Some things are worth more than the sum of their parts! Not least in manufacturing, where the material costs of components are just the start of the true cost price of your shiny new finished goods. Extensive work, assembly, processing and labour goes into making something special – and this is where many businesses add their most value to the bottom line.

Process Routing is a special SQLWorks tool to help Production Managers organise, track and cost this essential part of the business workflow – ensuring finished goods are not only ‘made’ efficiently, but also priced appropriately.

If you have the Manufacturing module enabled, default Process Routes in SQLWorks can be assigned to the Bills of Material of any stock item, and these become the default process route for all new Works Orders instructing your team to make that item.

 

How Process Routing Works

Each Route is comprised of a series of process steps, each of which is given up to three attributes:

• Process Type – a ‘type’ of work, from a list defined by your business (mandatory.)
• Work Centre – a location where work happens, such as a piece of machinery or factory zone.
• Employee – a specific person, authorised to carry out that step in the process route.

 

 

To build a process route, simply drag and drop processes, work centres and employees onto a BOM’s process route, building up the chain of default steps needed to make the finished item. The route is automatically added to each new Works Order for that BOM.

(However, if an individual Works Order needs a different route on a specific Works Order, you can either ‘Change’ to a different pre-saved route with different steps, or ‘Edit’ the steps given to that specific Works Order using the default as your starting point, but adding your variations. Future Works Orders for this item will still use the BOM’s default process route, unless it is also updated.)

Each and every step on a Process Route can optionally contain detailed costings – based on labour and setup fees/time expired. In addition to setting your ‘Expected’ costs, you can use progress tracking to generate an ‘Actual’ cost for every step, and compare the two for an accurate picture of profitability.

Your factory may be full of active Works Orders, all taking different Process Routes on their journey to completion.

 

 

Key Benefits

There are several key benefits here:

 

 

Optional Extras

Depending on how you use Production Routing we’ve included extra controls to better fit the different kinds of business operations – and help you make better decisions. You can choose how to use all of these to get the most value from our software – or speak with our software development team, to introduce something entirely new.

Thanks for reading! For Production Routing and manufacturing software expertise, please contact our team today.

One of the questions we’re often asked surrounds the tricky issue of ‘negative’ stock quantities, and how SQLWorks can help warehousing operations balance flexibility with security.

By default, SQLWorks does not allow what some companies choose to call a ‘negative’ stock quantity. Ordinarily, the only stock that can be invoiced is the actual quantity of stock you hold, the act of invoicing moves it out of stock, and you cannot invoice a customer for stock you don’t have.

This is our recommended model, because it helps ensure business keep an accurate stock valuation and acts as natural protection against errors. While promises can be made to customers about stock owed, these remain only promises, and do not influence the company financials.

This model also makes intuitive sense to end-users: the ‘actual’ quantity will never be less than zero – reflecting the ‘actual’ amount a member of staff will find in a warehouse if they perform a stock check in person (either ‘some’ or ‘none’, but never a negative.)

However there are some instances where this principle runs into real-world difficulties. For example:

 

• In fast-paced business operations or large factory sites, manufactured goods may need to be physically loaded for dispatch before a shopfloor member of staff or office team at another location are able to confirm in the system that the new stock quantity is completed. The negative stock restriction can then become a bottleneck, as a lack of stock quantity seen in the system holds up the dispatch & invoicing process, and delays the delivery of stock that was otherwise ready on time.

• Production runs may not be exact – in some industries (such as printing) including and invoicing a small excess quantity or overrun of finished goods is typical: once again this can create a delay: where dispatch is held up by a tiny excess quantity that isn’t recognised in stock without some minor adjustments to data, and so can’t be invoiced in full.

• Large production runs may have special contract terms or non ad-hoc invoicing arrangements agreed, where invoicing might sometimes run ahead of the production of stock. For this, a company would need to be able to invoice stock they ‘owe’ to a customer, and takes an acceptable level of risk for doing so.

 

SQLWorks offers three different solutions to this kind of ‘negative stock’ problem:

 

Solution #1 – Enabling the Dispatch Note System

Enabling the Dispatch Note system adds one extra step in the progression from Order to Invoice: the Dispatch Note. Before an invoice, the user must issue a dispatch note to a customer, which can contain stock lines selected from multiple orders, even those without stock quantity available to be invoiced yet.

