Glossary of Terms in Manufacturing

This article lists the terms used or looked for in the Manufacturing module in Dynamics GP.

A

Acceptable Quality Level table

A representation of testing standards and sample sizes. AQL tables include information about appropriate sample sizes and the maximum number of pieces that can fail inspection in an acceptable lot. You’ll probably set up several AQL tables to reflect different inspection standards for different items.

Active routing

See Manufacturing order routing.

Actual costing

An inventory tracking method that involves constantly updating inventor yeach time an item is added or removed.

Actual demand

The total quantity of an item requested on all firm manufacturing orders.

Actual expenses (Job Costing)

The total of all applied expense transactions linked to a job.

Actual margin (Job Costing)

A measure of the overall profitability of a specific job. The actual margin for a job is calculated by dividing the actual profit by the actual revenue, and then multiplying the result by 100.

Actual profit (Job Costing)

The difference between actual expenses and actual revenues for a job.

Actual revenues

The total of all applied revenue transactions linked to a job.

Allocate

To reserve materials needed for a manufacturing order.

Alternate routing Any planning routing for an item other than the primary routing.

Alternate work center

A work center to which work can be shifted if the customary work center for a specific task is not available. If the primary work center is temporarily shut down, or if demand exceeds the capacity of the primary work center, the work load can be shifted to the alternate work center.

Apply

To add the amount of a revenue or expense linked to a job to the financial information about the job. If a transaction isn't applied to a job, its amount won't be reflected in the overall financial information about the job. Applying transactions in Job Costing can happen manually or automatically.

AQL table

See Acceptable Quality Level table.

ARCH BOM

See Archived bill of materials.

Archived bill of materials

A bill of materials stored in a separate area of your computer system. Bills of material might be archived as they become obsolete.

Assemble to order

A type of manufacturing facility that puts a group of components together according to customer specifications.

B

Back order

An order to be fulfilled when stock for items in shortage is replenished.

Backflushing

A method of accounting for the use of resources—labor and machine time, and items—based on standards you’ve defined. Transactions to account for the use of backflushed resources are created when a manufacturing order is closed.

Backward finite scheduling

A scheduling method that starts from a due date and works out a plan for the flow of work through the plant with the assumption that there are only a limited number of resources (machines and workers) available to complete the task.

Backward infinite scheduling

A scheduling method that starts from a due date and works out a plan for the flow of work through the plant with the assumption that the plant has unlimited machine and worker capacity.

Batch cards

See Manufacturing order.

Bill of materials

A list of the components and subassemblies needed to build one unit of a product. The bill of materials also shows quantities for each component.

Bill of operations

See Routing.

Bin

A storage device to hold discrete items.

Blanket purchase order

A purchase order that is delivered gradually to the buyer.

Bucket

A time period used for calculating MRP requirements. Manufacturing supports daily, weekly, and monthly bucketing options.

Buy items

Items that are supplied to your plant by a supplier.

Buyer ID

Code that identifies the person who purchases the item from a supplier.

By-product

A finished good that is created incidentally to another finished good.

C

Child part

See Component.

Class

A method for grouping similar parts or products.

Co-product

See By-product.

Company data

Company data is the information you enter about your organization, such as its applicants, employees, benefits systems, training programs, and organizational structure.

Component

Items used to build a product. Component parts can be items (nuts, screws,diodes) or subassemblies (axles, circuit boards).

Component transaction

A line on a pick document to allocate, reverse allocate, issue, reverse issue, scrap, or reverse scrap components for a manufacturing order.

CONFIG BOM

See Configured bill of materials.

Configuration data

In Bill of Materials, information about the product’s overall design. It includes the design authority for the product, the unit of measure, and the revision level.

Configured bill of materials

A bill of materials that is built by selecting options from a super bill of materials.

Configured cost

The calculated cost of building a specific configured item, depending on the options a customer selects. The configured cost reflects the cost of the component items and the labor required to manufacture the item.

Configured price

The suggested price to charge the customer for a configured item, based on your finished goods price schedule and the selected options.

