There are Significant Differences between Business Central Job Shop Projects and Production Manufacturing
A production manufacturing company and a job shop manufacturer are very different. There are also different approaches to how Business Central is implemented depending on the type of Job Shop that the manufacturer is. At Sabre, more Business Central Job Shop customers are approaching us, and we find more of the common small manufacturers are taking a deeper look into Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. The key to a successful implementation is to identify what type of Job Shop we're implementing for.
Three Non-Essential Features to a Job Shop Running Business Central
Most manufacturing companies are not like job shops. They need very different things. If you speak to an implementation team and they bring these up, they probably don't get your business.
1. Warehouse Management
Job Shop manufacturing doesn’t usually need to keep track of inventory as they order to the job and keep only the most common material on hand (and in small amounts).
2. MRP and MPS
Material Resource Planning (MRP) and Master Production Scheduling (MPS) work when sales are pre-planned or safety stocks and reorder points can be defined. Job Shops typically don’t forecast sales or maintain safety stocks of components and items - so these modules aren't all that useful.
3. Assembly Management
This is a lightweight version of the Production Management modules, but wouldn’t typically be recommended for Job Shop implementation as it doesn’t offer the option to collect and analyze the labor spent on a job - something Job Shops usually find super critical.
To find out more read our blog .
What are the Important Features for a Job Shop Running Business Central?
These are some of the features and capabilities that should be strongly looked at because they will greatly benefit a Job Shop manufacturer -
Repetitive Job Shops Features for Production Management
These are starting to get some repetitive business, but still mix in some real one-off stuff too.
- Bills of Material and Routings
- Finite Scheduling & Capacity Planning
- Make to Stock or Make to Order based planning
- Machine and Work Centers
- Production Orders linked to Sales Orders
- Sub Contractor (Outside Service) Planning and Execution
Project Manufacturing Features | aka Business Central Jobs
When a job shop is also doing product design for customers, making simple machines or fixtures - then they have a lot of similarities with a project manufacturer.
- Purchase Orders linked to Jobs
- Freeform collection of time from Engineering, Tool Makers, Production and other staff
- Creation of unlimited "Tasks" for separating cost collection into buckets
- Flexible invoicing
- Simple WIP tracking
Good Add-ons for Job Shop's
InsightWorks Shop Floor Insights
The InsightWorks addon for Business Central allows you to collect time cards from staff and export that data into all your payroll systems. These Shop Floor capabilities enhance the standard production management module by offering:
- Real-time labor reporting against Jobs and/or production orders
- Paperless travelers and access to attached shop drawings
- Recording the materials used and recording extra materials
- Shift configurations and rules for payroll and time and attendance use
- Supervisor review and approval
Netronic Production | Visual Job Schedular
One of the most popular Business Central addons to assist with production scheduling is from . It is designed for scheduling production orders where cycle time, setup times and machine sequence is of importance. The Visual Jobs Scheduler is mainly designed to schedule resources (people) rather than machinery.
In Conclusion
If you want to find out more details on any of the sections that were covered, read our full blog If your business is considering implementing a Business Central Job Shop and you want to learn more, check out this which gives an in-depth explanation of the features of Business Central Job Shop.
Give us a call at (519) 585-7524 x.45 or contact our team today!
