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Comparison of Manufacturing Methods

Oracle Applications supports discrete, project, repetitive, assemble-to-order, and flow (work order-less) manufacturing methods.

Discrete Manufacturing

You use discrete manufacturing for assemblies that you make in groups or batches. You define jobs with a job name, a job type, assembly, a job quantity, a start date, and an end date. For non-standard discrete jobs, you have the option of entering an assembly and job quantity.

You can use assembly bills of material to create job material requirements. You can also use routings to schedule job production activities and create operation specific material and resource requirements.

In discrete manufacturing, production costs are normally charged to a job. This is called job costing. You open jobs, collect charges, close jobs, and analyze and report costs and variances by job.

Project Manufacturing

You can use project manufacturing to meet demand driven production requirements for large contracts or projects. Project manufacturing allows you to plan, schedule, process, and cost against a specific contract or a group of contracts for a specific customer.

If Oracle Projects is installed and the Project References Enabled and Project Control Level parameters are set in the Organization Parameters window in Oracle Inventory, you can assign project and, if required, task references to planned orders, jobs, purchase orders, sales orders, miscellaneous transaction and other entities within Oracle Manufacturing.

If the Project Cost Collection Enabled parameter is also set, you can optionally collect and transfer manufacturing cost to Oracle Projects. Project costs are tracked by project/task and expenditure type.

Assemble-to-Order(ATO) Manufacturing

You can define available options for unique product configurations. You can master schedule models and options then create work orders to build these unique configuration. Oracle Order Entry/Shipping supports building and shipping ATO configurations.

Repetitive Manufacturing

You use repetitive manufacturing for assemblies you make on a continuous or semi continuous basis over a predefined interval. You identify which assemblies are built on which production lines in advance. You can build assemblies on dedicated lines (one assembly per line) or on mixed model lines (many assemblies per line). You can build an assembly on multiple lines.

You define repetitive schedules by the assembly, its daily quantity and its production lines, no job or work order exists. You can schedule production of a single assembly continuously for just a few hours or for any number of days.

You can schedule repetitive production based on the fixed lead time of your production line if the lead time does not vary from one assembly to another assembly. If the lead time varies by assembly, you can schedule the repetitive production time based on the routing of the assembly the line is building.

In repetitive manufacturing, you charge the cost of production directly to the assembly and line. You analyze and report costs by assembly and line during the period close. At period close, all charges to a repetitive assembly for that period are totalled and divided by the number of assemblies produced during that period. Period close also calculates assembly costs and usage variances.

Repetitive schedules and discrete jobs can coexist. Oracle Master Scheduling/MRP and Oracle Supply Chain Planning plans production using repetitive or discrete planning techniques based on the planning type you specify for the item in Oracle Inventory.

Flow Manufacturing

Flow Manufacturing is an innovative manufacturing approach that aligns production with customer demand. Flow manufacturing employs Just-In-Time (JIT) concepts such as manufacturing to demand (vs. forecast), production lines for families of products (vs. process layout), pull material using kanbans (vs. push material), backflush material and costs upon completion (vs. at each operation), and so on. This in turn helps decrease inventories, optimize machine utilization, reduce response time to customer needs, and simplify shop floor activities.

To prepare for flow manufacturing, you design production lines and production processes so that each line can produce a constantly changing mix of products within a family at a steady rate. Flow manufacturing production lines are designed to support the inter-mixed production of multiple products within a family on the same line. Line design includes grouping products into families, defining the processes and events required to produce each product, and grouping events into operations. By specifying demand rates for each product you can predict line capacities. As a part of line design, you can specify demand forecasts for the products, derive TAKT times (also called Operational Cycle Time), and calculate optimal kanban quantities.

Flow manufacturing can be used in Oracle Inventory to replenish kanbans and in Oracle Work in Process to complete assemblies without having to created a job or a schedule. See: Performing Work Order-less Completions.

Manufacturing Costing

The costing method of the organization you are operating in determines whether you can used mixed manufacturing methods. See: Work in Process Costs.

See Also

Overview of Discrete Manufacturing

Overview of Repetitive Manufacturing

Overview of Configure to Order

Oracle Flow Manufacturing

Overview of Kanban Replenishment

Work in Process Planning


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