Products are the definition of a part/material usually corresponding to part numbers in an ERP system.
However, sometimes it is desirable to make MESTEC products more “generic” than ERP part numbers.
For example, if you make a single product which can be packaged in three different languages, this may be represented by three part numbers in an ERP system.
If you are only recording actual labour hours vs standard, and the language on the product label does not impact the manufacturing process at all, you may choose to create a generic language-independent product in MESTEC. This reduces the number of products that need to be maintain.
Products may be:
- Made or purchased.
- Serialised or non-serialised.
If a product is manufactured it will have one or more workflows defined.
Products may have a bill of materials (BoM) that contains other products (see Bill of Material).
The following needs to be configured before you can create a product:
- A Product Type.
- A Product Group is required so that the product can be assigned to it.
Product Type
The Product Type is a group of products that share common attributes such as the quality checks that are performed. Products that you create must be assigned to a Product Type.
A product can belong to just a single Product Type. For example, a medical device manufacturer produces orthopaedic hips and knees in many sizes. In this case the Product Types are hips and knees and each size would be represented by different products.
Create a Product Type
- Navigate to the Products screen and click the Product Types button.
- In the Product Types screen that opens, click New.
- Provide a name (mandatory) and a description (optional).
- Click Save.
Product Groups
Products may belong to one or more groups. These groups are used solely for reporting, for example to allow you to show all the failures for all the products in a particular product range, or all the products supplier to a particular customer.
Create a Product Group
- Navigate to the Product Groups page.
- Click new and add a name for the Product Group.
- Add a product by selecting the group and clicking the Assign New button and selecting the product.
Create a product
- Navigate to the Products page and click New.
- Complete the input screen.
New/Edit Products form
The product creation/edit pop up contains the following items:
Blue fields in the form are required and are flagged with an asterisk (*) in this document.
Product Type*: The Product Type this product is assigned to.
SUID*: an external-facing identifier which is typically used to map an object in MESTEC with a third-party system. Alphanumeric and special characters are accepted.
Name*: The name of the product.
Description: The product description.
Version*: A version indicates the current design revision of a product. Default: 1.
Base Unit* : The default unit of measure for recording inventory of the product. For example, EA (each), KG (kilograms). Alternative units of measure may be defined for a product (with conversion factors) but only one unit is the base unit of measure.
Cost Per Unit*: The standard cost of a single base unit of the product.
Currency*: GBP, USD, EUR
Ownership*: Indicates if a product is internal-owned or if it’s owned by a customer/supplier.
Default Batch Size*: The default batch size, e.g., the default is to make 100kg of this product at a time or 100 units at a time.
Receipt Profile*: This applies to a product that is received from an external source and it is the profile that will be used when taking receipt (i.e., which details are to be displayed or entered). For example, an expiry date.
Serial range: Determines how serial numbers are allocated to new lots/items. You can:
- Leave blank: user will be prompted to input a serial number manually on item creation/receipt.
- Select [Schedule Job Specified]: the serial number(s) to use will be specified in advance against the works order.
- Select a range that will generate an incrementing number from a predefined stack.
Location*: Indicates the default location for the product.
Min Schedule Batch Size: The minimum batch size that will be automatically scheduled by MRP.
Max Schedule Batch Size: The maximum batch size that will be automatically scheduled by MRP.
Schedule Batch Increment: The increment in batch size that will be scheduled by the MRP if the demand is greater than the Min Schedule Batch Size.
Pegging Expiry Days: When planning using APS software, it's the amount of time a product is considered as available to use after the planned completion date, i.e., when do we plan for this to expire.
Shelf Life Days: The default life, in days, of a product. This doesn't automatically set an expiry date but is used in custom configuration to set the expiry date. For example:
- A fresh food manufacturer may want to set the expiry based on the time something came out of an oven, not when the product was completed.
- A manufacturer may need the expiry to be based on the completion of the workflow, or the start of the workflow.
This setting does not impact APS or MESTEC unless custom work is added.
Inventory Qty Decimal Places: The number of decimal places that quantities are specified in.
Planning constraint checkbox: This is only relevant if you are using the APS module. It is used to determine whether this product will be considered a constraint when doing finite capacity planning.
Product is active checkbox: A checkbox that indicates if a product is actively in use vs pending/obsolete.
Specifications
Product specifications define acceptance criteria for products. For more information, see the documentation on Link to the Product Specifications documentation.
