Manufacturing -

How South Africa’s Manufacturing Industry Can Gear Up for Productivity in the New Year

The festive season in South Africa is a crucial period for the manufacturers as it demands surges in various sectors, businesses must optimise operations to meet seasonal requirements while laying a solid foundation for productivity in the new year. With the right tools and strategies, manufacturers can streamline their processes, manage workloads, and ensure efficient resource utilisation. 

 
Palladium’s Manufacturing Features offer comprehensive solutions that empower manufacturers to not only meet festive season demands but also to start the new year with increased efficiency. 

1. Planning for the Festive Surge 
During the festive season, production schedules often experience significant changes due to increased demand and workforce adjustments. Manufacturers can use Palladium’s Production Schedule feature to: 
• Manage the full production schedule effectively. 
• Allocate work by weight capacity per work centre, ensuring optimal utilisation of resources. 

These tools ensure manufacturers avoid bottlenecks and maintain consistent output levels, even during peak periods. 

2. Efficient Resource Allocation 
Resource management plays a key role in navigating the festive season successfully. Palladium’s tools allow manufacturers to manage and issue resources accurately: 
Issue Work-in-Progress 
◦ Assign and issue a Bill of Materials (BOM) per work centre. 
◦ Account for over/under issuance of inventory, labour, machinery, and recovery costs. 
• Work Centre Management 
◦ Create and manage work centres with precise labour and machinery requirements for each stage. 
By closely monitoring and controlling resources, manufacturers can reduce wastage and enhance efficiency. 

3. Streamlined Production Processes 
Meeting festive deadlines requires seamless production processes. With Palladium, manufacturers can: 
Process Jobs 
◦ Create jobs directly from sales orders. 
◦ Develop a BOM per work centre and adjust it at the time of processing. 
• Transfer Jobs 
◦ Move jobs from one work centre to another using Palladium’s mobile-enabled system, maintaining transparency and accountability. 
These features allow for greater flexibility and adaptability, ensuring manufacturers can adjust quickly to any festive season challenges. 

4. Improved Labour and Machinery Tracking 
Labour and machinery are critical components of manufacturing. Palladium’s manufacturing tools include: 
Labour Tracking 
◦ Monitor variable hourly, fixed setup, and breakdown costs. 
• Machinery Management 
◦ Track machinery requirements, including hourly and fixed costs for setup and breakdown. 
Accurate tracking of these elements ensures better cost management, which is essential during high-demand periods. 

5. Data-Driven Decision-Making with Reports 
Comprehensive reporting is key to improving operational efficiency. Palladium’s Reporting Tools provide: 
• Variance reports for identifying discrepancies. 
• Work-in-progress reports for tracking ongoing jobs. 
• MRP (Material Requirements Planning) reports for inventory and resource planning. 
These insights enable manufacturers to evaluate their festive season performance and identify areas for improvement in the new year.

6. Enhancing Post-Holiday Productivity 
After the festive season, manufacturers should focus on leveraging insights gained during the busy period to streamline operations. Palladium’s Close Job feature allows businesses to: 
• Review theoretical, actual, and variance data for each work centre. 
• Identify inefficiencies and implement process improvements. 
This feature provides the clarity needed to make informed decisions that enhance productivity in the new year.

Why Choose Palladium for Your Manufacturing Needs? 
Palladium’s manufacturing solutions are tailored for South African businesses, offering tools that simplify complex processes and improve operational efficiency. With features such as real-time job processing, flexible BOM adjustments, and mobile-enabled job transfers, manufacturers can stay ahead of seasonal demands and set themselves up for long-term success. 

Conclusion
As the festive season approaches, South African manufacturers must prepare to handle increased demand while keeping an eye on future productivity. By adopting Palladium’s advanced manufacturing features, businesses can not only meet holiday demands but also build a strong foundation for growth and efficiency in the new year. Don’t let the festive season overwhelm your operations—equip your manufacturing business with Palladium today!

SUP088 – Process Manufacturing

The Process Manufacturing feature is a new Module / Function that works independently from the current Manufacture / Kitting Function found under the Inventory section In Palladium Enterprise. The feature will allow you to Create Jobs, Post Work in Progress in the form of Inventory, Service, Labour and Machinery costs that will remove the items from Stock and post to the WIP Account. On Closing a Job, the total costs get removed from WIP and the finished Goods updated with the respective cost. Below is a list of the Setup and Processing features found in the Manufacturing Module.

Setup

General Ledger Setup
A new Ledger Account needs to be assigned to manage the Work In Progress.

Company Options
Settings have been added in the Company Options function to cater for Imports and the related posting of the WIP from Scales to eliminate any human error or intervention. In addition an option has been added to validate and allow / disallow the over or under issuing of inventory per Work Centre.

