Production Management Walkthrough
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Introduction
This page explains the Production Management features of WebSBA. It is intended for advanced users and assumes the reader is familiar with the basic features of WebSBA.

About Bills of Material
A Bill of Material (BOM) enables you to design, plan, and build product assemblies. If your business does not manufacture or assemble products before selling them, then you have little need for this WebSBA feature.

Creating the Components of an Assembly
Assemblies are products that contain other products, referred to as components and sub-assemblies. These components of the assembly must be created first.

  1. From the Main Menu, click Create New Products under the Products heading.
  2. Enter a Product ID, Product Name, Type (C - Component), and Unit Price.
  3. Click Save Product.
  4. You will receive confirmation that your new product has been created.

Creating an Assembly
An assembly is created just like a component except it has a different Type value which allows it to have a bill of material.

There are two types of assemblies: Sub-Assemblies which are used inside other assemblies, and Finished Products which are never used within other assemblies.  To create a sub-assembly, select its Type as "A - Assembly." To create a finished product, select its Type as "F - Finished."

  1. From the Main Menu, click Create New Products under the Products heading.
  2. Enter a Product ID, Product Name, Type (Assembly or Finished), and Unit Price.
  3. Click Save Product.
  4. You will receive confirmation that your new assembly has been created.

Defining a Bill of Material (BOM)
After you have created component and assembly records, you can use them to define BOMs.

  1. From the Main Menu, click Define/Edit Bill of Material under the Production Management module.
  2. Click Search to display a listing of all your assembly products.
  3. Select an assembly and click Define / Edit.
  4. If this is a new assembly, it will be empty.
  5. Click Search to display a listing of all your products.
  6. Select a component or sub-assembly to add to the bill of material and click Add Component.
  7. The selected product should now be listed in the bill of material.
  8. After adding or changing components as needed, click Save Changes to store the updated BOM.
  9. You will be shown an "explosion" of the BOM detailing its contents.

Viewing a Bill of Material
Quite often, you may need to view or print an assembly's bill of material. WebSBA provides a powerful feature to display this called an "explosion." An explosion shows not only the immediate components of an assembly, but also the components within sub-assemblies.

  1. From the Main Menu, click View/Print Bill of Material under the Production Management module.
  2. Click Search to display a listing of all your assembly products.
  3. Select the assembly to display and click Select Assembly.
  4. Check the totals you want to include. This allows you to selectively include the price and cost columns in the explosion.
  5. Click View Bill of Material.

Rolling-Up an Assembly's Totals
The totals displayed in a bill of material explosion are not necessarily the recorded price and cost of the assembly. The Rollup feature allows you to update the assembly's record with the totals calculated during an explosion.

  1. From the Main Menu, click Rollup BOM Cost/Price under the Production Management heading.
  2. Click Search to display a listing of all your assembly products.
  3. Select the assembly to build and click Select Assembly.
  4. Check the total(s) you want to rollup and click Rollup Total(s).

Building an Assembly
While it is possible to do, you generally do not purchase assemblies as you do components. Instead, you build, or "assemble" them from components using the bill of material as a type of "recipe." When an assembly is built, the needed components are removed from inventory and converted into the appropriate number of assemblies.

  1. From the Main Menu, click Quick Build under the Production Management heading.
  2. Click Search to display a listing of all your assembly products.
  3. Select the assembly to build and click Select Assembly.
  4. Enter the number of units you want to build and click Quick Build Units.
  5. If the assembly has a bill of material, the needed components will be removed from inventory and converted into the specified number of assemblies.

Finding a Component's Uses
To locate the assemblies which use a certain component, WebSBA provides a Where Used tool.

  1. From the Main Menu, click Where Used under the Production Management heading.
  2. Click Search to display a listing of all your assembly products.
  3. Select the assembly to build and click Find Product.

Forecasting Component Needs
To help calculate and plan future component requirements and ordering, WebSBA provides an Inventory Ordering (MRP) tool. All that is required is to provide your expected assembly sales over several periods and WebSBA will calculate which components you will need, how many you will need, and when you will need to purchase them.

  1. From the Main Menu, click Inventory Ordering (MRP) under the Production Management heading.
  2. Select a product from the drop-down menu and enter your expected requirement for up to twelve periods.
  3. Click Add Item and repeat for each item to include in the report.
  4. Click Explode to generate the MRP report.

Summary
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