Using the handheld device for reporting serial numbers as finished in production

Introduction

A new flow for the handheld device has been released with KB article: 3148600. This flow enables the user to register the finished good serial number when reporting as finished in production. This flow is targeting a process where the finished good serial number is generated under the following conditions:

It is assigned by the system at the time when the production or batch order is created.
It is configured to be unique per one single unit of the production order. If, for example, a production order of five pieces is created, five unique serial numbers are created.

Configuration of the flow

This section provides information about how the flow is configured.

Create a new Mobile device menu item, and name it, for example, Register serial number. In the field Work creation process select Register report as finished by serial number.

The menu item can be added to a menu, for example, the Production menu, as shown below.

Use the flow in production

This section provides information about how the new flow can be used in production.

Create a finished good

Create a new finished good that is controlled by serial number.

As this is an item enabled for the new warehouse processes, make sure the Number sequence group ID is added the product. Note: This flow is only applicable for a product that is enabled for a managed warehouse.

Associate a Serial number group, with this setup, with the released product.

With this setting, a serial number per quantity of the finished good will be created, when the production or batch order is created.

Create a production order

Create a production order for the finished product.

When the production order is created, open the Transactions form and notice each of five transactions has a serial number assigned.

Estimate and start the production order

Open the menu for the handheld device and register report as finished for the serial number: 000006.

Open the Transactions form again and notice that the serial number has been reported as finished to the inventory.

Open the Work details form and notice that work of type Finished goods put away has been created.

Using the Work Policy for warehouse processes in production

Warehouse processes don’t always include warehouse work. By using the new warehouse work policy introduced with KB3184505, you can omit work warehouse processes in production for specific products and locations.

Below figure shows a scenario how the Work Policy can be used (double-click on the figures to make them bigger).

In this scenario, we have two production orders; one for painting Comp-1 and one for the assembly of Fg-1. The production order for Comp-1 is reported as finished to the location 001. The production order for Fg-1 is later consuming Comp-1 and Rm-1 from location 001. When the production order for Fg-1 is released, warehouse work for raw material picking is generated to move Rm-1 from the Bulk locations to 001.

For this scenario, we can set up following requirements for the warehouse processes:

No warehouse work for Finished goods put away should be created when reporting as finished Comp-1 to location 001 because Comp-1 is later consumed on the same location by the Assembly operation.
No Work for Raw Material Picking should be generated for Comp-1 when releasing the Assembly operation to the warehouse.
Work for Raw material picking should be generated for Rm-1 when releasing the production order for the Assembly operation to the warehouse.
It should be possible to define location 001 as non-license plate controlled, as it acts both as a production input location and a production output location (so far it has not been possible to define the production output location as non-license plate controlled).

The following walkthrough shows how these requirements are supported by the Work Policy. First we will set up a Work policy named NoPickPutAway-001-FG1 as shown below

As it can be seen from the figure, the Work policy uses the following three criteria to define work creation:

The Work Order Type
The Location
The Product (selected or all products)

Above policy will prevent Finished good put away work to be generated when Reporting as finished product Comp-1 to location 001 in warehouse 51.

The policy will also prevent Work for raw material picking to be generated when releasing a production order that is consuming product Comp-1 from production input location 001.

Location 001 is defined as a non-license plate controlled location. It is pre requisite for defining a non-license plate output location, that a work policy exists for the location that prevents work for Finished goods put-away from being created.

Let’s take a closer look at the setup of the products and then how the work policy works in this scenario. Product Comp-1 has a Painting operation which is associated a resource group with output location 001

The Assembly operation for the production order for FG-1 is consuming the products Comp-1 and RM-1 from the input location 001. The input location is setup on the resource requirements for the Assembly operation

The active bill of material version for Fg-1 is setup for materials Comp-1 and Rm-1

Now we create a production order for Comp-1 for 20 pieces

The production order is Started

The production order is Reported as finished from the hand-held device in the below flow

In this case Comp-1 was reported as finished directly to location 001 and no put-away work was generated because of the Work policy.

Now we create a production order for FG-1

The production order is Estimated and Released

Work for raw material picking has been generated for Rm-1, because the Work policy is only preventing work for raw material picking for product Comp-1 to be generated from location 001

In the first release of the Work policy only the following three Work order types for production are supported

Raw material picking
Finished goods put away
Co-product and by-product put away

Use the hand-held device to register raw material consumption in production

With KB-3164415 a new mobile device work flow for registration of raw material consumption has been introduced.