Setup Work Centres
The Work Centre function allows you to create steps within the manufacturing process with the ability to assign Inventory Items, Additional Costs, Machine as well as Labour Costs per Work Centre. In addition, a Work Centre could act as a staging area for Quality Control or final commissioning. We also have the ability to track or report on Jobs per Work Centre. As an added value, manufacturing variances in the form of item issuances are managed on a per item, per work centre basis, allowing for greater analysis on efficiencies per stage of production.

Setup Labour
You can set up an unlimited number of Labour Types, each with their own rates and Recovery Accounts. When you set up the rates, the Cost will change proportionately to the quantity on the BOM. Ie should the BOM reflect a quantity of 100 and the variable hourly set at 2 hours, should a job be created to manufacture 1000 items, the variable costs will be 20 (2 / 100 x 1000) hours and the fixed Setup and Breakdown Costs at R300 respectively per the screen below.

Setup Machine Rates
You can setup various Machine types and rates as we do with the Labour rates above, and assign these during the Process WIP process routine.

Setup Bill of Materials
When you setup the BOM, you first define the item to be manufactured, then assign any By-Products that may be associated with this manufacture. Thereafter you will specify the different Work Centres (routing) for this Manufacture. Once you have defined your Operations (or Manufacture Steps), you then need to assign the relevant Inventory / Labour / Machinery / Recovery costs per Work Centre. In the example below you will see that we have selected the Machine Work Centre and the Components assigned to the Machine Work Centre.

Here we have allocated Labour to this Work Centre.

Here we have allocated Machine Time and Costs to this Work Centre.


We can optionally assign Recovery Costs to the process such as Electricity in large Engineering concerns.

BOM Changes / Revisions
The revision option allows you to maintain fill Bill Revisions/changes with the tracking on the revision date of the Job. This facilitates the recall or full recipe tracking of a manufactured item.

Processing Jobs

Creating a Job
To create a job you need to go to the Process Jobs icon and select the Item that you would like to manufacture, as well as the Quantity to Manufacture. In our example below, the BOM was setup for a Manufacture Qty of 21, and we would now like to manufacture 45 items. What will happen is that all quantities as well as variable costs will change proportionately with Fixed Cost Components and Recovery Costs remaining the same.

We can optionally assign Recovery Costs to the process such as Electricity in large Engineering concerns.

Job Status
On creation, the status of the job is “open”. At this stage, the Job can be adjusted and additional items or resources added or removed. Only when Inventory or resources have been issued to a Job, does the status change to Work in Progress at which time the Job is “Fixed” and unable to be amended.

Printing
At this stage the following reports can be printed from the Process Job Function:

  • Job Card – detailing all expected costs and resources assigned to the job by Workcentre.
  • Pick Lists – Bulk Pick Lists per Workcentre – allowing you to prepare the inventory for issuing to the Job.

Job Cost Summary
We have also included a Cost Summary function that records the Actual vs the Theoretical costs on the BOM with the difference being a manufacturing variance that can be reviewed on an ongoing basis.

Posting WIP
WIP can be posted as many times per Work Centre as required. The Issued column below will detail all previous issues for this item for the specific work centre. In addition to this, although the main Job cannot be amended, you can still assign any other Inventory Items or Resources to the Job (ie non-original BOM items) at any stage for substitution purposes. Such items will be highlighted on the Manufacturing Variance.

Transferring a Job
The Job Transfer function sets the “default” Work Centre for that job, allowing users to have a detailed view of what status of production or state that a Job is currently in.

You can also view the status of a Job via the Process Job Function below.

Job statuses can also be viewed through the Production Centre Calendar with the option to filter on the Job Status and / or Work Centre for extensive flexibility.

Closing a Job
A job can be fully or partially closed. When a job is partially closed, because the final costs are not yet known at this stage, Palladium will use the Theoretical Manufacture costs for the transaction with the net over/under cost assignment being allocated when the job is fully closed.

Reporting
In addition to the Reports Mentioned above, we also have the following comprehensive manufacturing reports to record costs and manage efficiencies within the production environment.

Production Variance Report
The Production Variance report will allow you to manage the actual quantity and costs of a Job vs the theoretical quantities and costs on a per Work Centre basis – allowing production manager the ability to identify production inefficiencies easily. This is extended to Inventory Items, Labour Resource, Machine Resources and even general Company Overhead allocations.

Manufacturing Efficiency Report
This report allows you to manage the theoretical output (quantity of manufactured items) vs the actual manufactured quantity.

Resource Efficiency Report
This report allows you to manage the efficiency, or usage, of a Labour or Machine resource over a specific period.

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