Outsourcing Manufacturing
Individual manufacturing tasks, or "routing tasks," could be outsourced to a third party vendor instead of performed in-house. When the task is completed, the rest of the assembly process could continue. opentaps allows you to set up an assembly process with as many in-house and outsourced tasks as you need, interlaced together in any sequence.
The outsourcing of a routing task could be configured with the Outsource a Task Screen. Once it is configured, you can make changes in the Catalog Manager's Product screens. The purchasing information could be modified in the [Suppliers] tab. To discontinue the outsourcing of the routing task, go to the [Work Efforts] tab of the Product and expire the relationship for "Product for purchasing outsourced manufacturing task."
Once the outsourcing of a routing task has been configured, a production run which includes such a task could be created as any other production run. A requirement for each outsourced task would be automatifcally created for you in the Purchasing application. When the production run is confirmed, the outsourced tasks will be in a state called "PO Pending," and its requirements would have been automatically approved. You can now create a purchase order from these requirements, print the PDF of the purchase order, and send it to the vendor of the outsourced task. When your PO is set to approved, the tasks which have been outsourced to this vendor will show a status of "Outsourced." 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 the outsourced product back from the vendor, 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 next production run task. The PO will be marked "completed" when all its items are completed. When all the tasks of the production run, including outsourced and in-house tasks, are completed, then you can receive stock of the finsihed goods, just as with regular 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.