Material consumption, for production or batch orders, is in Dynamics AX done with the use of the production picking list journal. A material can be configured to be consumed either as a manual or automatic process with the use of the Flushing principle on the Bill of material or Formula lines. By selecting the principle Start or Finish it is indicated that materials should be consumed automatically, either by production order Start or when Reporting as finished. By selecting the principle Manual, it is indicated that the user should manual account for the material consumption. The reason why manual registration is sometimes required, is to secure that the actual time of the consumption corresponds with the time of registration, so material traceabiltiy can be maintained. Traceabiltiy is a typical requirement in the food industry, where all food ingredients and packaging materials that are in contact with the food ingredients, must be traceable.

The new hand-held flow works as an interface to the production picking list journal. With the hand-held device the users scans the materials on the locations and accounts for the quantity and dimensions. For each registration a production picking list journal line is created for the production order. When the user confirms the registration as completed the picking list journal is posted.

Let’s walk through a simple scenario that shows how the new work flow is configured and how it works.

The figure below shows a production process that is consuming a batch controlled raw material RM-100. The material is on-hand on location Bulk-001 on license plate PL-1 with two batches b1 and b2 both with a quantity of 100 Lbs. Warehouse work is released and processed for RM-100, picking the material from Bulk-001 to the production input location PIL-01. From the production input location consumption of the material is registered as a manual operation by the machine operator.

First create a new Mobile device menu item with the activity code Register material consumption

Add the menu item to the Production Mobile device menu

Create a production order for the finished product

The flushing principle on the bill of material line is set to Manual

The production order is Estimated and Released and warehouse work is created. After the work is processed the material is in status: Picked at the production input location.

After the production order is Started, material consumption can be registred with the new work flow. We start by consuming 25 ea of Batch B1 and after that 50 ea of batch B2:

Some additional comments to the flow:

If the user cancels the flow after a journal line is created, then the journal is in an un-posted state.
If the same user starts up the flow again, for the same production order, then any new line will be created in the existing open journal.
The new flow is also supporting the registration of serial numbers.
It is only possible to register an item number that is defined in the bill of material or formula for the selected production or batch order.
It is possible to over-consume a material. If a material for example is estimated to be consumed with the quantity of 100 lbs., then it is possible to over-consume with a quantity of for example 105 lbs.
In this example material that was in status Picked or Reserved physical on the production input location, but it is also possible to register consumption of material that is not picked or reserved from a location.
It is not possible to register a negative quantity

Round up work for raw material picking to match the handling unit

This blog post describes the functionality of a new hofix that is released in the Microsoft Knowledge base (KB) in article 3120530.

After installing this hotfix it is now possible to configure the location directive for raw material picking, so work can be rounded up to the nearest handling unit in which the material is picked for production.

Consider following scenario:

A food manufacturer uses a special flour for making a powdered soup mix. The flour is stored on pallets in 50 lb bags in the bulk warehouse. For making 4,475 lb of the powdered soup mix 510.15 lb of flour is needed. This corresponds to 10 x 50 lb bags + 10.15 lb. As the material is always picked in bags (the handling unit), the warehouse worker will in this case pick 11 bags. After the 11 bags are moved to the production floor, the bags are broken and 510.15 lb is weighed off and applied to the production process. The remaining quantity from the last bag will remain on the input location and either be consumed by the next batch order or moved back to the warehouse.

Before the release of this hotfix it was possible to set up in which handling unit the material should be picked, but it was not possible to round-up the quantity to the nearest handling unit. In the above example, work for raw material picking would have been created for 10 x 50 lb bags and 10 lb i.e. for the same work the material would be picked in two different units. This scenario is still supported, and is relevant for some customers who wants to weigh of the material at the warehouse location (in this case the remaining 10.15 lb).

Let us take a closer look at how the mechanism to round up work to the nearest handling unit has been enabled.

Setting up the location directive for raw material picking

In the location directive for raw material picking a new field Round up to handling unit has been introduced:

This field works together with the field Restrict by unit. In this example the location directive is set up to pick in the unit of Bag, and selecting Round up to handling unit indicates that the work generated out of the directive should be rounded up to a multiple of one handling unit.

Setting up formula and ingredient

In this example a formula version for making the soup mix is set up with a batch size of 4475 lb, consuming 510.15 lb of Flour

A unit conversion has been set up for the Flour ingredient between the unit’s bag and lb.

The following Unit sequence group is used for the item. The inventory unit must be the first unit in the sequence group, in this case lb.

Releasing work for raw material picking

A batch order is now created and released for the batch size of 4475 and warehouse work for raw material picking is generated.

