Jacopo,
Thanks for heads up on the WIP! Invaluable advice.
So you're saying that Task Runs (PROD_ORDER_TASK) can never produce anything by themselves (inside
context of a Production Run PROD_ORDER_HEADER)? Then what does the "Deliverable Products" tab in
"Edit Routing Task" function do?
Seems like the Manufacturing module is choke full of skeletal half-implemented concepts. Maybe we
should:
1. Round off all half-implemented concepts so newcomers don't have so many red
herrings to deal with.
2. Document all fully-implemented concepts so newcomers know that undocumented
concepts are either not there or not fully there.
What do you think?
I'm willing to help, as long as you continue to give me such invaluable pointers! I know you must
have forgotten many of the functionalities you coded. But as long as you point me the way, I can
take apart OFBiz quickly to document it. Deal?
Do note that I'm not exactly your average newcomer, so you don't have to expand on everything you
say. Just an idea will do. Like how Scott Gray pointed "Manufacturing Rules" and I kinda
documented on ML about your "Virtual BOMs" doing away with need for man extraneous "Manufacturing
Rules".
Please help. And thanks for all the help so far, and all you've done for
Manufacturing module!
Jonathon
Jacopo Cappellato wrote:
Jonhaton,
...
Given the above, I'm also prompted to ask the community if it is
possible to have a Routing Task produce a product/component? Or are
Production Runs the only way to produce anything at all? If that's the
case, we'll have to have a very nested tree of Production Runs just to
produce something as complicated as a bicycle with many
subassemblies/components.
I suspect a Task Run can produce subassemblies/components. Can
somebody confirm this?
if the subassemblies that are produced will never go into warehouse, and
will be consumed by the production run itself, then you should define
them as WIP (Work In Process) products: there is a service available
(sorry I don't remember its name) that given a finished product (or a
sales order item, or a shipment plan [*]) that will create one
production run for each of the WIP subassemblies and one production run
for the finished product all linked together (so that the production run
for the finished product product can only start after the lower level
ones are completed).
I don't have time to explain more about this shipment plan process (but
you'll find old posts about this in the archieves) but the basic idea is
that:
1) you enter some sales order (items) for products that need manufacturing
2) you create an empty shipment, then assign to it, using the "shipment
plan" panel in the shipment pages, the order items to it (that need
manufacturing): the shipment plan (and its estimated shipment date)
represents the goal that the manufacturing facility should fulfill; the
approved (I don't remember exactly the status, verify this) shipment
plans are shown in the Manufacturing-> shipment plan screen and from
there you can (with one click) create all the required production run
for the finished products (and all the production runs for the wips
attached to them, if any)
At least one of our customers is using this stuff, and they are using
some customized reports to verify materials availability (they were not
interested in workcenter scheduling)
search in the archives about these terms for example enter this text in
the google search input box: +shipment-plan site:ofbiz.org
Jacopo
PS: I'd suggest to create a new page in the open wiki space of OFBiz to
enter you notes about what you are implementing (or trying to
implement), etc... such as the definitions of production runs, tasks
etc... and also my notes (if they work for you) so that it will be
easier for others too to share information etc...
...
> My next question is how to reserve the fixed asset that has a job
already
> associated with. So as to prevent the fixed asset being occupy by
more than
> one job at one time.
I don't think you can. There is currently no logic to do so (correct
me if I'm wrong). I never thought about this. I think you're right
that this should be standard logic in manufacturing. We need to
consider production capacity of every fixed asset (teams of
human/robot workers, factories, sewing machines, etc). No sewing
machine can sew an infinite number of shirts at one time (can there?).
Infinite capacity scheduling is the standard process in most
manufacturing processes (and ERP systems); finite scheduling is mostly
handled by external packages (sometimes tightly linked to the machines
to get realtime scheduling).
In OFBiz finite scheduling is NOT implemented.
In OFBiz infinite scheduling and production run management has been
implemented (not by me) a lot of time ago; no one of my customers is
really using infinite scheduling (so it could contain some bugs or
limitations, you'll have to test it) and about the production run
management, they are using it but in a rather simple way (so not
everything you see is truted to work ootb).
Jacopo