Configured routing

A routing based on the selected options. For example, if you created a configured bill of materials for office chairs and chose plastic components rather than wooden ones, the routing would be modified to exclude the sequences for staining and varnishing the wooden components. Also known as a configured working routing.

Configured Working Routing

See Configured routing.

Consume

To use up the quantity that has been issued to WIP—for materials, labor time, or machine time—for a manufacturing order.

Cost variance

The difference between the actual costs—for materials, machine time and labor—and the estimated costs for a manufacturing order.

Cost variances can be positive or negative.

Customer record

A record that shows all the information you need to conduct sales transactions, such as address information, billing and shipping instructions, credit history and other data for that customer.

Cycle time

The total amount of time it takes to make one part, such as setup time, labor time, machine time, queue time and move time.

D

Default inventory site

The location commonly used to store raw materials or finished goods.

Defect code

An identifier for a particular type of item failure. For example, if an item is too long and fails a specification for length, you might create a defect code called LENGTH. Defect codes are used in Manufacturing reports to help summarize information.

Denial code

An identifier for the reason why an engineering change request wasn’t approved.

Destination routing

A routing that you copy from another routing. You can add sequences to the destination routing.

Direct labor

The time spent by one or more production workers on filling a specific manufacturing order.

Discrete item

An item that is manufactured as a distinct unit. Examples of discrete items include computers, automobiles, and radios.

Disposition code

An identifier for a method for handling defective items. For example, you might decide to scrap certain defective items, and might assign a SCRAP disposition code to those items.

Double-booking

A situation where a job might inadvertently be charged twice for the same expense.

Down day

A day when the facility—the entire shop floor or a specific work center—is not in production.

Drawing

A schematic or other illustration. You can attach electronic drawing files—such as CAD illustrations, bitmaps and even .AVI movies—to records.

Drawing group

A set of related drawing files. For example, a drawing group might include several views of the same item.

Due date

The date when the items on a sales order should be ready to ship.

E

ECM

See Engineering change management (ECM).

ECO

See Engineering change order (ECO).

ECR

See Engineering change request (ECR).

Either item

Item that can be bought or manufactured by your company.

Element

An order or transaction that can be linked to a job, such as a manufacturing order, a sales order, a purchase order line, a receiving line, or inventory transaction.

Employee allocation

The assignment of workers to work areas. Each employee can be assigned an efficiency rating for a particular task. The number of hours per shift spent on a task can also be specified. Total scheduled employee hours for the work center are also displayed.

Employee efficiency percentage

A ranking of how an employee performs a given task. You can use this field different ways, depending on how your organization handles its employee efficiencies. Some organizations complete time studies of various tasks, and set task goals for workers based on those figures. Employees earn efficiency ratings based on their ability to meet those criteria. In other organizations, the top producer is assigned a value of 100% (or less) and all other employees would be ranked in comparison to the top producer.

ENG BOM

See Engineering bill of materials.

Engineering bill of materials

A proposed bill of materials. Designs that are only in the prototype stage of development, for example, may have engineering bills of materials. In this way, the costs of producing a design can be studied without impacting the material requirements that the system generates.

Engineering change management (ECM)

The systems that a company has in place to ensure that changes to its product specifications are properly monitored.

Engineering change order (ECO)

The second stage of the engineering change management process. An engineering change order is a change that has been approved for incorporation.

Engineering change request (ECR)

The proposal stage of the engineering change management process. An engineering change request is a proposed change.

Estimated expense

A projection of the expenses for a job, entered in the Job Maintenance window.

Estimated margin

A job costing calculation based on estimated revenues and estimated expenses for a specific job. The estimated margin is calculated by dividing the estimated profit by the estimated revenues, and the multiplying the result by 100.

Estimated profit

The difference between the estimated expenses and the estimated revenues for a specific job.

Estimated revenue

A projection of the revenues for a job, entered in the Job Maintenance window.

Exclusions (MRP)

A method of marking an item, site or itemsite combination so it isn’t included in MRP calculations.

Exclusions (Sales Configurator)

Options that are disallowed because of another option selection.