As it can be seen from the work details work is in this case rounded up to 11 bags. The batch order is still only reserving the required quantity 510.15 which can be seen from the work transactions form that can be opened from the work details form:

If the rounding option had not been used on the location directive, then the resulting work would have looked like this:

In this case the warehouse worker would have to pick 10 bags and weigh of the remaining 10.15 lb on a warehouse location. This process is enabled in the location directive by adding a line that is not restricted by unit. This line will make work for the remaining quantity.

Reporting as finished with the option to mark the order as ended

This blog post describes a new hofix that is released in the Microsoft Knowledge base (KB) in article 3124753.

When reporting a batch order or a production order as finished with End job, the order state will be updated to Reported as finished. This state indicates that no more finished goods are going to be reported and no more time and material is going to be consumed by the order. As a consequence, any inventory transactions with remaining quantities for both materials and the finished goods will be closed.

So far the End job option has only been supported when reporting as finished from the AX Client and not from the hand held device. With this hotfix the End job option is now also available with reporting as finished from the hand held device.

This hot fix also leverages the Physical reduction parameter in the production control parameters. Setting this parameter can be helpful in for example material back flushing scenarios where it will prevent the reporting as finished process to error out in case of material stock out.

Configuration of the menu item

A new parameter End job has been introduced in the Mobile device menu item for the work creation process Report as finished and put away.

When setting this parameter the End job field will be visible when reporting as finish on the hand held device.

Reporting as finished with End job

Reporting as finished with the End job option can be demonstrated by using a simple Formula FinGood with a formula line named Ingredient. A batch order is created for FinGood

The formula line is set up with flushing principle Finish

Also note that the formula line is set up with a variable scrap percentage of 5.

The batch order is now Released and warehouse work for raw material picking is created.

The work for raw material picking is processed and the ingredient is now available and physically reserved on the production input location.

Note that the quantity is 1050 as it includes the estimated 5% scrap.

The batch order is Started and after some time a partial quantity of 500 is reported as finished from the hand held device

Note that the field End job is set to No as we are reporting a partial quantity.

After reporting as finished is completed a quantity of 500 pieces of the finished product is on-hand and the material Component has been back flushed proportional to the reported as finished quantity which can be seen on the material inventory transactions.

Now the last quantity of the FinGood is reported as finished. To indicate it is that last quantity the End job field is set to Yes.

In this example the batch order is over producing with a quantity of 3 (500+ 503), because less material than the estimated 5% was scrapped during the production thereby enabling more finished goods to be produced. As back flushing is consuming proportional to the reported as finished quantity, the system will in this case try to consume 503 + 5% = 528. As there is only 525 left on the input location this will cause the process to error out due to material shortage

As only 525 was consumed (because we had a lower scrap than estimated) we want the system to consume the remaining quantity of 525 on the input location and not try to consume more.

To support this scenario, the Physical reduction property, that is set up in the Production control parameters, can be used. Using it, will ensure that the system will only try to consume the physical available quantity during back flushing. The parameter is only leveraged, in this scenario, when the End job is set to Yes on the hand held device.

With the Physical reduction parameter set, let us again try to report a quantity of 503 as finished with End job

Looking at the batch order, the status has now changed from Started to Reported as finished

In total a quantity of 1003 has been reported as finished

With the consumption of the original estimated quantity of 1050 of the ingredient

Recommended settings for materials that acts as consumables in production

The core team has been engaged in a couple of requests about how to set up raw materials that acts as consumables in production. In these requests the following characteristics has been used for consumables:

They are never stored in the raw material warehouse, but filled up directly at the production locations, therefore warehouse work for raw material picking is not needed for these materials.
They often represent a low value and are not accounted for at time of consumption, but cycle counted at a periodic basis.
They are often set up to allow for physical negative inventory to avoid blocking issues when they are back-flushed in production.

Here is how this scenario is enabled with and without enablement for the new warehouse processes

For products enabled for the advanced warehouse processes

The product must be set up with an Item model group that allows for physical negative inventory
Field Allow pick work center negative on the released products detailed page must be enabled
Field Allow negative inventory on the location directive for raw material picking must be enabled
The product must be set up in production to be consumed from a warehouse that allows for physical negative inventory
The product will be picked from the product input location defined by the resource used from the route operation that consumes the material.

For products that are not enabled for the new warehouse processes

Setup a default issue location either at the item-warehouse level or by the resource (resource consumption). This location will be defaulted to the production bill of material line, and act as the production input location i.e. the material will be consumed from this location.
Use it in a warehouse that is WMS-enabled, and there is no problem setting up this product to allow for negative inventory.

