Control Panel

The Shop Floor Controller brings together all the Shop Floor functions with a Job Record:

Shelf Check

Looking at the form above, you can immediately see the progress of the selected job.
The on Shelf? Check (report) has been run (the date this was done is shown in the panel), and the tick in the check box indicates that there were shortages, but the button is still active so that the report can be re-run at any time.

Run MRP

The Next Action panel on the right tells you what the next step is for this job (Run MRP), and reminds you to Fix Shortages! if appropriate.  You can do these things manually if you wish, but clicking Run MRP will save you vast amounts of time!

Click the Run MRP button to have Merlin process the MRP for this job, create the necessary jobs for any subassemblies, purchase materials for this job and any subassembly jobs created, and allocate materials to these jobs.

The Run MRP feature is immensely powerful. Not only will it raise Purchase Orders and Works Orders, but also will offer to AutoCreate Jobs for all the subassemblies required, and AutoAllocate Materials to the Top Level Job and all of the Subassembly Jobs that were AutoCreated. (Please see the note at the foot of this page headed AutoGenerated Job Numbers.)

Note how the other buttons become active as appropriate.

Unless you wish to do a lot of manual work, every top-level job on your system needs to have the MRP Process run.  You can do this at job-level here in Shop Floor Controller, or more efficiently at Job Series Level or All Outstanding Jobs level in Buying / Run MRP.

However, when you Run the MRP Process from Shop Floor Controller, you can choose to purchase the entire kit, or make up shortages.

You cannot Run MRP for subassembly jobs.  This is because the Merlin MRP Engine will drill down and take care of the subassembly requirements for you.

Please note:  if a job is part of a Job Series, the Run MRP option will not be available.  Either remove the job from the series (in Admin / Sales Order & Jobs by clearing the Job Series field) if you wish to process independently, or process the series as a whole in
Buying / Run MRP.

Allocate

Click this to Allocate materials to this job.  An Allocation Report will be offered for printing, and the transaction will not complete unless and until you confirm, when prompted, that the report printed OK.

Note:  You do not have to allocate materials job-by-job.  The MRP Process will do it for you, for all jobs within scope.  Also you have Group Allocation and Jobs Series Process available in Job Tracking.

Print Pick List

You will need to print a Pick List for each job.  You have the choice of generating a simple list adequate for picking the materials required for the job, or printing a fully detailed list with Build Instructions and BoM Item Notes against each item.

Note:  You can generate Pick Lists for a whole Job Series using
Job Tracking / Job Series Process.

Issue Materials

To issue the materials for the job (once they have been physically picked), simply click the Issue button.  A dialogue will appear, asking how many assemblies you wish to issue for.  This is because you do not have to issue the materials for the complete production run if you do not wish to.

The default offered will be either the entire run quantity, or, if a partial issue has already taken place, the balance of the issue for the entire run.  Merlin automatically processes all the stock movements (and movement histories), and, as at all other stages, you will be offered a printed report of the transactions.

You can then progress the job through the various manufacturing stages by clicking the Progress tab - please see Shop Floor Progress below.

Process List

A list of all the manufacturing (Shop Floor) process for this job.

de-Issue

Reverse the issue of materials to this job, returning them from WiP to stock.

Special Issue

Issue materials to the job in addition to those on the BoM. 

These can be additional quantities of items that are on the BoM, or entirely different items.  These items will be removed from stock and will show on any Job Costing subsequently run.  This can be useful to replace breakages, or for ad hoc  items like glue and solder which you may not wish to itemise on the BoM.

Shop Floor Progress

The Progress tab shows the list of manufacturing processes or actions for this job, with due Start Dates and Finish Dates:

This tab uses the same Merlin Colour Alert system as Job Cards and WiP Schedule - BLUE for DUE TODAY and RED for LATE.

To enter the dates on which each Shop Floor Process was started and then finished, click the line in the grid that you want to edit. The following dialogue will pop-up:

Clicking the Started button will enter today's date in the Started field.  Clicking the Finished button will do the same in the Finished Field.  Or you can enter the date(s) manually.
Click Exit when you have finished.

Waiting Items

The Waiting Items tab contains a list of all materials that were physically short when materials were issued to the job.  It is greyed out in the top screenshot , because no materials had yet been issued to the job (as it would be if there were no Waiting Items).  Were materials to be issued at that stage, when shortages exist, there would be a record of the short (or Waiting) items shown on this tab.

To issue the Waiting Items to this job from the Waiting Items list, click the Edit button on Merlin Navigator, use the drop down box at the top of the tab to select the item you wish to issue, use the spinner to adjust (if necessary) the quantity to be issued from the Waiting Items List, and click the Issue button.  Finally, click the Save button on Merlin Navigator.  (Please note: the Revert Button will not reverse this action.)

Repeat this for each item on the list as it becomes available.  (The Goods In module in Buying will notify you every time you receive materials that are on a Waiting Items list.)  As these items are issued to the jobs, they will be removed from the Waiting Items Lists.

AutoGenerated Job Numbers

As you will know, each job on your system must have a unique Job Number.  In order to AutoGenerate Jobs we have had to use an algorithm that will generate a Job Number that is highly unlikely (impossible, we believe!) to exist already on your file.  This has been done by using the first ten characters of the Top Level Job Number, (all of them, if there are ten or less) followed by an underscore, followed by an apparently meaningless 9 character alpha/numeric entry.

This might look something like JOB1234567_WOKK36L95 

The subassemblies in a series should have suffixes which flow logically, so the next one in this series would probably be JOB1234567_WOKK36L96  The suffix is not entirely meaningless, though its actual derivation is not useful to you!  If you do not like working with these numbers, you can edit them once the jobs are created, but take into account that you never have to remember or type the job numbers in Merlin MRP Factory.

In the very unlikely (impossible?) event that an AutoGenerated Job Number is not unique to your file, the Job will not be created, and a report will be generated listing the job(s) for you to create manually.  This is a fail-safe routine, and we are confident that it will never happen.

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