Expensed floor stock

A bill of materials component that has been designated—regardless of its issue-to and issue-from sites—as a floor stock item. The cost of expensed floor stock is applied to an expense account, rather than to the cost of the finished item. See also Floor stock.

Explode

To determine the total quantities of components needed for a manufactured item. To explode a bill of materials, the quantity ordered is multiplied by the quantity used for each of its components. Exploding continues throughout the bill of materials, so component requirements for subassemblies are also calculated.

F

Filled order

An order that has had all its requirements met and can be closed.

Finished goods

An item that is manufactured for sale. Also, the final products that a company sells.

Finite scheduling

A scheduling method that assumes that limited capacity for labor and machines is available.

Fixed order quantity

An order policy type that calculates order size for a day’s requirements based on one or more of these variables: standard order quantity, order increment size, minimum order size, and maximum order size.

Fixed quantity

The quantity of a component that is required for each manufacturing order, regardless of how many finished goods are produced with the order. For example, if you use two widgets to calibrate equipment each time you begin a new manufacturing order, the fixed quantity for widgets would be 2 for the finished good bill of materials.

Floor stock

A bill of materials component that uses the same site for its issue-from and issue-to sites. The cost of this type of floor stock is applied to the cost of the finished item. See also Expensed floor stock.

Forecasted demand

An estimate of how much of an item should be produced over a specific period of time.

Forward infinite scheduling

A scheduling type based on a starting date for an order, with the assumption that the plant has unlimited machine and worker capacity for the work order.

Full regeneration

An MRP process that recalculates your MRP data, including all sales orders, purchase orders, sales forecasts, and manufacturing orders. See also Net change regeneration.

Functional currency

The currency type (such as dollars or pounds) used by your organization for its accounting. See also Originating currency.

G

General ledger variance

The difference between costs that have been added to WIP and the costs that have been removed from WIP for a specific manufacturing order.

H

Header record

The information that ties the pieces of a larger record together. For example, the header record of a routing includes information about the type of routing, the routing name, the date the routing was created and so on. This information ties sequence records together to create one routing record.

Hours per shift

The amount of time per shift actually spent working on the assigned tasks. To determine hours available per shift, subtract any nontask related activities from the total number of available hours. For example, if an employee is scheduled for an eight-hour shift but has a one-hour meeting and two quarter-hour breaks that day, the total available time would be 6.5 hours.

I

Inclusions

Option items automatically added to a configured bill of materials when a customer selects a certain option. For example, a computer manufacturer might offer a computer system in tan and black. If the customer selects the option for a tan computer, the computer manufacturer might set up the super bill of materials so that the tan keyboard automatically is included as part of the purchase.

Indirect labor

The time spent on tasks that are not directly related to filling a specific manufacturing order. Examples of indirect labor include meetings and training.

Instruction sheet

See Routing.

Infinite scheduling

A scheduling method that assumes that all required capacity for labor and machines is always available.

Invoice history

The information tracked about past invoices. Invoice history allows you to determine what historical information you will need for tracking sales activity. History information can include transaction detail and/or account distributions.

Issue

A type of component transaction. When components are issued for a manufacturing order, they are removed from inventory and added to WIP.

Issue-from location

The site where the components used in the manufacturing process are stored prior to beginning the manufacturing order, such as with a vendor, or in a department, a warehouse, or another plant.

Issue-to location

The site where the finished product will be stored prior to delivery to the customer, such as in a department, a warehouse, or another plant.

Item type

A code to designate the accounting class for the item, such as inventory, discontinued, and misc. charge.

Item-specific inventory valuation

An accounting method that places a value on each item that you produce, based upon either standard cost or current cost.

J

Job

A series of business activities that, when completed, will fulfill a high-level objective.

Job category

Groupings that you can create to organize the titles and descriptions of jobs within your company. Each job category must include a set of values that can be used to sort all jobs. For example, you might create a job category called REGION so you could track jobs from specific geographical areas. Values for that job category might be East, West, North and South-or might be states, provinces, countries/regions or other areas.

Job costing element

A type of element that can be linked to a job.

