BOM?

[EzLogic]

A hybrid non vfp question, but the app is purely vfp.. There are lots of experts here so I thought I'd ask here

Anyone ever built a bill of material module?

In our app, we have inventory control, invoicing, sailors orders etc.. And I want to add bom

How does bom work?

Anyone knows? High level

I know it's assigning items/qty to make items as in tree but how does it affect your cost of the finished goods

Ali Koumaiha
TeknoSoft Inc.
Michigan

 

[Mike Lewis]

Hi Ali,

Yes, I worked on a BOM system back in mainframe days. It was called BOMP (= Bill of Materials Processing).

Basically, it's a tree structure. You have a single table, where each record is a node in the tree. A record has a primary key, plus a foreign key pointing to its parent - except for the top-most parent, where the FK is NULL.

I would think it's certainly do-able in VFP. But to answer your question "How does BoM work" would be well beyond the scope of this - or any other - forum. Better to find a good book on the subject, or to buy some time from an expert.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro tips, advice, training, consultancy
Custom software for your business

 

[JRB-Bldr]

"In our app, we have inventory control, invoicing, sailors orders etc.. And I want to add bom

How does bom work?"

After having worked with a number of off-the-shelf Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERP's), Manufacturing Resource Planning systems (MRP's) and having developed a few proprietary ones myself where BOM's were involved, the answer to the question is:
"HOW DO YOU WANT/NEED IT TO WORK?"

What Mike says above is certainly true, but beyond that it can be used as:
* An integral part of Inventory resource planning and purchasing.
* An integral part of Production operations which calls on Inventory to 'build' a finished part.
* A mere reference
* Other ways....

In general all Items are individually represented in your Inventory data table. However some of the items might be built/assembled from a combination of other items (generally referred to as sub-components).

Those combinations are what makes up the Bill Of Materials (BOM) for the other Inventory items. The 'build' or 'recipe' for each finished product which uses sub-components is typically stored in the BOM data table. Its records generally contain the top-level Inventory ItemNo, the Sub-component Inventory ItemNo, Quantity, and sometime a description and/or note regarding how to use.

Then when something such as Production or Inventory Planning needs to determine which individual Inventory parts (and how many of them) need to be combined to make some other part, it references the BOM.

Sometimes Production is provided with a 'build list' for an item which comes out of the BOM data table and sometimes also contains instructions (notes) on how to use the sub-components.

The BOM is also taken into account when a 'completed' item is assembled in that the BOM is used to decrement the Inventory counts for all of its BOM sub-component parts.

My advice would be to first define your wants and/or needs within your organization and then, like Mike suggests above, you might read up on the subject before beginning your development.

Good Luck,
JRB-Bldr

 

[EzLogic]

thanks Mike and JRB

JRB, it makes perfect sense, and me and my co-woker were thinking about it exactly how you described.

the only "non-vfp" question i have, is how does that affects cost?

decrease inventory frm the sub-items, increase the inventory qty of the new assembled item.

but as far as cost of goods.. that's where i am stuck on..

i will do some more reasearch on bing or google

Ali Koumaiha
TeknoSoft Inc.
Michigan

 

[JRB-Bldr]

Each BOM sub-component has its own cost.

The 'Cost of Goods Sold' for any item is the sum of costs for all of its sub-components plus the cost of labor, etc.

The 'Cost of Goods' is the same, just minus the labor, etc.

Remember that you have to multiply individual sub-component cost times the BOM Quantity for each individual finished good.

Good Luck

 

[OnQueIT]

When you build the finish good or sub of a finished good, the transactions for building are as follows. You will need to subtract the raw material and cost of raw material in IC. You will need to also make a addition to the finish good for the number you build. The cost of the finished good will be the cost of the sub components(or raw material) plus the labor to build it. The labor cost can be a combination of setup timefor the work center as well as work center processing time. You will need to consider if you want to assign different rates to different work centers depending on the skill level needed to operate the work center and also different labor grades assignments to the individuals operating the work centers. All of these things play a part in determining the "cost.

If you think of building up sub components from raw material as finished goods as will as assembly of sub components to the top level part as finished goods the concepts get a little easier to digest.

 

[SBTBILL]

Check or Peachtree or a version of the SBT/Sage/AccPac Pro/Vision Point manufacturing or production modules.

Peachtree has a simple version that requires prebuilding. Pro which can have source code contains a much more commplete module which also allows building at time of shipment.

Your basic field structure

SKU
component sku
component quantity used
component unit price
build date

Build date is important because kits tend to change.

So you have to decide do you want to keep only the current build or the historic builds.

Then there is the question about do you want a 1 level or multi-level display. I.E. do you need to report

item1
component1
component2
componenta
componemtA
componentB
componentC
componentb
component3

Bottom line the deeper you get into this the more "fun" you will have.

 

[OnQueIT]

If its Pro Series you are working with or VisionPoint, you could always look at TIW's WorkShop. I thinks its

http://www.tiwcorp.com.

SBTBILL and I traverse the same code. I assume he is familar with Customization Manager. I have looked at the Pro Series BOM and I think WorkShop is a little more extensive but if you only need simple BOM, Lahey(oops, I mean Pro Series) BOM will work for you.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Check or Peachtree or a version of the SBT/Sage/AccPac Pro/Vision Point manufacturing or production modules.

That might be an excellent suggestion for anyone looking to buy a BoM package, but the questioner works for Teknosoft, and Teknosoft are developers of manufacturing software. As Ali said, they already have a system with inventory control, invoicing, etc. They now want to add BoM to that system. I doubt if buying a competitor's product would meet that requirement.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro tips, advice, training, consultancy
Custom software for your business

 

[OnQueIT]

Mike that's a good point. On the other hand, looking at a demo of an existing product might help them better understand what they want for their own application. The first question posted was asking how BOM's work.

 

[Mike Lewis]

looking at a demo of an existing product might help them better understand what they want for their own application.

That's true. I thought that they were recommending TeknoSoft to actually use those products, but I can see that might not be what was intended.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro tips, advice, training, consultancy
Custom software for your business

 

[EzLogic]

i have Sage Pro7.4 ERP (pro series in foxpro)

i am going to look at it now.

i appreciate it guys. it doesn't seem complicated... as our ERP system is more complex already

Purely VFP and Webbased too

Ali Koumaiha
TeknoSoft Inc.
Michigan