Manufacturing Software UK
Supply Chain Solutions
You want a manufacturing software system with the functionality you need to get the job done and out of the door. Business is won and lost on your ability to deliver the right product at the right time. Every day your reputation is either improved or diminished by your delivery performance to your customers.
Access Supply Chain software puts you in control.
Manufacturing Software Modules
On this page:
Item Definition
This is where you strengthen your design and production cycle, by specifying how an item is made or assembled, what it is made from, how long it should take and what tooling, plant or other resources are required. Two types of definition are used: standard definition for specifying products that are identical (or virtually identical) every time they are made; and production definition for designing 'same as but different' and 'one off' products or projects. These definitions are used for predicting costs and planning your purchasing, sub-contracting and manufacturing activity.
Item Definition is configurable for businesses of all types, from engineer-to-order through to make-to-order and make-to-stock, and is equally effective in a one-off, batch or semi-continuous environment. Traditional Bill of Materials and Routing approaches are combined, to reflect real-time manufacturing. Unlimited text can be attached to each part of your definition, ensuring that suppliers, work centres and Quality Assurance teams understand what is expected. The system provides a single source of data for your staff to work from and a superb range of practical features, including:
- Easy links to CAD or other applications
- Concurrent engineering approach: enabling purchase, design and manufacture to occur in parallel
- Full revision controls and traceability
- Trial kitting, to see if an order can be produced
- Phantoms, global changes and easy duplication
- Single and multi-level 'explosions'
- Attach materials to work centre, for in-progress backflushing
- Quick navigation of bill: across levels and up/down to other levels
- Tooling and plant database
- Flexible capacity and load by day
- Calculate lead time from routing
- Multiple rates for labour and overheads
- Multiple routings for each item
- Flexible cost roll-up on bills and routing
- Unlimited number of operations with set-up, run and queue times
Product Configurator
This is essential functionality for any company that sells, assembles or manufactures products that have options and variances. It enables you to specify how an item is to be made or assembled, what options are available, how long the process should take and what tooling, plant or other resources are required. Templates are provided, to streamline the whole process and, for complete clarity, unlimited notes can be attached to each aspect of the configuration. You can also list the characteristics of each item contained within the configuration.
When a configured item is ready for sale, assembly or manufacture, staff are prompted to make the necessary choices, within the parameters set by the template. These choices can be made mandatory or optional, and you can link choices together (so that the availability of 'Choice B' is dependent upon the prior selection of 'Choice A'). Configurations can be amended after their initial set-up and you can change quantities at any time. The outcome is a faster, simpler and more reliable system for product configuration.
Works Orders & Production Control
Enjoy complete control over your works orders and reduce the amount of time they spend on the shop-floor. The system will suggest which orders need to be launched and then track materials/labour usage (and their costs) as the order progresses - helping to ensure that resources are available when needed. Create 'jobs' from more than one works order, and link them to the corresponding sales orders for greater visibility. Relevant information is automatically passed to job costing.
The range of functionality provided by this module is exceptional: work-to-lists, trial kitting, capacity planning, scrap recording, backflushing and variance accounting are just some of the features included. Priority orders can be kept to the fore and early warning given of the workload that will occur if MRPII suggestions are implemented. Overruns can be identified immediately, and analysed in terms of cost and time. The list of features includes:
- Orders generated manually or by the system
- Unlimited extra text attached to the order
- Ability to change the bill of materials for each order
- User-defined documentation, including bar coding
- Work-to-lists
- Trial kitting
- Shortage notes
- Allocate stock to works orders
- Capacity planning with links to graphical scheduling
- Rough cut planning
- Actual costing
- Record scrap
- Backflushing
- Links to Job Costing
- Variance accounting and analysis of lost time
Time Recording & SFDC
It is vital to accurately record the actual time spent on works orders and other activities. Each member of staff can have up to six rates attached to them, including overhead recovery. Time can be entered manually or using bar codes and booked to individual operations, on a works order. It can also be linked to the progress of the works order itself, for calculation of efficiency figures. A time, attendance and clocking-in option is provided, for analysing staff attendance and lost time.
Full labour traceability (to products, orders, customers and operations) enables you to identify sources of inefficiency and know the true cost of each activity. These time costs can be posted to your Job Costing records and your core financials, and analysed by any criteria you wish, including department and skill code. Time sheet data can be imported from third-party applications (such as other clocking-in systems) and exported to payroll, for effortless pay calculation.
Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II)
MRP II (Manufacturing Resource Planning) is an established technique for making materials and other production resources available in harmony with your production plan. It is the 'backstop' function to other just-in-time techniques (such as Kanban) and ensures that your inventory is balanced with demand. The MRP II routine draws information from many other areas of your system, to make suggestions about purchase and works orders that need to be placed, and orders that should be cancelled or re-scheduled. It can be run as often as you wish, and is frequently run as a daily routine.
