Comparing Assemblies Across Software – Part 12

For the past year or so, our regular Wednesday feature has focused on topics related to inventory, warehouse management and manufacturing. It frequently looks at specific products related to the core purpose of our "Warehouse Wednesday" column.

However, you're probably aware we're committed to providing more cloud software coverage, so we've started an additional Wednesday feature titled, "Partly Cloudy Wednesdays," which will focus on content other than that traditionally covered by "Warehouse Wednesday."

But today, after being absent for a couple of weeks, we return to "Warehouse Wednesday" with the 12th article in our miniseries about "assemblies," in which we compare QuickBooks to other third-party products that offer assembly functionality.

Here, we're going to look at how ManuDyn Cloud-9 configures and makes use of assemblies and bills of materials in the manufacturing process.

ManuDyn Cloud-9 is an affordable ERP solution that not only provides manufacturing, inventory and order management, but also offers integration with QuickBooks Pro, Premier, Enterprise via the QuickBooks web-connector, and QuickBooks Online via the Intuit App Center.

By connecting ManuDyn Cloud-9 to QuickBooks, you'll add your existing customers, vendors, items, bills of materials, estimates, sales orders and invoices to ManuDyn. You then can configure processes for current manufacturing items, issue jobs for production, clock employees for job assignments, and record job costs and status in real time.

As transactions are created in ManuDyn Cloud-9, they're transferred back to QuickBooks.

We will begin the process of looking at how ManuDyn Cloud-9 handles Multi-level Assemblies, Bills of Material and Manufacturing processes by examining the method it uses to create (material) items in ManuDyn Cloud-9.

I'd note that formally the software refers to these components as ‘material items’, but in many places only the term ‘item’ is used.

I also will mention that this software is produced in the “Land Down Under,” Sydney, Australia, so some of the other terminology is slightly different than what you may have seen thus far in this series. For example, “Stores” represent any place you may keep, house, warehouse or otherwise stock inventory (materials, sub-assemblies, finished goods, etc.).

Creating Parts in ManuDyn Cloud-9

Configuring an Assembly in ManuDyn Cloud-9 begins by creating a new item. ManuDyn Cloud-9 allows you to use select several different part number schemas. The only restrictions are that a part number can be used only once and a part number cannot be changed after it is assigned. 

So, here is an example of the early Materials list after I had defined only a few material items.

You'll notice that "material items" and "manufactured items" are created under the Database Entry menu item from the task bar on the left-hand side of the main window.

So, let’s begin by looking at the main Attributes tab of a Material Item.

Above, the attributes tab, you'll notice the screen header. This is where you enter the Item Code. The little notebook to the right of the filed allows you to select previously created items from the materials list (shown in the previous screen shot). It’s the best way to select items for edits.

In the Item Specification section of the Attributes tab, the first field we come to is a checkbox titled, “Manufactured Item.” This essentially is the field that differentiates raw materials from assembled items. When this field is checked, several additional tabs are turned on, including the materials and routing tabs. 

Another nomenclature difference is the checkbox, called Disabled, which is the same as what we might call Inactive.

The Revision field in ManuDyn Cloud-9 allows you to assign revision control numbers and is designed to track changes to a part or assembly where the changes remain backward compatible.

The lengthy Description field provides you with the ability to identify the item with almost whatever information you need. 

I'm use to using relatively short descriptions, but I can see how someone might want to provide lengthy details, especially for manufactured items that are specific to a request – in other words, "built to order."

The Stock Holding Specification section of the Attributes tab captures information related to Units of Measure, Reorder (Re-stocking) levels and Reorder Quantities. You designate if an item is Non-stock, Serial tracked, Lot tracked or has a specific expiration shelf life.

ManuDyn Cloud-9 allows you to use either the Code39 or UPC-A barcode formats. You can specify standard cost here. Or, you can simply click the Refresh Cost button and the software will update cost from your history or, in the case of an assembly, the component costs.