Job costing transaction

An instance of a job element that is linked to a specific job, capturing information about a specific revenue or expense associated with the job. Job costing transactions aren’t accounting transactions: they won’t affect the General Ledger or any subsidiary ledgers.

Job order

See Manufacturing order.

Job transaction list

A selection of transactions to be applied to a specific job. You can use transaction lists to specify the kinds of transactions that should be applied to jobs, and to specify the transactions to be applied automatically to jobs.

K

Kit

A group of finished items that compose a set.

L

Labor code

A code that is used to tie a job function to a specific pay grade. Usually, jobs requiring fewer skills have lower pay grades and are compensated at lower rates. Jobs requiring more skills or education have higher pay grades and higher pay rates.

Labor time

The number of employee hours required to complete the operation.

Lead time

The minimum amount of time required for production of an item.

Location

A work site. Some businesses are organized as a single company or division, but may have multiple sites.

Lot-for-lot

An order policy for ordering the exact quantity needed, provided that the order quantity is between the minimum and maximum order quantities.

Lot-numbered item

Any inventoried item that is part of a group that is assigned a unique identifier, which can be letters, numbers or a combination of letters and numbers.

Lot-number–tracked item

See Lot-numbered item.

Lot-sample size

The number of item units that should be inspected to determine if a group of items meets specifications.

Lot-tracked item

See Lot-number–tracked item.

Low-level code

A code that identifies the deepest level an item has in any bill of materials in your manufacturing records.

M

Machine

Any tool, device or implement that you use in your manufacturing process.

Machine allocation

The assignment of a machine to a work area. Each allocation record displays available machine hours, the efficiency rating, and utilization rate for that machine. Total scheduled machine hours for the work center are also displayed.

Machine definition

The record of a machine in your plant that allows you to track statistics for each machine, including vendor information, warranty period, and operating costs.

Machine efficiency

A measure of how a machine is suited for a specific task. The higher the efficiency rating, the more effectively the machine works.

Machine time

The number of machine hours needed to complete the operation.

Machine utilization

A measure of how much of the available machine capacity is actually being used. For example, if a machine is capable of producing 100 items per eight-hour day and you are only producing 80 items, the machine utilization rate is 80 percent.

Make item

An item that is produced by your plant.

Make or Buy item

Item that can be bought or manufactured by your company.

Make to order

An order fulfillment method for made items. When make-to-order items are sold, manufacturing orders to build the items required to fulfill the manufacturing orders are created. Manufacturing orders are used to respond to specific sales orders.

Make to stock

An order fulfillment method for made items. When make-to-stock items are sold, the quantities required to fulfill the sales order are taken from inventory quantities. Manufacturing orders are used to keep inventory levels up so that sales orders can be fulfilled.

Manufacturing bill of materials

The bill of materials used to build a parent part in your organization. A manufacturing bill of materials is the “real” bill of materials, and is used to figure material requirements for your organization.

Manufacturing data sheets

See Routing.

Manufacturing order

A set of documents conveying the authority to manufacture parts or products in specified quantities. Manufacturing orders are also called batch cards, job orders, production orders, run orders, shop orders, or work orders.

Manufacturing order receipt

A document where material, labor, and machine costs in WIP are applied to finished goods that are received in inventory. Costs for backflushed materials, labor, and machine time also are applied to the finished goods cost.

Manufacturing order routing

A routing used to complete a specific manufacturing order, which includes all the necessary requirements to fill the order, such as workers, machine time, and raw materials. Also known as “manufacturing routing.”

Manufacturing picklist

A list of the items and quantities of items that are required to fill a manufacturing order.

Material Requirements Planning

A series of data collection and interpretation procedures that allow you to forecast resource requirements over a specified time period (days, weeks or months).

Maximum order size

One of the variables that can be used to calculate order quantities for fixed or period order quantity order policies. Maximum order size puts a limit on the size of automatically generated purchase and manufacturing orders. If demand is greater than the maximum order size, an additional order will be created.

MFG BOM

See Manufacturing bill of materials.

