Outsourcing Manufacturing

Introduction to Outsourcing a Manufacturing Routing Task

The following describes the scenario for using outsourced manufacturing routing tasks in opentaps and introduces the way thest tasks are purchased.

Individual manufacturing tasks, or "routing tasks," are sometimes outsourced to a third party vendor instead of being performed in-house. opentaps allows you to set up an assembly (routing) process mixing as many in-house and outsourced tasks as you need. All that is required to outsource a task is to associate the routing task with a supplier you have configured for outsourcing.

This configuration is accomplished with the Outsource a Task Screen, which writes the outsourcing, purchasing, and work effort information into your Catalog > Product > Suppliers Tab database entries. When modifications are needed they can be edited in the [Suppliers] Tab or the Work Efforts Tab. To discontinue this outsourcing of the routing task, you can go to the Work Efforts Tab of the Product and expire the relationship listed there for "Product for purchasing outsourced manufacturing task."

To use an outsourced routing task, a production run which includes the task (and potentially other tasks as well) is created in the usual way. As a result, requirements for each outsourced task are automatically created for you in the Purchasing application.

Next, when the production run is "Confirmed", the outsourced tasks will be in a state called "PO Pending," and the generated requirements are automatically approved. You can now create purchase orders from these generated requirements, and send them to the vendors of the outsourced tasks.

When your PO(s) are set to approved, the tasks which have been outsourced to vendors will show a status of "Outsourced." Note: You will not be able to modify a "PO Pending" or "Outsourced" production task: they will be handled automatically by the system.

When you receive an outsourced product back from the vendor, you will use the Warehouse > Manufacturing >> [ Receive Outsourced PO ] screen to receive the PO. When all the quantity of a PO item has been received, the line item on the PO will be marked "completed," and the corresponding task will be marked "Completed."

At this point, you can continue with the remaining mix of production run tasks. The PO will be marked "completed" when all its items are completed. If you don't want to serialize in-house routing tasks with outsourced routing tasks, you can configure production runs that will produce the outsourced tasks and receive them in separate runs that produce inventory for consumption in the in-house production runs.

When all the tasks of a production run, including outsourced and in-house tasks, are completed, then you can receive stock of the finished goods, just as with any production runs.

When the outsourced tasks are received, a vendor invoice will be created and viewable in the Financials module. This invoice will be at the standard purchase prices from the vendor. You can edit the invoice and modify the prices or add additional charges such as shipping, then use [Mark as Ready] to make it official and post it to the ledger.

Step by Step Outsourcing a Manufacturing Routing Task

to be continued. . .