The software offers a variety of optional identifiers and custom fields for use. One such field is Product Code/Product Type, which also is captured on the Attributes tab, along with any additional information you want to enter into the "Record Comment."

As with almost every other sophisticated inventory/manufacturing software we've examined, the configuration of parts involves multiple tabs within the user interface that capture and/or display information.

But ManuDyn Cloud-9 is somewhat different in that many of the tabs contain tables that display multiple entries of similar data. In many cases the number of entries is almost limitless.

As an example, let’s begin with the Vendor tab (shown below):

Here, I've only entered a single vendor for this part, but I could just as easily have a dozen different vendors – maybe 100 different vendors – for the same part. The magic comes when we double click on any one of the vendors and the software opens the details related to the vendor for this specific item.

As you can see, we now have a lot of details about this vendor and its pricing for the item. Our cost (price per UOM) can be scaled in any quantity price breaks we define based upon what the vendor allows.

At the bottom of this window is a field that allows us to “move record before” any other record in the Vendor tab listing based upon our ordering priority.

The Sales tab allows you to configure price levels and the effective dates of those sales prices. Specific accounting related to this item also can be configured from this tab, along with Tax codes and details and Discount options.

Like the vendor tab, the Stores tab contains another table that lists the details behind the scenes. Remember, "stores" is the name ManuDyn Cloud-9 uses to reflect any location where inventory, assemblies and finished goods are stored, kept, warehoused or stocked.

When you click on the store location, the details open, allowing you to enter or edit the information contained therein:

This is where you can specify bin location. I used a relatively simply identifier that corresponded to my part number, but it would be just as easy to establish a row-shelf-bin schema like (R6-S5-B31). Quantity reflects the actual quantity available at the store/bin location.

The Other tab allows you to capture details related to alternative items that can be used as a substitute. Below, notice that I assigned such an alternative:

I specified that the alternative item was a "substitute only." This tab enables you to capture a drawing/specification number and set up user defined fields. 

I didn’t take time to set up user fields, but you can see you have a great deal of latitude in how the file is configured. It can even be an amount you specify for use elsewhere.

Another important tab is the Notes tab, which contains another table that summarizes your note details.

Information captured in this tab takes the form of general (free form text) fields that allows you to provide yet more details about the part. You can choose (shown below) to make any note an "alert" and/or to also print the note on any "advice" level document. 

For example, in this case, if someone attempts to use my N-38B part that was a substitute, they'll get a message that pops up on screen and in their documentation. That's for substitution only when N-38 is not available. That’s neat, I think.

Creating Assemblies in ManuDyn Cloud-9

An assembly is called a "Manufactured Item" in ManuDyn Cloud-9. It uses BOM files to provide stock orders, indented bills-of-material, item schematic explosions, assembly cost details and a variety of other documentation.

Here, we'll look at how they're associated with manufacturing a three-level assembly consisting of a sub-assembly (the lowest level) a mid-assembly (the middle layer) and a finished good assembly (the top level).

Within ManuDyn Cloud-9, a Manufactured Item consists not only of the BOM specified on the Materials tab, but also the process-flow shown on the Routing tab. According to ManuDyn Cloud-9, the product can handle an infinite level of BOMs.

Our Sub-Assembly (Lowest level)

Manufacturing items are configured in the same way as Material items, with the exception that the "Manufactured Item" checkbox is checked as the first item on the Attributes Tab. Below is an example of my sub-assembly (bottom layer):

After we set up the generalities of the item, as with components, we then begin to configure the BOM using the Materials tab to list the component items. The illustration below shows a BOM:

You'll notice we captured the material items and quantity, along with the Units of measure for each component. All quantities reflect the amount to create either one item or one batch.