New support for serial number registration in production

The hotfix in Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article 3093049, which is planned for release in mid-October, enables scenarios where registration of a component’s serial number can be postponed until the time of consumption in production. Here is one of the customer scenarios we have been looking at:

Most of the components we use for our machine assemblies are delivered from vendors. These components are typically received on pallets packed in a quantity of for example 200 pieces. Each component has a unique engraved serial number, but we don’t need to register the serial numbers at product receipt. We just register the receipt of the pallet, so that we don’t have to spend time breaking up the pallet and registering each serial number individually. The serial number also isn’t registered when the warehouse worker picks the component for the production order. However, when the assembly worker mounts the component in the assembly, she reads the engraved serial number on the component and updates it in the system. By registering the serial number at the time of consumption, we can print a list that shows exactly which component serial numbers were used in a given assembly. Then, if we receive a complaint, and the issue that is reported can be tracked to a specific component, we can communicate the serial number back to the vendor. In a worst-case scenario, if the issue is systematic (for example, a batch of bad-quality rubber sealing has been used in the component), the vendor will track all the components that are affected and communicate the serial numbers affected back to us. Because we can track the serial number that is used in a given assembly, we can now identify all the assemblies that are affected and take the necessary measures.

This scenario is now supported in Dynamics AX and can be demonstrated by using a simple bill of materials (BOM) that is named Assembly and a serial-controlled item that is named Component.

In the warehouse, the component is tracked only by location and license plate. The serial number of the individual components on the license plate aren’t known at this point.

A production order is released for the assembly, and warehouse work is created to pick up the component.

The warehouse work is processed without specifying the serial number of the picked component.

The production order is started, and the production picking list journal is created.

The picking list journal can’t be posted unless a serial number is specified. Any attempt to do so will cause the following error message:

This message indicates that a serial number must be registered before the picking list journal can be posted. The new Register serial numbers menu item that has been added to the Inventory Action Pane button can be used to resolve this error.

The journal can now be posted, and the serial number is updated on the issue transaction for the production material line.

The bill of serial for the assembly can now be printed from the tracing tool.

A new field Register serials before consumption has been added to the Tracking dimension groups form to enable this scenario. This field works together with the Capture serial field for the values Picking and Packing. For example, when Picking is selected in the Capture serial field, the serial number also needs to be provided at the time of picking. Also notice that the field Active in sales process, in the grid for the dimensions, should be left un-checked.

Order picking from license plate locations

The hotfix in Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article 3093049, that is planned to be released mid-October, enables order picking from license plate locations for raw material picking. This hotfix also introduces a policy that controls the status of the material line after raw material picking has been completed.

Order picking from license plate locations

For raw material picking, there are two picking principles: order picking and staging. The term order picking is used when the ordered quantity is being picked, whereas the term staging is used when the full quantity on the picked license plate is being moved. Up to now, only staging from license plate locations has been possible. However, this hotfix now makes it possible to configure which of the two principles should be used for raw material picking. This policy is controlled at the item level, where a new Material picking in license plate locations field has been added on the Warehouse management FastTab.

By default, when a new product is created, the value of this field is set to Order picking. When you apply this hotfix on a customer installation, it’s important to change the value of this field to Staging for the items that are picked. Typically, these are the items that have been stored at the license plate locations.

Controlling the status on the material line after material put

A new Status after material put field has been added to the Inventory and warehouse management parameters.

The value of this field controls the status of the inventory transactions for the production material line after warehouse work for raw material picking has been completed. Up to now, the status has always been Picked.

The Picked status deducts physical on-hand inventory. However, feedback indicated that users expect to see the physical on-hand material at the input location after the warehouse work has been completed but not yet consumed by the production order. Therefore, it’s now possible to switch the Issue status between Picked and Reserved physical.

When you select Reserved physical, the material appears as physical on-hand (but reserved) inventory at the input location after warehouse work has been completed.

Overproduction in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

With the introduction of the new warehouse management capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3, it is possible to Report as finished a production or batch order from a handheld device. The only disadvantage of using this capability is that you can’t overproduce. The user will be blocked by the error: Quantity reported as finished exceed the quantity started, and have no option to override the setting.

With Hotfix KB 3034999, we leverage the quantity validation parameters, originally built for the Manufacturing execution module, so the user can now report overproduction from a handheld device.

Overproduction is the term used in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 for reporting a production or batch order as finished when the quantity produced is greater than originally planned. This is a common scenario in the process industry and can be caused by many factors, for example, potency and yield.

When you produce more items than planned for a production or batch order, you will get the following blocking error: Quantity reported as finished exceeds the quantity started.

In order to allow for overproduction, you have to select the parameter Accept error in the Report as finished parameters. This will bypass the quantity validation check and then allow for overproduction.