The information provided by MRP II helps to strengthen the team-working between your sales, production and purchasing functions. Panic buying and overstocking can become a thing of the past, leading to predictable prices and smoother production. The system calculates requirements for finished goods, sub-assemblies and raw materials, and links back to your purchase order schedule. It increases resource visibility to the rest of the business and delivers a superb range of practical features, including:
- Applicable to standard and 'one off' products
- Takes account of lead times and shrinkage factors
- Allocated stock can be included or excluded
- Routine can be warehouse specific
- Full pegging of demand to origin
- User definable output
- Control Desk, for rapid creations of suggested purchase and works orders
- Explanation of all order suggestions
- Feedback into capacity planning
- Multiple production plans for 'what if' exercises
- Option to run automatically, at set times, with parameters passed to it
- Links with forecasting, for maintenance in a spreadsheet-style environment
- Use of safety stock, minimum order quantities and increments
Sub-Contract
Manage the acquisition of sub-contracted services (including manufacturing and assembly), strengthen your partnerships and control your costs. From single elements to entire jobs, you can track free-issue materials to sub-contractors and match them against finished goods returned. A matrix of products, prices and suppliers guides you to the correct sub-contractors, while clear and comprehensive instructions help to optimise sub-contractor performance and minimise any disruption to your own production.
You have complete control over the format your orders take and can describe each item with an unlimited amount of text. Scheduled/duplicate orders and non-stock items are handled effortlessly, order chasing is made easy and facilities are provided for variance and commitment accounting. Sub-Contract is closely integrated with Purchasing, Production, Stock, MRP II, Job Costing and Works Orders and, as with all modules, works on a true multi-currency basis. It provides a complete history of transactions, for general enquiries and detailed supplier performance monitoring.
Job Costing
Job Costing ensures that all the information about a works order or contract is displayed in one place, at both summary and detail level, for instant review and detailed reporting. It collects data on the cost of your various activities, and is closely linked to production bills (and the Contracting module). Your main activities are likely to be materials usage and labour, but the system offers an unlimited number of cost types.
Actual costs can be linked to specific works orders or jobs and compared with up to ten pre-set budgets. These budgets may be created automatically, based on Item Definition, or entered manually. Sales revenue can also be allocated to individual jobs, giving you the option to analyse profitability by product, customer or any other category. Flexible calculations will accommodate your specific ways of working - allowing overhead recovery based on materials usage, for example. Costing can be based upon actual, FIFO, average or standard cost with variances.
Contracting (including CIS)
If you work as a CIS sub or main contractor, the system provides everything you need to administer contracts efficiently. Quotations, budgets, costs, applications for payment, self-billing invoices, standard invoices and deposits, part payments and retentions are covered in detail. Clear management information helps to ensure that cost overruns are predicted accurately, statutory requirements are complied with and customer disputes are resolved with minimum disruption. Contracting links seamlessly with Job Costing and core financials, to provide full accountability at all times.
As your contracts progress, revenue and costs are compared directly to budget, and milestones (such as defect liability periods) automatically trigger reminders for the next application. For ease of tracking, sales orders, purchase orders and any sub-contracts are all linked to the main contract record. A strong selection of reports includes variance on materials, labour costs and margins (compared to budget), first and second stage retentions (accrued and owed) and outstanding revenues. Simple drill-down is provided, from contracts into sub-contracts.
Finite Production Scheduling
Finite scheduling enables you to prepare realistic production plans, based upon the actual capacity of your resources. It ensures that operations are only scheduled when the necessary resources are available, by tracking and maximising the utilisation of your machinery, manpower and anything else that is a constraint on the production process. The outcome: you spend less time progress chasing and more time concentrating on the everyday challenge of balancing capacity with demand, thereby increasing efficiency and improving delivery times.
This form of scheduling helps work in progress to stay at a more constant level, with all the associated benefits: materials are only ordered when needed, inventory levels fall back, bottleneck resources are not overloaded and lead times become more predictable. Individual process routes can be defined for each product and the system handles forwards, backwards and bi-directional loading of jobs. You have complete control over resource states and efficiencies (finite and infinite), and - in addition to powerful in-built reporting - you can choose to manipulate your data using Gantt Charts.
Advanced Business Alerts
Organisations today need to ensure that they are instantly notified of situations before or as they happen, enabling them to make better informed decisions based upon critical data events.
In today’s information age, organisations now manage an ever increasing array of information systems, which inherently possess little or no functionality to generate notifications based upon data events or criteria.
Access Advanced Business Alerts provides comprehensive tools and design capabilities to integrate with any number of existing applications or systems to provide people with the information needed to make timely and accurate decisions; whenever and wherever they are located.
How do Advanced Business Alerts differ from my application’s existing alerting capability?
If your current application came with basic alerting, you will already be aware of its limitations. The challenges faced by your company are unique and the token alerts that came with your primary application were probably not built for your company's needs, but for that of the mass market.
