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For years, repetitive manufacturing industries have been applying many of the principles in Just-in-Time philosophy. They have established balanced production lines that depend on a steady flow of material to each work station. They schedule production in daily or weekly rates rather than in discrete shop order lots. They track finished inventory by work center rather than by job. They typically backflush stock balances (decrement stock balances upon completion of specific manufacturing steps rather than issued at the beginning of each production run).

Costing is typically based upon a daily rate or hourly rate rather than being associated with specific shop orders. 

Repetitive manufacturers use MRP II software adaptable to their environments

in the following key areas:

▪ Product definition

▪ Inventory tracking

▪ MRP/Master Scheduling

▪ Shop Floor Control

▪ Purchasing

▪ Costing

Just-in-Time (JIT) is a management philosophy that focuses on minimizing the resources necessary to add value to your products and to operate your factory in ways that eliminate waste. Resources are labor, materials, equipment, space, and time. Waste is anything that does not add value to your products. Moving work-in-process from place to place, stacking and sorting, investing capital in large work-in-process and raw material inventories, inspecting materials at your vendors' sites, and tying up warehouse space with finished goods are all activities that add cost, not value, to your products. 

JIT is a process that reduces lead time. JIT does not replace an MRP, an inventory program, a scheduling technique to bypass your Master Schedule, or a materials management project. JIT is the never-ending commitment of everyone, from top management to your workers on the floor, to maximize your effectiveness through continuous, incremental improvements.

To create and maintain shop orders use SFC500 Shop Order Entry Maintenance. These orders use the standard bill of material (BOM) as the base list of components. You can also set up standard routings, which list the operations,

or work steps, involved in manufacturing.

To release shop orders, use the Shop Order Release program, SFC505. Infor ERP LX groups shop orders by user ID for batch processing. Use Shop Packet Print, SFC520, to print the shop orders that you select. SFC530 allows you to create multi-level shop orders to link shop orders together with a common end item parent. Linking multiple shop orders together for a final assembly product provides support for make-to-order and engineer-to-order manufacturing environments which need to schedule these multiple orders together or as a vertical slice in the production schedule.

You can make changes to shop orders after you print them. Use Shop Order Entry/Maintenance, SFC500, to update the shop orders. Changes are immediately visible on the inquiry screens for SFC300 and SFC350. To reprint the shop packet, use Reprint Shop Packet, SFC560.

The system automatically performs offsets for requirements dates for components in the MPS/MRP calculations. It also performs offsets for calculation of material need dates at the time that shop orders are released.

To calculate the offset, the system takes the parent lead time from the Item Master and adjusts it by the bill of materials offset (plus or minus) for the component. This gives the lead time days for that specific component. The system starts with the due date of the parent and backs up and skips all non-work days in the shop calendar.

Note that the offset calculation uses only calendar records that have a blank work center (the calendar record applies to all work centers). See the information for the Shop Calendar Maintenance program SFC140, in your Shop Floor Control documentation for shop calendar details.

You can integrate Accounts Payable (ACP) with Purchasing. ACP requires more detailed information in the Vendor file than Purchasing requires. Accounts Payable automatically checks for a valid purchase order when you

match invoices to POs and receipts. Enter any outstanding active purchase orders through PO Release, PUR500, before you can match invoices in Accounts Payable.

Accounts Payable can also update the Actual Cost fields in the Inventory Master file directly from vendor invoices. You must provide the following information in order for Accounts Payable to complete this update:

▪ Define a type C inventory transaction.

▪ Enter a valid purchase order on the Invoice Entry header screen, ACP500D2-01, or in the Next Purchase Order field on the Invoice Entry: PO Costing screen, ACP500D3-01.

▪ Enter the information for the actual cost transaction on the appropriate lines.