For companies that use the Manufacturing execution module in Dynamics AX2012, there is a more advanced support for overproduction. In this module, you can set up a quantity validation based on different criteria. For example, you can accept overproduction in percent based on the planned quantity, the started quantity, or the quantity reported on the previous operation.

To show an example of how overproduction is reported, I have changed the demo script for CU8 “SCM Demo Script – Batch orders and WMS integration” (Attached). I have changed the section:

DEMO: REPORT THE PRODUCTS AS FINISHED AND MOVE THEM TO LOCATION FOR FINISHED PRODUCTS

The following diagram shows the complete logic. The logic was originally only applicable for reporting overproduction from the job registration form in the Manufacturing execution module, but is now applicable for the scenario where the user needs to report overproduction from a handheld device.

SCM Demo Script – Batch orders and WMS integration – Overproduction.pdf

Generating put away work when reporting as finished from the Dynamics AX client

This new functionality is available with KB 2999768 and will be included in Microsoft Dynamics AX2012 R3 CU8. To find the HF you can use LCS Issue Search.

What’s new?

In the AX2012 R3 release put away work could only be generated when you used the reporting as finished process on a mobile device for a production or batch order. In CU8 put away work can now also be generated when you use the reporting as finished process for a warehouse-enabled item from the AX client.

In this blog I am going to walk through two scenarios showing how put away work is now created when reporting as finished from the Dynamics AX client. In this example I am going to use item L0101 from the USMF demo data company

Simple scenario : Shannon has completed the assembly of ten speakers in her work cell. She reports the speakers as finished in the route card journal and put away work is generated.

A production order for twenty pieces of mini-speakers exists and is in the status Started:

Shannon completes the assembly of the twenty Mini-speakers and reports the quantity as finished in the route card journal:

Shannon provides the journal line with a license plate number:

When Shannon posts the journal, put away work is generated:

Advanced scenario : Shannon is working on a production order assembling ten Mini-speakers. Shannon has completed the assembly of eight speakers and reports them as finished in the job registration terminal form and put away work is generated. Shannon completes the assembly of the remaining two speakers but does not have time to report them in the terminal, because she has to rush home. Lars promises Shannon that he will take care of reporting the remaining quantity as finished.

A production order for ten pieces of mini-speakers exists and is in the status Started:

Shannon has started the assembly of 10 mini-speakers:

Shannon is now going to report eight pieces as finished from the Job registration form in the manufacturing execution system. In the feedback form Shannon provides a license plate number. This number identifies the goods that Shannon is reporting to the output location of her work cell. The license plate number will be used by the warehouse worker to identify the goods that he is going to put away from the output location to the finished goods locations:

Note: The license plate field is enabled in the feedback form under the following conditions

The item is enabled for the new warehouse processes
The shop floor operator is reporting on the last operation in the production route

After Shannon has confirmed the feedback of eight pieces of mini-speakers, put away work is generated:

As it can be seen this work suggests that the eight Mini-speakers are put away from the production output location to the finished goods location.

In order to report the remaining two Mini-speakers, Lars opens the production order form and selects the Report as finished function. Here he enters the remaining two pieces and the license plate. In this case he uses the same license plate as Shannon did when she reported the first eight speakers:

After confirming the report as finished, put away work has been generated for the remaining two speakers that were reported by Lars:

The different options for reporting as finished is outlined in the table below. All these options now supports the generation of put away work:

Option	Description
Report as finished	Dedicated function on the production/batch order form or list page. Has advanced options to for example back flush materials. Typically used by the shop floor supervisor role
Report as finished journal	Journal to post the quantity reported as finished for production or batch orders. Typically used by the shop floor operator role
Job card journal	Journal to report time and quantity for route operations. Option to report a quantity as finished when reporting on the last operation. Typically used by the shop floor operator role
Route card journal	Journal to report time and quantity for production jobs. Option to report a quantity as finished when reporting on a process job for the last route operation. Typically used by the shop floor operator role
Current operations	List page showing ongoing operations on the shop floor. Option to report a quantity as finished when reporting on the last operation. Used by the shop floor operator role
Report feedback in job registration form	Form that is optimized for manufacturing execution on the shop floor in a kiosk or terminal installation. Option to report a quantity as finished when reporting on the last operation or a process job for the last operation. Used by the shop floor operator role
Hand held device	Menu items on hand held device offering reporting production or batch orders as finished. Used by the shop floor operator role

Summary

In CU8 it is now possible to have put away work generated when reporting quantity on a production or batch order in the Dynamics AX client. For example this can be useful for customers who wants to enable the new warehouse processes offered in the R3 release, but wants to continue to use the shop floor terminal for manufacturing execution, or also want to enable the shop floor supervisor to make corrections.