We then can move on to the Routing tab, which allows us to define, in whatever detail we wish, the work associated with the manufacturing process:

Here, our sub-assembly routing consists of staging parts from the "Stores" (warehouse), and then building the sub-assembly in area "Subassembly-48." We can look at the details of this process in a little greater detail (shown below):

But we can even get a greater degree of detail by looking at the defined work area:

Here we can define the labor rate, the work center efficiency factor, set up and process-times, and the standard work schedule. We can even define more detailed production specifics if needed, including formulas for work center times.

By the way, if we want to look at what kind of documentation ManuDyn Cloud-9 provides, look at the Production Routing document for the sub-assembly we just created:

There's just one more tab I want to mention regarding our item – the Attachments tab. Here we have another list type presentation with details available for each:

In this example, we've attached a specific drawing as the specifications for our I48 item. When you click on the file name the drawing appears:

This set up also allows you to decide if you want the attached files to print with your various documents such as routing or manufacturing details.

Our Mid-Assembly (Middle-level)

Now that we've looked at our sub-assembly, let’s turn to our mid-level assembly. Here's our mid-level assembly Attributes, followed by the Materials (BOM) tab:

We would also define the routing and other details, but I don’t want to repeat myself.

Our Finished Good (Top-level) Assembly

Next, of course, we would define our top-level assembly, the finished good – in this case our lamp:

Once again, we set up all the general details and the materials and routing for this final layer of assembly. Here are the materials:

And here are the routing details in the form of a part routing document:

After you have configured your Assembly's Bill of Materials, it's easy to produce an Exploded Bill of Materials Report (shown below) that shows the various components (with costs):

Building Assemblies using Jobs in ManuDyn Cloud-9

Jobs are the method by which ManuDyn Cloud-9 enters, edits and prints in-house manufacturing orders. These Job Orders contain valuable information, such as manufacturing status, as well as how many assemblies have been completed and returned to the stock room.

Job Orders can be used for stock purposes or can initiate manufacturing of an assembly to fulfill either a specific Sales Order (or another Job Order). 

The illustration below illustrates how a specific job is dedicated to a specific Sales Order:

Sub-job Orders

Job sub-orders are used to meet the build requirements of sub assemblies within a finished goods final assembly. In all such cases, where sufficient sub-assembly stock does not already exist, ManuDyn Cloud-9 Sub-job Orders are issued and take the form of a dashed and decimal-placed order number.

In these cases, sub work orders are consumable only by the top-level job order or another sub job order dedicated to the same top-level job order. Below, you can see the three layers of job orders for our multi-layered assembly:

Tracking Job Progress

Each job in ManuDyn Cloud-9 automatically is added to the production schedule based on the job's due date and the estimated times of each operation. By using the "Job Inquiry" feature, the system can show the impact of a new order on the existing schedule, so you can determine if the due date is viable.

The schedule can be displayed in a variety of formats, such as a priority work list, or as an interactive Gantt chart that shows available capacity and allows you to alter the scheduled start dates of operations as required.

Additionally, the software produces a lot of reports and details, including capacity/loading such as the example shown below.

Factory Feature

ManuDyn Cloud-9 offers a "Factory" feature that allows you to capture employee specific time on task assignment progress in real time. Employees not only can clock in and out of work, but also from each assigned work area and task using this feature.

The information feeds back into the Manufacturing Control Center, so you can see who's working on what job, when the job should be finished, and which employees or operations are idle. 

I wish I had more time to explore this functionality, but I didn’t prior to writing this review.

ManuDyn Cloud-9 is a far lesser known Manufacturing solution, despite the length of time it has been around: 27 years in one rendition or another. The primary reason is that it's based in Sydney, which is a long way to go to see a product.

But it does offer a free trial, which is available from its homepage. It also offers a North American support office.

While this product may not appear as "modern" as some other solutions in terms of the user interface, I personally found it very easy to learn and use. It has a feel that was just about right for me.

It seems like it would provide increased functionality over all versions, flavors and options for QuickBooks. 

So, if you're looking for a manufacturing solution, give them a thorough review. Special thanks goes to Jim Roach for the coaching session and extended free access to the program in order to prepare this feature.