Shop Floor - Terms and Concepts

Assembly - In the context of this document "assembly" means either the assembly or dis-assembly of products.  It also refers to the production of products in a manufacturing environment, for example the consumption of plastic pellets to manufacture plastic sheets or ribbons.  An assembly can also be used to refer to a collection of components that are put together in the shop order system.

Bill of Materials – A Bill of Materials is used to define the structure of a product that is assembled or built on the system.   Each Bill of Materials consists of a Bill of Materials Header record, which defines the top level item being built, and one or more Bill of Materials records or BOM Lines which define the component items and quantities that are used to build the top level item.

Consumed Items - Materials that are consumed or used by shop order and materials conversion processing operations.

Consuming Assemblies – The Consuming Assembly it the top level item that is being built or exploded.  This is the same top level item that is described by the BOM.

Explosion – Explosion or Materials Explosion refers to the dis-assembly of products that were assembled on the system.  The Materials Explosion program allows you to take apart or dis-assemble the components for a specific top level item.  When this process is performed, the top level item is consumed or exploded, and the component parts are returned to inventory.

Configurator – The Configurator is a piece of software that is part of the Sales Order Entry System.  The Configurator is used to generate custom production orders during sales order entry.   The Configurator allows systems or other items built in house to be defined on the fly to suit customer specifications.  It allows the operator to define the item to be built and it also automatically creates a shop order for the order line being processed.

Kit:  Kit – A kit is an inventory item which is actually a group of individually sold inventory items (components).  The kit inventory item enables the operator to order and invoice this group of individual items using a unique “kit” item number. Kitting allows the user to group inventory items into kits so that the items may be sold individually or as a component of another inventory item.  Kitting allows the user to build these items "on the fly" as they are ordered by customers, eliminating the need to build the kits in advance.  The Kitting system also uses a special inventory reservation and allocation method that allows the component parts in a kit to be allocated to an order only when all components of the kit are available.  This option allows you flexibility when dealing with scarce components as it allows you to sell the kit when all items are available or to sell the component as an individual item when all items for the kit are not available.

Shop Order Entry – The Shop Order Entry program allows the operator to enter and process shop orders, and to edit or delete existing shop orders.  The Shop Order Entry program also allows the user to pull components from inventory, release the components to the "shop floor" and then complete the shop orders.

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Inventory Assembly Codes