The quantity ‘dispatched but not invoiced’ is logged separately under ‘Pending’ until enough ‘Actual’ stock quantity is identified. Once the user is ready to invoice, the company must invoice from the available lines listed on existing dispatch notes.

This system doesn’t allow stock to go ‘negative’, since the user must always ‘book in’ the actual quantity to eventually cover what was dispatched, before they can finally invoice the customer – but it does allow the customer to receive their goods promptly, while maintaining traceability over what was shipped. The Dispatch Note system is a good solution where the underlying issue is the time delay.

The authority to issue dispatch notes can also be optionally granted to warehousing staff, and this system also works in tandem with the Dispatch Planner.

 

Solution #2 – ‘Flexibility Mode’

The first of two ‘Advance Batch’ modes, this option permits SQLWorks to create synthetic batches of stock it doesn’t have physically available. Doing so allows a company to invoice for stock they don’t have yet – albeit with some important safeguards in place.

Firstly, these artificial advance batches are tagged as such behind the scenes to prevent any errors being introduced into the stock valuation. Secondly, when new stock quantity then arrives in from completed manufacturing or purchase order deliveries, this artificial stock quantity figure is absorbed first – reflecting the fact that the real stock was already invoiced out.

Thirdly, in this mode SQLWorks is only allowed to create as much artificial stock quantity as is already listed on outstanding Purchase Orders or Works Orders. While the user is now allowed to send an invoice for stock that isn’t quite ‘to hand’ yet, there has to be a corresponding entry on the system indicating from where the business was expecting that stock to materialise.

For example: Advance and Adjusted stock quantities shown above, and a marker showing that stock batch 1016576 is an advance batch of x10 quantity that has been created by the system.

If you have Advance Batches turned on, you can use a quick filter under the Search bar to see all the items that have active advance batches (i.e those with negative stock that will use up future incoming quantity). If you print a stock valuation, advance batches will be treated as a ‘negative’ quantity for valuation purposes.

 

Solution #3 – ‘Unrestricted Mode’

The second of two ‘Advance Batch’ modes, this option permits SQLWorks to create batches of stock it doesn’t have physically available, with fewer restrictions.

Firstly, these artificial batches are tagged as such behind the scenes to prevent any errors being introduced into the stock valuation. Secondly, when new stock quantity then arrives in from completed manufacturing or purchase order deliveries, this artificial stock quantity figure is absorbed first – reflecting the fact that the real stock was already invoiced out.

However, in this mode there is no upper-limit enforced by the quantity outstanding on existing Works Order or Purchase Orders – allowing the company complete freedom to invoice irrespective of actual stock quantity, or even potential stock quantity.

Adopting this setting has important stock valuation and tax implications, so should only be used with great caution.

 

For ERP and stock control expertise, please contact our team today.

 

Good news! You’re in charge of a manufacturing business. Design an amazing finished product, buy its component parts, and set your team to work. Make something incredible and the World will surely beat a path to your door. Like so many industrialists before you, you are destined for greatness. As your finished goods are assembled you can watch your genius turn into innovation, skill into added value, and fame into fortune.

Well… maybe. But as your business scales, it becomes harder and harder to keep track of all the materials you need (and when you need them) to keep manufacturing on schedule. Disruptions begin to bite and there’s costly overheads everywhere you look, even underfoot.

Enter the MRP Run – a powerful process that some of the World’s most efficient manufacturing companies use to control purchasing and production. Using intelligent MRP software, even small businesses can organise sophisticated manufacturing operations without mistakes.

 

How MRP Works

Each time you begin an MRP run, SQLWorks scans through all your Sales (and Works) Orders, looking for demand for stock. It calculates which stock is already available, checks if components and materials are needed, and brings back recommendations. Those recommendations may be draft Purchase Orders (‘we need to buy A from Supplier B’) or Works Orders (We need to make X with Y.’)