Minimum order size

One of the variables that can be used to calculate order quantities for fixed or period order quantity order policies. It is similar to standard order quantity, and is used in its place if the standard order quantity is zero. If the standard order quantity is greater than zero, the standard order quantity supersedes the minimum order size.

Module security

A way to see if other users are working with records that prevent you from completing certain processes. Module security also allows you to unlock records and remove users from MRP.

Move in

To adjust the due dates of existing manufacturing orders and purchase orders to meet potential shortages identified by MRP calculations. If MRP calculations uncover a shortage of an item and if there’s an existing order for the item in the future, the order will be flagged to be “moved in” to prevent the shortage.

Move out

To reschedule certain manufacturing orders or purchase orders to prevent stock overages on the current due date. An appropriate future date to move the order to cover a future net requirement is proposed.

Move time

The number of hours needed to physically move an item to the next operation.

MRP

See Material Requirements Planning.

MRP shortage

A lack of resources to produce the required amount of an item to fill outstanding orders. Manufacturing orders can be entered regardless of current stock of available materials.

Multi-level bill of materials

A bill of materials that lists all the components directly or indirectly involved in building the parent part, together with the required quantity for each item. For example, if a subassembly is used in the parent part, the multi-level bill of materials will show all the components needed to build the subassembly, including purchased parts and materials. See also Single-level bill of materials.

N

Negative WIP

The situation that occurs if you enter and post a manufacturing order receipt where more is consumed from WIP than was in WIP for the manufacturing order. When finished goods are received into inventory before materials have been issued to the order or before labor or machine time data collection transactions have been completed, this can occur. You must set up Manufacturing Order Processing to be able to enter receipts that would cause negative WIP.

Net change regeneration

An MRP process that updates MRP information based on changes to manufacturing orders, sales orders, purchase orders, and inventory quantities. See also Full regeneration.

Nettable item

An item, site or item-site combination that is included in MRP calculations.

Non-nettable item

Any item, site, or item-site combination that is not included in MRP calculations.

Non-Standard Report

A report for internal use that summarizes information about defects identified in a group of items. An NSR might also include information about the disposition of the defective items.

NSR

See Non-Standard Report.

O

Op code

See Operation code.

Operation

A specific task within the manufacturing process. You can use operations as templates for routing sequences.

Operation chart

See Routing.

Operation code

A code assigned to a particular task within the manufacturing process. For example, in a company that makes electrical components, the operation code for testing the validity of a certain characteristic might be 110. Also, op code.

Operation list

See Routing.

Operations sheets

See Routing.

Option

In sales configurator, an option is one of the available choices for some aspect of a configured item. For example, a computer manufacturer might offer 15-, 17- and 21inch monitors as options for a computer.

Option bill of materials

A bill of materials for a component signifying that the component won’t be identical in all finished products.

Option category

A group of related items that customers can choose from, such as various sizes of computer monitors.

Option setting

A setting that controls the information that appears on a report, such as sorting method, detail level, and range restriction.

Order increment

A variable that can be used to calculate order quantities for fixed or period order quantity order policies. The order increment is the number of item units that can be added to the standard order quantity to increase the order size to meet demand.

Order policy

A method for calculating the order sizes of automatically generated purchase and manufacturing orders. Manufacturing includes three order policies: lot-for-lot, fixed order quantity and period order quantity.

Originating currency

The alternate currency that a multicurrency transaction was conducted in. See also Functional currency.

Outsourced item

A finished good that requires one or more outsourced services.

Outsourced service

A service that is part of manufacturing processes that is purchased from a vendor.

Outsourcing

The practice of using outside vendors to perform certain manufacturing tasks.

Outsourcing routing

A routing that includes one or more sequences that are completed by an outsourcing vendor.

Outsourcing vendor

A vendor that you purchase outsourced services from.

Outsourcing work center

A work center where outsourced services are performed. An outsourcing work center can be on-site or can be at the vendor site.

Overhead

Costs incurred that cannot be directly related to the products or serviced produced. These costs, such as light, heat, supervision, and maintenance can be grouped and distributed to units of products or services by some standard allocation method.

P

Parallel routing

A routing that includes some routing sequences that run concurrently.

