Material Manager

Overview

Manufacton's Material Manager is designed to ensure all the necessary materials are available for your production shop and/or job site.

Manufacton provides a workflow that manages the Requesting, Sourcing, Ordering and shipment of material goods.  These materials can be delivered to a variety of places, including:

- Job Site	- For those items that are being ordered directly from vendors for your project
- Fabrication Shop	- For those materials required for you to manufacture your prefabs
- Inventory	- For those materials that need to be stored for a specific project
- General Inventory	- For those materials which are needed across all of your projects

Content:

• Setup
• Importing Orders
• Creating Orders Manually
• Creating Sourcing Orders
• Rejecting Sourcing Orders
• Managing Sourcing Orders
• Sourcing Ordering & Shipping

 

Set-up

The Assembly / Parts Catalog, Material Categories, and Vendors have all been designed to help standardize and manage materials purchased within Manufacton.  Templates can also assist in making the Material Ordering process more streamlined

Assuming your company has a subscription to Material Manager, Material Orders can be initiated by:

1. Selecting the Material Manager module
2. Selecting the Requesting tab
3. Selecting the Add (+) or Import function

 

Importing Orders

If you have another data source from which materials are generated, getting those orders into Manufacton can be made very simple provided the right format is utilized.  Provided the first row of the excel file has exactly these headers ("Name" is the only required row), selecting the import button, and then selecting the file will automatically populate the mapping fields.  See the Knowledgebase on Import Templates, specifically on Material Items import.

If the headers are not perfectly named, they can still be mapped manually by selecting which column in the spreadsheet should match to the data in the Orders:

Optionally, it is possible to have Manufacton automatically add an item with the same name as the order by selecting the "Add a default item to each new Material Order" box near the bottom of the dialog before selecting "Next".

 

Creating an Order Manually

To create an order manually, select the "Add New" (+) button to open the Create Material Order dialog box:

1. Choose a template (if available and appropriate - optional)
2. Create a Name for the Material Order (Required)
3. Select a Project into which the material order will be placed (by default, this project will be the active project filtered in step-3 of set-up) (Required)
4. Assign an Owner of the order (Required)
5. Designate a Location to which the materials should be delivered (Required)
6. Provide an Onsite date (for materials to be delivered to your fabrication shop, the "Onsite: date is the date required to support the fabrication process)(Required)
7. Add any supporting Documents as desired (optional)
8. If no further action is required, select Create Order
9. If additional work on the order is required, select Create / Edit

Once in the order, additional information can be entered:

1. Additional information can be added to the order.
   • Note: Recipient and Vendor will be required before the Order can be shipped.
2. At least one Item must be present in the Material Order for it to be moved on to the next stage
   
   • Items can be added via three (3) methods:
     1. From the Catalog - see Assembly / Parts Catalog
     2. Via Import
     3. Manually
3. Notes can be added
4. Additional Documents can be added
5. Tasks can be created
6. Additional Details  can be added
7. Specific item-level Dates can be added to manage items separately from the overall order

Note:  
     o It is also possible to Export the item list from a material order in the
       Sourcing and Ordering stages.

     o Whether items are entered manually or via import, once a Catalog ID 
       is defined for that item, Manufacton will ensure the Name and Item ID 
       are synched to match the Name and Item ID as defined in the Master 
       Parts Catalog.

       

 

Creating Sourcing Orders

Once a Material Request has been finalized, a Sourcing Order can be generated

Note: The original Request will remain in the Requesting tab and track all of
      the items through their entire lifecycle.

Within an order, select the Move to Sourcing at the bottom of the card, or in the list view, select:

1. Move Orders to Sourcing" from the  Bulk Actions menu
2. Select the Order(s) to be moved
   • The checkbox at the top of the list will select all available ordres
3. Select "Move Forward"

Within the order, Material Items marked for "Purchase" will be moved to the Sourcing stage.   Items that are maintained in stock, or are to be built as sub-assemblies should not be marked for purchase.

Once Move to Sourcing has been selected the "Move to Next Stage" dialog will appear:

1. Set a new Owner, others to Notify of the move and Location (optional)
   • Note: In many use cases, the new Owner will be your team's Procurement Manager or a member of their team
2. Select Move

 

Rejecting Sourcing Orders

If an order or items in an order makes it into the Sourcing stage which cannot or should not be fulfilled for any reason, that order, or items from that order, can be Deleted and Rejected

Rejecting entire orders

To reject an entire order at one time:

1. In Sourcing, select the three-dot ellipse next to the order to be rejected
2. Select Reject
3. Enter an explanation as to why the order is being rejected
4. Select Reject

That order will now appear as "Rejected" on the Requesting tab and the items in that order can be updated or replaced as necessary and resubmitted to Sourcing.  If the order is not to be resubmitted, it can be Deleted from the Requesting tab via the ellipse if it is no longer useful to show.

Rejecting items within an order

To reject items within an order (while maintaining the rest of the order), start by opening the order in Sourcing:

1. On the Items sub-tab select the Reject Items option from the Bulk Actions Menu
2. Select the specific item(s) to be rejected
3. Select Reject Items
4. Enter an explanation for why the items are being rejected
   • One of the reasons to reject an item is because it should not be purchased (as it may be a standard stock item or a sub-assembly to be built).
5. Select Reject

The items that remain in the sourcing order can then be processed and moved to Ordering. 