For you, the human in the driving seat, things have changed. Your job is no longer the drudgery of compiling dozens of order lines, but to review MRP’s findings carefully, sense-check them, and be the authority that approves the next steps.

 

 

But think big! Unlike a human, MRP can scan through hundreds of orders, through multiple levels of Bill of Materials, cross-checking against tens of thousands of stock lines, bring back exact results in moments, and even prepare the paperwork for you to approve outgoing emails.

That automation potentially saves hundreds, even thousands, of person-hours creating routine purchase orders and works orders manually – and revolutionise the logistics behind manufacturing.

 

Key Benefits

There are several key benefits here:

 

 

Optional Extras

Depending on how you use MRP we’ve included extra controls to better fit the different kinds of business operations – and help you make better decisions. You can choose how to use all of these to get the most value from our software – or speak with our SQLWorks team, to introduce something entirely new.

Thanks for reading! For MRP and manufacturing software expertise, please contact our team today.

Backflushing is an alternative method of allocating components or materials to manufacturing, whereby stock is deducted only after production has been completed.

Backflushing makes it easier to work with quantities that would otherwise be highly impractical to ‘pick’ for use on Works Orders, and is a particularly useful technique when:

• • Components are too small or numerous to be ‘counted out’ in a sensible timeframe. (e.g.: screws, nuts, bolts, other low-cost parts used in volume.)
• • When materials are divisible, liquid, molten, gaseous, in lengths, weights, or otherwise issued ‘approximately.’ (e.g.: paint, ingredients, chemicals etc.)
• • Where a ‘spare’ quantity needs to be returned to stock after manufacturing is finished. (e.g.: scrapings, leftovers, recycled material.)

In SQLWorks every component on a Bill of Material (BOM) has a default allocation method – either ‘Standard’, ‘Backflush’ or ‘Return’ which defines how stock of this item will be ‘used up’ in the Stock Ledger. These work as follows:

• • ‘Standard’ – This is the default, and is used for all items that need to be counted out in advance of production. Components will be removed from stock when the user clicks ‘Take’ on the Works Order, before production begins.
• • ‘Backflush’ – Components will only be removed from stock after the Works Order is built, and the user is then asked to specify how much has been used.
• • ‘Return’ – Similar to backflushing, however components will only be removed from stock after the Works Order is built, and the user is then asked to specify a ‘spare’ quantity that gets returned to stock.

By changing a component stock item to ‘Backflush’ on a BOM, nothing will be removed from stock at the ‘Take’ stage, instead being deducted only after that BOM has been ‘built’ on a Works Order. The user can then specify how much has (or hasn’t) been used.

This is significantly more practical for certain items – although production managers may need to initially estimate the stock quantity of a Backflush item that they expect to use on its BOM (e.g.: how much paint an item typically needs.)

The user can edit a component’s default type by right clicking on it in a BOM, and choosing ‘Change Component Type.’ Components set to Backflush will be marked with a small ‘B’ symbol in the BOM.

When ‘Taken’ within a Works Order, only Standard items will listed as being removed from stock, and Backflush items will always show a taken quantity of zero (with the user then prompted after the ‘build’ stage for the correct quantity used for Backflush, or quantity excess for Return.)

For many manufacturers, drawing down stock ‘post-production’ in this way may be the only way to accurately update your usage of resources. Using backflushing is an efficient way of tracking manufacturing using more fluid components, and allows SQLWorks to keep your production precise.

SQLWorks Version 10 is officially live on both Microsoft Windows 11, with early tests suggesting a significant performance improvement.

Microsoft Windows 11 is the first major Windows release for six years, and introduces a raft of visual, technical and security updates to the world’s most widespread desktop operating system.

Our SQLWorks Software Development Team – which uses both Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows for development – works hard to ensure our software maintains the best possible lifespan and interoperability, without the need for companies to spend on paid version upgrades. This includes advance testing on preview build/upcoming operating systems via virtual machine, to ensure our customers won’t experience compatibility issues.

You can learn more about upgrading to Windows 11 here, including the require minimum specifications. Uptake across industry PCs is expected to be somewhat slower than for Windows 10, as many pre-2018 processors prior to the Spectre and Meltdown incidents won’t support the update – meaning that the adoption of Windows 11 will be driven predominantly by new devices.

