Set up process manufacturing

In Manufacturing industries, it is common to first produce a bulk material (process manufacturing) which is then packed in trading units afterwards (e.g., carton boxes). Each trading unit contains a certain quantity of consumer units (e.g., bottles or cans).

The bulk material is often produced in a blender, a silo, a pan or a cutter, which are set up as work centers or machine centers in Dynamics 365 Business Central. Routings record which machine centres and/or work centres are required to produce the bulk material. To produce the bulk material, several raw materials and other ingredients may be blended and cooked in specific work- or machine centers.

The ingredients and their required proportions for a (semi-) finished end product are captured in a so-called BOM: a Bill of Materials. Each work center/machine center has its own capacity. For example, blender X has a capacity of 500 Kg. and blender Y has a capacity of 100 Kg.

For the preparation and execution of the manufacturing process, it is necessary to know how many batch sizes are needed to produce the desired quantity of a (semi-)finished product. It is also necessary to know the required quantity of the raw materials and ingredients (recorded in the BOM) per batch size.

With the Process Manufacturing, it is possible to answer these questions. The following topics will explain the functionality of this extension, illustrated by various examples. The Process Manufacturing documentation is structured as follows:

1. Process Manufacturing Setup
2. Description of the fields that are added to the Production BOM
3. Description of the fields that are added to the Production Order and Components
4. Explanation of the required setup and functionality through a number of scenarios
5. Overview of checks that are added to ensure correct system setup.

Set up Process Manufacturing

The Weight Unit, abbreviated to WU, specifies the unit of measure used to indicate weight regarding batch production processes.

1. Select the Search icon , enter Process Manufacturing Setup and
   then choose the related link.
   The Process Manufacturing Setup page opens.

2. On the General FastTab, in the Weight Unit (WU) field, select the required unit from the list.

3. In the Default Manufacturing Location field, enter a default manufacturing location code for the production orders.

4. In the Default Weight Calculation Type for BOM field, select the desired option.
   This value is automatically inherited by the Weight Calculation Type field on the Production BOM page when Production BOM is selected on the Type field.
   You can change the Weight Calculation Type field value manually when required.
   The weight unit is now set up and will be used in batch production processes.

5. Turn on the Dynamic BOM Line Weight Calculations toggle to automatically calculate the values in the input and output weight fields on the production BOM lines without needing to use the Calculate Weight and Yield action. For more information, see Process weight change percentage on production BOM lines.

6. Turn on the Allow Direct Edit of BOM Line Output Quantity toggle to manually adjust the output weight fields on the production BOM lines. This includes fields such as:

   • Output Quantity per Batch and Output Quantity per Batch (WU) fields for batch size lines.
   • Output Quantity per (WU) field for non-batch size lines.

   The changes to these fields will also dynamically update the Process Weight Change % field based on the calculations. If this toggle is turned off, output weight values will be indirectly affected by changes made to other related fields.

   
   You can manually edit the output weight fields only when:

   • The Weight Calculation Type field is set to Net Weight.
   • For batch-size lines, the Input Quantity per Batch and Input Quantity per Batch (WU) fields must have values greater than 0.
   • For non-batch size lines, the Input Quantity per (WU) field must have a value greater than 0.

7. On the Batching FastTab, in the Rounding Method for Quantity per Calculation field, select the required option to determine how the system rounds the Quantity per field value when the Calculate Quantity per action is executed on the Production BOM page.

   • Nearest – Rounds off to the nearest number based on the sixth decimal digit. This is the default option.
     • If the sixth digit is less than 5, the value is rounded down (e.g., 0.783754 becomes 0.78375).
     • If the sixth digit is 5 or greater, the value is rounded up (e.g., 0.783756 becomes 0.78376).
   • Down - Keeps only the first five decimal places and ignores any digits beyond that (e.g., both 0.783754 and 0.783756 become 0.78375).

8. In the Default Optimization Method dropdown list, select the desired option.

   Option	Description
   Equalized	Calculates the batch size that minimizes the number of complete batches while maintaining the overall quantity as close as possible to the required quantity.
   Round using Standard	Uses Standard Batch Size from the item production scenario, which may result in an increase in the overall quantity to avoid partial batches.
   Round using Maximum	Uses Maximum Batch Size from the item production scenario, which may result in an increase in the overall quantity to avoid partial batches.
   Round using Minimum	Uses Minimum Batch Size from the item production scenario, which may result in an increase in the overall quantity to avoid partial batches.
   Manual	Allows you to manually enter the number of batches and the quantity per batch.

9. In the Base Batch Run Time UoM dropdown list, select the required option.
   This will be the unit of measure code to calculate and optimize the time required to produce a specific quantity of production units within a batch using time units such as days, hours, or minutes.

10. Turn on the Enable Automatic Optimization toggle to allow the system to automatically optimize batch sizes for production orders. For more information, see Automatic optimization for batch size.

11. In the Automatic Opt. Error Handling field, select how the system should respond if the default optimization method set in the production scenario fails during automatic batch size optimization.

• Skip: The system will not attempt optimization and skip the process.
• Round using Minimum: The system will optimize the batch size using the round using minimum optimization method. For more information, see Automatic optimization for batch size.

12. Turn on the Enable Optimization in Planning toggle to allow the system to automatically optimize the batch size within planning worksheets. For more information, see Automatic optimization for batch size.