Parent part

An item built from the component parts. A parent part can be a subassembly or a final product.

Pegging

To trace an item requirement through the MRP system to find the source of the requirement quantity. Pegging will reveal whether a requirement is driven by a manufacturing order, sales order, purchase order or picklist.

Period order quantity

An order policy type that calculates order size for requirements for a period you specify, based on one or more of these variables: standard order quantity, order increment size, minimum order size, and maximum order size.

Periodic costing

See Standard costing.

Periodic inventory

An inventory tracking method that involves taking inventory on a recurring basis, such as monthly, quarterly or yearly. This is the same as “standard” costing.

Perpetual inventory

An inventory tracking method that involves constantly updating inventory each time an item is added or removed.

Phantom bill of materials

A bill of materials used to describe the components of a parent part that will be built as part of a higher-level parent part. The term “phantom” is used to indicate that the part never really exists as a stocked item, but is built along with the production of the higher-level part that is driving an overall production order. Creating bills of materials as phantoms allows the manufacturing order pick list and the Material Requirements Planning (MRP) features to explode through the phantom item down to the lower-level parts.

Pick document

A group of component transactions that share a type such as Allocate, Issue, Reverse Issue, and that are posted together. A pick document can include component transactions for multiple manufacturing orders, items, or sites.

Picklist

A list of the items and quantities of items that are required to fill a manufacturing order.

Planner code

A code that identifies the individual responsible for the production of the item.

Planning routing

A routing used to determine resource requirements for a potential manufacturing order. If negotiations with the customer are successful, the planning routing can be converted into an active routing and used to fill a manufacturing order.

Pointer routing

A pointer routing is used to outline a series of steps that are common to all items produced by your plant. For example, if each item needs to be tested by quality assurance, packaged and shipped, a routing can be defined to cover these steps for all items that you manufacture.

Post-to site

The site where the finished product will be stored prior to delivery to the customer. This location can be a department, a warehouse, or another plant.

Primary routing

A routing that provides the instructions for building an item. It is a basis for scheduling and resource estimates. The primary routing information is used to determine the required lead time for manufacturing the product. Each item can have only one active primary routing.

Process security

A type of security that allows you to restrict access to certain procedures or processes within Manufacturing.

Process security set

A password or list of user IDs you define to restrict authority for completing a Manufacturing process. You can use one process security set for all restricted procedures, or you can create different process security sets for different procedures.

Production variance

The difference between the actual and estimated costs for a manufacturing order, based on the working routing, the picklist, and labor and machine codes.

Promise date

The date that the customer has been told to expect receipt of the order.

Promotion

Special pricing offered on a particular option for a configured item. A special pricing offered on a particular option for a configured item.

Purchase order

A formal request for goods or services. The purchase order shows the quantity of goods ordered, expected receipt date, and supplier name. The purchase order may also include other information pertaining to the delivery of the item, such as Free On Board (F.O.B.) points.

Q

QA Required

A designation for purchased items that must pass a quality inspection before being added to your inventory.

Quantity damaged

The total items, if any, damaged during shipping.

Quantity ordered

The amount of the item requested on a single purchase order.

Quantity received

The amount of the item received from the supplier.

Quantity to fill

An amount of a product that was ordered but has not been received.

Query

A search through a specific set of records for certain information.

Queue time

The number of hours spent waiting for the operation to begin. The number of hours spent waiting for an operation to begin.

Quick manufacturing order

A manufacturing order that doesn’t require you to collect information about labor and machine time and material costs when the order is closed.

Quote

A company’s offered price for an item that a customer or a potential customer has requested. Quotes can be transferred to another document type, deleted or voided.

R

Raw materialsItems used to build products. They can be individual items like nuts, screws and diodes, or they can be subassemblies.

Record

A group of computer data tied together by a common key. (All of one item's information—from quantity and site information to engineering data to bill of materials data—is the item's record.)

Reference designator

Information that specifies where components should be used in an assembly, such as the placement of four resistors on a printed circuit board.

Regular bill of materials

A simple, single-level bill of materials.

Replaced item

An item in a mass update to bills of materials that is removed from bills of materials. A replacement item might or might not be substituted for the replaced item.

Replacement item

An item in a mass update to bills of materials that is added to bills of materials. A replacement item might be an addition to a bill of materials, or might be a substitution for a replaced item.

Return

An item or merchandise returned by a customer to your company. A return decreases the customer's balance on account and, if you choose, increases inventory quantities.

Revalue

To finalize rolled-up standard cost changes. Revaluing replaces existing standard cost information with new standard cost information, which is used in your accounting processes. As you change your standard cost information, you might roll up costs several times, but probably will revalue items only at certain points.

Revenue/expense code

A short identifier used to categorize expenses and revenues linked to a job.

Reverse allocate

A component transaction type where items that have been allocated to a manufacturing order are unallocated. See also Allocate.

Reverse Issue

A component transaction type where components that were issued to a manufacturing order (which removes them from inventory and adds them to WIP) are removed from WIP and put again in inventory. See also Issue.

Reverse Scrap

A component transaction type where components that were scrapped for a manufacturing order are restored to the issued (and not scrapped) quantity for the order. See also Scrap.

Roll up

To apply calculations based on changes to standard cost information to items. If you change the cost of a raw material that is part of several subassemblies and finished goods, “rolling up” that change will result in calculations that will determine the new standard costs of the subassemblies and finished goods. As you change your standard cost information, you might roll up costs several times, but probably will revalue items only at certain points.

Routing

A detailed set of instructions that describes how to create a particular item. Routings include operations to be performed, the scheduling sequence, machines and work centers involved, and hours required for setup and run times. Routings also can include information about tooling, operator skill levels, inspection needs, testing requirements, and so on. In engineering change management, a routing is a list of users who must review an engineering change request before it becomes a change order, and who must review a change order before it's finalized.

Routing preference

An individual user choice on how information is displayed or processed for update in the routings subsystem. Preferences can control such actions as substituting one description for another or appending work center operations notes on to routing notes.

Routing sequence

A single step in the manufacturing process. Some routings will contain multiple steps while others will have only a single step. Examples of a sequence include assembly, painting, drying, etc.

Routing sheets

See Routing.

Run labor code

A labor code that identifies the skill requirements to perform the operation as defined.

Run orders

See Manufacturing order.

S

Sales order

A request for goods or services. Sales orders can be Open (ready to be filled) or Planned (hold pending credit check or other criteria).

Sampling

A statistical process of selecting a portion of a large group of items to be inspected. From the sample you select—and your inspection results for the sample—you can draw inferences about the overall quality of the entire item quantity.

SCAR

See Supplier Corrective Action Request.

Scheduling data

The lead time needed to manufacture an item on a bill of materials and the amount of scrap materials produced by the manufacturing process.

Scheduling preference

A user preference that controls the allocation of resources to a particular manufacturing order. Scheduling preferences identify additional resources that may be available and define waiting periods for a sequence.

Scrap

A component transaction type where components that are issued to a manufacturing order are flagged to be scrapped. Scrapped component costs are applied to the manufacturing order costs, but the quantities aren’t.

Sequence number

A number assigned to a particular step in a routing. Each step (or sequence) represents an operation in the manufacturing process. The sequence number controls the order in which steps are executed.

Serial-numbered item

An inventoried item that is assigned a unique identifier, which can be letters, numbers, or a combination of letters and numbers.

Serial-number–tracked item

See Serial-numbered item.

Serial-tracked

See Serial-numbered item.

Setup cost

The cost of preparing a work area for production. Setup costs might include the cost of calibrating machines or gathering the necessary tools and resources.

Setup labor code

A labor code that identifies the skill requirements for the person preparing the work area prior to performing the manufacturing task.

Setup time

The number of hours needed to prepare the work area prior to the operation.

Ship date

The date when a sales order leaves your warehouse or office.

Shipping method

The manner in which the items are transported from the supplier to the manufacturer. Examples of shipping methods include FedEx, rail, air freight, etc.

Shop calendar

A calendar of up and down days—days when the plant is in production and when it isn’t—for an entire manufacturing facility.

Shop order See Manufacturing order.

Shop rate

The average pay rate for the pay grade. It is the figure that is used when labor costs are estimated for a manufacturing order.

Shrinkage

The loss of materials. You might have raw material shrinkage—such as when some component items are defective and can't be used in manufacturing—or you might have parent part shrinkage—such as when not all manufactured items meet your product standards.

Single-level bill of materials

A bill of materials that lists components and subassemblies, including the quantities of each, that make up the parent part. See also Multi-level bill of materials.

Site

A location that you have defined for storing items. A site could be a department, a plant, or a warehouse. The number of sites depends on your organizational structure.

Source routing

A previously defined routing that contains one or more steps that you want to use in a new routing.

Standard cost variance

The difference between the actual costs for a manufacturing order for a standard cost item, and the standard cost of the item.

Standard costing

An accounting method used by some businesses to value their inventories. A company that uses standard costing—also known as “periodic costing”—revalues its inventory periodically to reflect significant changes in the cost of its items.

Standard order quantity

A variable that can be used to calculate order quantities for fixed or period order quantity order policies. It is similar to a minimum order quantity, requiring no less than a set amount for an order, but it can be increased, either by increments or multiples of the standard order quantity.

Subassembly

A part that is both a component and a parent part. An assembly that is used in the manufacture of a higher-order assembly.

Super bill of materials

A list of all the component items that can possibly be included the bill of materials for a finished item. For example, a computer manufacturer might develop a super bill of materials that includes several options for hard disks, RAM, monitors, keyboards, mice and other peripherals. No computer can include all the options, but all the options must be included in the super bill of materials.

SUPER BOM

See Super bill of materials.

Supplier

A person or company that supplies goods or services to a manufacturer.

Supplier Corrective Action Request

A formal report to be sent to a supplier to involve the supplier in resolving problems with defective parts. SCARs describe the problems you’ve found—including item numbers, lot numbers, dates and test results—and might outline possible areas for the supplier to research to prevent the defect from recurring. Suppliers usually are required to respond to the SCAR reports with information about the cause of the defect and the steps to be taken to prevent its recurrence.

T

Template

A routing outline that you can use to quickly and efficiently build new routings. Each time you need to create a new routing, you can customize the template and give it a unique routing name.

Time fence

The minimum amount of time required for production of an item. When MRP is used to create planned manufacturing orders or purchase orders, the orders automatically are scheduled outside the time fence.

Total costs

The cumulative total of all expenses associated with a manufacturing order, plus any overhead that might not be directly connected to the order.

Trade discount

A price reduction, usually granted to a certain customer because of the customer’s special status. Customers with an excellent credit history might be offered a trade discount.

U

Unit costs

The value of time and resources consumed to create one unit of product for this order.

Unmet forecasted demand

The difference between forecasted demand (the anticipated amount of an item that will be required to meet projected orders) and actual production.

Up day

A day when the facility—the entire shop floor or a specific work center—is in production.

User-defined field

A field that can be used to track information specific to your company.

V

Valuation method

The process used to track inventory value (FIFO Perpetual, FIFO Periodic, LIFO Perpetual, LIFO Periodic, Average Perpetual).

Variance

The difference between two values, such as the difference between estimated and actual expenses.

W

Where used

A Manufacturing query that scans your bills of materials and routings to find where items, machines and other things you’ve defined are used. If you performed a “where used” search for all items in your plant that use a certain machine, for instance, the system would generate a list of all items that have a step involving that machine.

Window security

A system that allows you to specify which windows each user in your organization will be able to use.

Work center

A self-contained unit of the manufacturing process, or an entire plant. A work center might be an assembly area, a shipping and receiving area or a painting area. Machines and employees are the main components of work centers.

Work center calendar

A calendar of up and down days—days when the plant is in production and when it isn’t—for a specific work center.

Working routing

See Manufacturing order routing.

Work In Process (WIP)

A system that helps you to track and analyze the costs associated with a particular manufacturing order and view the progress of the manufacturing order.

See also

Manufacturing Setup
Glossary of Terms in the Distribution Area in Dynamics GP