Below are just a few reasons why companies with basic or no alerting capabilities turn to Access Advanced Business Alerts:
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They are not hard coded - Unlike your existing alerts, Advanced Business Alerts can be configured and reconfigured to address your exact business needs simply and quickly. You will also not lose them when you upgrade your primary application. |
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You can add them to all your company’s applications - Many organisations run more than one business application and Access Advanced Business Alerts allows you to add this capability to both Access Supply Chain and Access Accounts. |
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They are not only internally distributed - Access Advanced Business Alerts are not restricted to delivery within the organisation. Using our technology, key stakeholders such as suppliers, distributors, retailers and customers can all receive real-time alerts about information that impacts on their interaction with you and your company. |
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They can trigger other automated processes - Our Advanced Business Alerts have the ability to trigger other more sophisticated automated business processes or escalate the issue to other employees in line with your business rules and procedures. Employees can also interact with our Advanced Business Alerts to end, continue or begin an automated workflow process. |
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You won’t lose your MS SQL triggers - If you have ever had to upgrade your SQL DB to a newer version you have probably suffered the misfortune of losing all your previously built SQL Triggers. As Access Task Centre both creates and manages MS SQL Triggers independently, this issue is eliminated. |
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You can receive alerts via multiple communication mediums - Advanced Business Alerts can be received in the form of e-mail and SMS. Reports can also be automatically created and attached to alerts. |
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They have memory capabilities built in - The memory within our Advanced Business Alerts ensures that escalations and other automated tasks that have been triggered by an alert follow company rules and procedures. |
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We do not place restrictions on you and your company - Using our technology, you can create as many Advanced Business Alerts as your want. |
Some examples of how Access Task Centre automation functionality can be used by an organisation
Sales Orders over £10,000
Catch the keying error before starting to process the sales order
Debt > 90 days
Invoices that are greater than 90 days old and unpaid
New order entered (sales or purchase)
If an account is on stop or terms have been exceeded, you need to take immediate action. Use alerts to warn staff that intervention is needed.
Changes to stock levels
Automatically informing your materials manager or stock manager when levels fall below minimum (or rise above maximum) is the easy way to monitor and optimise your stock holding.
Workflow
Organisations today are striving to achieve efficient, consistent and measurable processes as a pre-requisite to delivering quality to their customers. Maintaining alignment with, and auditing of a (Quality) Management System, without the right technology foundation is a challenging, time consuming and costly endeavour.
Workflow enforces consistency in the organisation’s processes and can therefore play a fundamental part in the acceleration of company performance and the development of a sustainable competitive advantage. Yet, to date, most traditional Workflow systems are reliant on the individual to identify and start a workflow process rather than this being dynamic, event-driven and integrated with their own systems.
The problems caused by traditional approaches to workflow are also exacerbated by the number of people and departments that business processes can cross and, therefore, the requirement for intelligent Workflow functionality is high on the IT agenda.
Through Access Task Centre, organisations are able to add Workflow capabilities to their existing software applications, which immediately increases productivity, eradicates administrative waste and enhances stakeholder relationships.
Document Automation
The creation, distribution and management of business documents are commonplace activities for management personnel and administrative staff alike. Traditional document concepts still form the backbone of structured business communications and transactions.
Access Task Centre Document Automation functionality provides tools that enable organisations to connect existing applications and systems, which can automatically generate and distribute document flows, to all the company’s stakeholders and trading partners.
Whether they’re reports, letters, order acknowledgements, invoices or statements, structured and repetitive documents can be automatically generated, presented and delivered via a variety of formats and channels.
Web Content Publishing
Communicating with company stakeholders and ensuring that they have access to and visibility of relevant information is vital in the current competitive environment. Cost-effective communication will help to develop long-term beneficial relationships and contribute to future organisational growth.
Within an organisation, valuable knowledge typically resides in ring-fenced information ‘islands’, often within departmental or organisational boundaries. However, making this information more widely accessible to employees, partners, customers and other stakeholders is labour-intensive and cost prohibitive.
Using Access Task Centre Web Content Publishing capabilities, online information can be automatically generated, published and updated according to user-defined rules.
Subscriptions & Requests
Today’s consumers and business partners want information on demand. We require specific data as it becomes relevant and demand that it is sensitive to the channel through which we make the requests. Fuelled by our increasing reliance upon the internet and the expansive growth in mobile devices, information on demand is expected in every dimension.
For any organisation, supplying dynamic information services places considerable strain on its human resources, but to ignore these needs and not develop an offering would be to risk losing out to the competition. For example, the speed and accuracy of the response to an initial enquiry forms the very first impression of your organisation.
Access Task Centre provides a range of tools to develop and maintain highly configurable and user defined 'subscription based services or request-response' mechanisms that integrate tightly into any organisation’s databases and information systems. The development of a ‘self-service’ infrastructure to automate the delivery of information is accelerated. Furthermore, Access Task Centre enables any organisation to easily adapt and evolve to the constantly changing face of customer requirements.
Integration
Organisations need systems that support end-to-end efficiency for their business processes, whilst ensuring that all complexities remain absolutely invisible to operators and external partners alike.
Integration interfaces are developed and delivered by software vendors within their own individual API’s, toolsets and formats. More often than not, there is very little standardisation across systems and therefore integration becomes a matter of hard-coded development or low-level scripting.
Access Task Centre bridges the gap between disparate information systems, by providing a graphical process modeller and comprehensive operating environment that either dramatically reduces, or totally eliminates the need for complex integration development. By design Access Task Centre delivers and manages process Integration, ensuring that systems ‘talk to each other’, no matter how complex the requirements.
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