The rejected items will be removed from the sourcing order and placed back in the original Requesting order as Rejected. 

Managing Rejected Orders/Items

Web

The rejected items in the order can then be:

1. Removed if they are not required or
2. Substituted if the item was the wrong item.

Any change to the item will change the "Stage" of that item to Requesting and that item can be resubmitted.  Any Rejected item that is updated and submitted to the Sourcing stage will be moved into a new order in Sourcing.

Managing Sourcing Orders

Once an order gets to the sourcing stage, the procurement team needs to review the items in the order to ensure those items can be ordered and are in the Parts Catalog (see the KB Article on the Assembly / Parts Catalog). The list of items may include Catalog Items that are no longer available, simply wrong for the purpose, need to be replaced by equivalent items for pricing or availability purposes or the Catalog ID may be missing altogether.

In the example below one part will be swapped out for another:

1. The 3/4” Steel Flex should be swapped out for 3/4" Aluminum Flex
   • Make note of the quantity of the original item
2. Select the Swap icon
3. Find and select the item for replacement
4. Save the swap
   • After the Swap, be sure the quantity reflects the original/desired value

If an item is missing a Catalog ID (perhaps from a field request), a part with a Catalog ID has to replace it – Orders cannot move into the Ordering and Shipping stage unless all items have Catalog IDs.

In the example below, the Angle Brackets is not in the parts catalog:

1. The Angle Brackets need to be replaced with a part from the catalog
   • Make note of the quantity of the original item
2. Select the Swap icon
3. This particular Angle Bracket type is not yet in the catalog, so it must be added – select the Add (“+”) button
4. Enter the part name
5. Enter the part description
6. Enter a Material Category for the part
7. Enter a material Sub-Category for the part
8. Enter the appropriate Measure Unit
9. Enter a Catalog ID
   • If you are not using a predefined Catalog ID system, a guaranteed unique ID can be generated for you by hitting the Add (“+”) button
10. Save the new item to the Catalog
11. Save the swap.
    • After the Swap, be sure the quantity reflects the original/desired value

Once the Material Order's items list has been reviewed and updated as necessary, a procurement manager will be determined from which vendor and the precise quantity the order(s) should be placed:

1. Select the Details sub-tab
2. Review the list of possible Vendors
3. Set the appropriate Qty (often a minimum or standard purchase quantity as defined by the vendor)

   Notes: 
        o Adjusting the quantity in the Sourcing stage does not impact the requested 
          quantity or the quantity of the Materials in any associated Production Orders. 
          The purpose of adjusting the quantity in Sourcing is to enable the
          procurement team to accurately reflect the quantity at which the
          item is sold by the vendor.
        o It is not possible to decrease the quantity of items in the Sourcing stage.
          If the quantity is incorrect and too high, the item should be rejected and
          the quantity should be reduced in the Requesting stage.
     

4. If desired, review any Existing Quantities which are either in stock, reserved or in Delivery.
5. It is at this point that any job-specific cost codes can be added to the material as well.

In cases, where there are multiple items in a Material Order, multiple vendors can be identified and the Order can be split into multiple Sourcing orders. 

Those orders which are to be fulfilled by the same vendor (at the same time) can be Combined into one Sourcing Order before the order is placed.  See the KB Article on Splitting / Combining Orders for more details.

The final steps before Ordering are as follows:

1. Identify the Vendor to fulfill the order
2. If the selected vendor has had item-specific costs associated with them, those values will be entered.  It is possible to update any manually entered costs at this time
   • See the KB Article on the Assembly / Parts Catalog to find out how to specify a vendor-specific cost for each item in your catalog
3. The Total Cost for each item and
4. Any Extra Cost (shipping, tax, etc.) can be applied to the order
5. The Total Cost (sum of the item(s) cost and any extra cost) is applied to the order
   
   
   
   
6. Selecting a Vendor (step 1 above) will also apply that vendor’s Lead Time as defined in the Parts Catalog. (This value can be updated if the vendor’s lead time is different from their default for any reason)
7. The Earliest Order By date is calculated by taking the OnSite date and subtracting the longest lead time of all the items in the order.

 

Ordering & Shipping

Once a vendor has been selected and a delivery date has been established for an order, the procurement manager can create an Order (which will include a Shipping Order) to allow the team to track to where and by when those materials are scheduled to arrive.

From within the order, select "Save & Move Forward" at the bottom of the card to create a shipping order.

Within the Sourcing tab list view select "Move Orders to Ordering" from the "Bulk Action" drop down

In either case, the "Create Purchase Orders and Shipping Orders" dialog will appear.   Based on the vendor's commitment, enter:

1. The expected Ship date
2. The expected Deliver Date
3. The agreed-upon delivery Destination
4. The Vendor who is fulfilling the order
5. Select Create

8. As the order is created, if a company or project-based Purchase Order Numbering scheme has been defined, the next available number in that scheme will be applied.
   • See the KB Article on Purchase Order Numbers for more details.

The order will remain in the Ordering tab until the delivery has been received.  Until it is received, the Order can be opened and the Linked Shipping Orde(s) for that Material Order can be seen.

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Here's an 8:00 min video on the Material Management process: