or more purchase order line items. Time remaining on the operation is calculated using the purchase order line item due dates.

Because you may not necessarily have accurate information to post time or quantity remaining for an outside operation, we recommend you model outside operations using the cross-referenced purchase order method (although you can use that method and also post time or quantity to the operation if you have the status information).

This help topic describes how to set up the cross-referenced purchase order method.

Setting Up the Outside Operation

In summary, to set up the outside operation, you must create a purchased material and issue it to the operation. Follow these steps:

1.    On the Scheduling Shifts form, create a scheduling shift consisting of one shift interval that starts on Sunday at 00:00 hours and ends Saturday at 24:00 hours (7 days x 24 hours). You will be using an infinite resource group to represent this process. Therefore, you need a 24×7 shift to ensure that the planning and scheduling programs process the infinite resource consistently (scheduling ignores the shift and considers the resource always infinite, while MRP and APS consider the resource infinite only while on-shift).

2.    On the Resources form, follow these steps:

1.    Create a new resource for the outside operation.

2.    On the General tab, you can accept the default values for the fields.

3.    Select the Shifts tab. In the ShiftID#1 field, select your 24×7 scheduling shift.

3.    On the Resource Groups form, follow these steps:

1.    Create a new resource group.

2.    In the Infinite Capacity After field, enter 0. This sets the resource to infinite capacity for planning purposes. If your Planning Mode is set to MRP, you can skip this step.

3.    Select the Infinite field to set the resource to infinite capacity for scheduling purposes.

4.    Select the Resources tab. Add your outside resource as a member of the group.

4.    On the Work Centers form, follow these steps:

1.    Create a work center to use for outside operations. You can use the same work center for more than one outside operation.

2.    On the Scheduling tab, select the Outside field. Defining the work center as Outside signals the planning and scheduling processes to perform special calculations so you don’t have to enter the time the parts have been away from the shop. The Outside work center also captures the cost in the "Outside" GL account you set up on the Product Codes form.

3.    Select the Resource Groups tab. Add the infinite resource group you created earlier in this procedure.

5.    On the Job Operations form, follow these steps:

1.    In the WC field, select your outside work center.

2.    In the Fixed Schedule Hours field (if you are using fixed schedule hours) or the appropriate hours per piece/pieces per hour field, enter the number of hours that corresponds to the normal lead time for this outside operation.

3.       NOTE: Regardless of whether you specify Fixed Schedule Hours, the system temporarily switches the operation to fixed schedule hours during the planning or scheduling run.

4.    Select the Resources tab and verify that your infinite resource group is displayed. If it is not, select it now.

5.    Select the Costs tab and enter 0 in all the costing rate fields. The material you issue to the operation will capture the cost of the outside operation.

6.    On the Items form, follow these steps:

1.    Create an item to represent the item your outside operation will be providing.

2.    In the Source field, select Purchased. This allows you to cross reference the material on the bill of material to a PO.

3.    In the Type field, select Other. This Type code prevents the system from creating planned orders for this item (instead, you will use the cross-reference feature).

4.    Consider how to track cost for this purchased item. To apply the cost of the outside operation only to this order, set the Cost Type to Actual, set the Cost Method to Specific, and select the Lot Trackedfield.

7.    On the Job Materials form, follow these steps:

1.    Find the job and your outside operation.

2.    Add a material record for the outside operation item.

3.    In the Quantity field, enter 1.

4.    Select the Lot field (so the quantity is 1 per lot).

Processing the Outside Operation

After setting up the outside operation, follow these steps to process it.

1.    On the Unposted Job Transactions form, enter a transaction to move the WIP from the previous operation to the outside operation.

2.    Use the Post Job Transactions form to post the transaction.

3.    On the Job Operations form, make sure all operations previous to the outside operation are marked as Complete.

4.    Create a cross-referenced purchase order line item. We recommend you do this as soon as you start the operation. Follow these steps:

1.    Open the Job Materials form.

2.    Find your outside material record.

3.    Select the Xref tab.

4.    In the Ref field, select Purchase Order.

5.    Click the X-Ref button to create the cross reference.

6.    Click the X-Ref button again to display the Purchase Order Lines form.

7.    On the General tab, set the Due Date of the cross-referenced PO line item to the date you expect to receive the outside materials from the vendor.