SQLWorks is still fully operable on any 64-bit version of Windows 10, which itself remains fully supported by Microsoft until October 2025.

 

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SQLWorks Document management has reached the next level, enabling tagging of engineering documents and automated printing alongside Works Orders.

As shown in our Introduction to Document Management, many types of files can be added and stored within SQLWorks, linked to other data, downloaded or referenced whenever required. Our development team have also enabled tagging of specific files as ‘engineering’ documents so they can be automatically transferred through to production.

Saving a .jpeg or .pdf to a stock item’s document tab is a simple drag-and-drop process, supported by tagging with the engineering tag. When a Works order is created for that Bill of Materials, those supporting documents can be pulled through for printing automatically.

This is especially useful for assembly instructions, photographs, blueprints and similar that help guide during the production process.

Setting specific criteria in ‘Accounts preferences’ and ‘Document Analysis’ which can be found on the Navbar, allows a specific ‘tag’ such as one named Engineering, to be selected when saving a document on a stock item. Tagged documents appear in the ‘Documents List’ in the top right of the Works Order automatically, and when printing or previewing your Works Order SQLWorks finds the associated document and asks you to confirm whether you would like to print the engineering documents.

 

This feature is especially useful if you have drawings, assembly instructions or diagrams for example, that need to accompany the Works order when sent to the shopfloor/workshop for the build process.

If you would like to find out more about how SQLWorks can make the Manufacturing processes more efficient and less time consuming, please get in touch with our SQLWorks team via email [email protected] or call 01271 441570.

 

Announcing Version 10:

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Lineal Software Solutions are excited to announced the public release of our next generation of SQLWorks software.

Version 10 of our flagship business management suite harnesses more advanced manufacturing capabilities for the first time – introducing brand new material requirements planning (MRP) capabilities into our existing integrated accounting, CRM & stock control platform.

Automation is critical to productivity. SQLWorks MRP allows businesses to instantly gauge future demand for stock items & materials based on a flexible time horizon and existing stock availability, automatically generate purchase orders for approved suppliers, automatically roll-up part and cost changes through bills of material, and automatically create works orders for production centres on the factory floor.

 

 

 

These hotly-anticipated new features will help drive real business benefits, especially among manufacturing and logistics companies: including more intelligent and cost-effective purchasing, optimised stock holding, and coordinated forward planning of production.

Factory managers can now backflush manufactured items, auto-attach engineering documents, optionally roll-up updated part-costings from purchasing through the relevant kits, and even import new assemblies from popular engineering CAD software via drag-and-drop.

 

 “… British manufacturing needs a factory reset.”

Mike Matthews, Lineal Software Solutions

 

MRP is an immensely powerful tool for running a business – and we’ve given users the ability to drill-right down into purchasing and production recommendations – finding the exact source of demand from potentially thousands of orders, to line level, with a simple double-click.

SQLWorks manufacturing abilities integrate seamlessly with other business processes across accounting, CRM and stock control – and we’re planning further extensions to functionality for release later in 2020: including detailed capacity planning, support for ‘Just-In-Time’ (JIT) style manufacturing, and more complex ad-hoc report building.

 

 

We’ve also made some updates to the visual identity of SQLWorks with this iteration to help make our software feel smoother and more accessible to new users, and expanded Lineal’s UK Software Development Team of Omnis developers to hasten our development cycle.

Mike Matthews, Lineal’s Managing Director, explained: “This is a terrific new leap forward for our SQLWorks software. The new release is our most advanced ever, and introduces powerful new manufacturing and logistical control to our existing business management tools.”

 

 

 

“We believe the ability for industry to automatically complete important engineering tasks – like importing newly-designed assemblies, production planning, updating part costs and forecasting future operations – will prove a popular choice among manufacturers.”

“Post-lockdown many firms will be doing some serious soul-searching about whether their systems are really up to scratch. British manufacturing needs a factory reset. If you can’t innovate then you’re at a dead end, and modernisation will be an important part of the UK’s economic recovery.”

SQLWorks Version 10 with MRP is available NOW

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