8.    Select the Costs tab. Specify the correct cost on the purchase order.

5.    Physically send the purchase order and materials to your vendor.

6.    Adjust the PO line item due date as necessary.

Receiving the Outside Materials

1.    Use the Purchase Order Receiving form to receive the outside materials from the vendor.

2.    The receipt transaction automatically opens the Job Material Transactions form. On this form, issue the materials to the job.

3.    After you issue the materials, the Post Job WIP Move Transactions form opens automatically. On this form, record this operation complete and move the materials to the next operation.

How SyteLine Calculates Outside Operation Duration

NOTE: If you are not using the cross-referenced purchase order method, and are posting time on the operation, the system plans the outside operation Run Duration normally (based on posted time/quantity).

The system considers the due date of the outside operation’s cross-referenced PO line item when it calculates the operation duration. Basically, the system may reduce or extend the outside operation’s duration, provided the operation is the first open (that is, not posted Complete) operation in the routing.

• If all of an outside operation’s cross-referenced PO lines are Complete or Filled, the system sets the Run Duration, Move, Queue, and Finish fields to 0.

• If any PO line has a status of Ordered, and the operation has been started (that is, operation quantity received is greater than 0), the system adjusts the Run Duration as shown in the table below.

If…

SyteLine sets the Run Duration to

This Operation is the first open operation in the routing.

OR

The normal Run Duration value (based on posted time/qty) is greater than the Due Date/time of the latest cross-referenced PO line item – Current Time.

Due Date/time of the latest cross-referenced PO line item – Current Time. The Move, Queue, and Finish hours fields are set to 0.

If the adjusted duration is less than 0, the system sets the operation’s Run Duration to 0.

NOTE: The time value on the Due Date comes from the Supply Time field on the Planning Parameters form.

There are operations previous to this one that are not posted Complete.

Set the Run Duration to the earlier of (1) the normal Run Duration based on posted time/qty or (2) the Due Date/time of the latest cross-referenced PO line item – Current Time.

The typical procedure used for dealing with outside processing is the following:

1) Configure an operation in the job routing as a outside operation.

This is done by specifying a work center which is flagged as an outside work center on the Work Center Scheduling screen. The operation will normally not have any values in the Move, Queue, Setup, Labor Hrs/Pc or Machine Hrs/Pc fields since there is no internal labor or machine cost for an outside operation. The duration of the outside operation is usually entered into the Fixed Sched Hrs field so that the scheduling routine schedules the appropriate amount of time for the operation.

2) Add a material which represents the service.

Add material to the operation with a part number which represents the service being provided by the vendor. The should be a Type (O)ther material and may or may not be in the item master. Set the Ref to "P". The material can be set up as per (L)ot with a Cost for the entire lot or as per (U)nit with a per unit cost for the service.

3) Cross reference the material to a purchase order.

Select Edit/Xref from the job material screen to create a purchase order which will then be linked to the material. The item number, description, quantity ordered, and cost will all be set based on how you set up the material. If the item is in the item master and you have set up and item/vendor cross reference record for the item, the number one ranked vendor will be assigned to the purchase order. Otherwise, you would need to specify the vendor on the PO.

4) Process the internal operations leading up to the outside operations and then send the parts to the vendor.

5) Enter a PO receiving transaction for the service.

When the parts come back from the vendor, you should process a PO receipt. When you do so, the system will see that the PO line item is tied to a job material and will, when the PO receipt is finished, take to the job material issue screen so you can issue the service to the job. You will then be taken to a third "Job WIP Move" window from which you can move the pieces on to the next internal operation in the job’s routing.

6) Process the remaining internal operations and move the parent item into inventory.

At that point you have completed the process. The value of the service will be posted into the WIP Outside cost bucket on the job and will appear on all of the job costing reports as outside cost. Any type (O)ther material tied to an outside operation is considered outside cost. If the Type is (M)aterial for this item, its cost will be considered material cost on the job rather than outside cost.