Version 9.41 July 2006
Message System
The user will now be asked to confirm the cancellation of the entry of a new message. This will prevent messages from being accidentally lost after clicking outside the message window. The message body field now includes a scroll bar which will prevent scrolling with the mouse from causing the message to be cancelled.
The choice of message recipients has been updated to allow 'drag and drop' between the lists of possible and selected recipients.
The 'Stocked Parts' import now allows an item to be added to the default sales price list without having to specify a unit price.
Customers & Suppliers
The customer and supplier detail screens now allow a website address to be entered.
The user access condition on this menu has been corrected. This menu was previously only available to customers who had purchased the 'Production' module.
It is now possible to specify a 'surcharge' percentage against a part number for a specified customer. If entered, a surcharge line will be added to any new invoice raised for that customer / part. The value of the surcharge will be the invoiced cost of the part, multiplied by the specified percentage.
Free Issue Components on Quotes
The 'free issue' status of an part's assembly components will now be taken into account when creating a new quote for that part.
Sales Order Shipping Dates
Sales Orders have been updated to allow call-offs to have both a 'shipping date' and a 'customer requirement date'. By default, the shipping date will be set to the 'customer requirement date' minus the 'default customer lead time', but this can be overridden on each call-off record.
Lead times can also be set up against 'country codes' which are then used to default the lead time of any new customers added for that country. Changing the lead time on a country code will also give the user the opportunity to update the default lead time of any customers in that country.
Simple Sales Orders
The 'Simple Sales Order' entry screen has been updated to allow a 'Line Total' to be shown in place of the 'VAT Code'.
It is now possible to raise a 'back-to-back' purchase order for a sales order call-off from within the 'Sales Order Entry' screens. This is available for both 'simple' and 'detailed' sales orders.
A button has been added to this screen to allow all outstanding deliveries for a selected CUSTOMER to the be invoiced.
Sales Release Notes
'Sales Release Notes' have been updated to allow components to be flagged as 'Free Issue' and a 'Free Issue Owner' to be entered.
'Customers Own Part Number' tags have been added to the RTF release note.
Invoice Day Book
The 'Invoice Day Book' report has been updated to allow the report to be ranged on 'Invoice Number'.
A new export style has been added for customers using 'Lloyds TSB' factoring services. Please contact Sales / Support if you are interested in purchasing this optional module.
Purchase Order Default Additional Details
New purchase orders will now automatically be populated with the default 'Comments / Details' clause (if set).
Zooming on the 'Gross Price Each' field now brings up a new screen which allows the user to calculate the unit cost by entering the total cost for a specified quantity. This is available for all items which have a stock measure of 'No'.
Supplier prices and purchase orders for subcontract operations can now be priced 'by weight'. The user will need to enter the unit weight of the manufactured part at the operation being ordered.
Stocked Parts
The 'Assembly' & 'Route' Columns in the 'Manufacture' tab of the 'Stocked Parts' screen can now be toggled to show 'Product Permits' and 'Concessions' respectively.
This option has been simplified so that all options appear on one screen. Target parts which do not already exist will now be created automatically.
It is now possible to enter an override VAT code against a stocked part. The override will be used on any new sales or purchase invoices raised for the part - so long as the code is valid for country being invoiced.
Resource Maintenance
The report of resource details has been updated to allow to be be ranged by 'resource group'.
Resource Utilisation Report
The Resource Utilisation report has been updated to include an option to show 'Actual Time' vs 'Scheduled Time'. Please note that this option will only include operations which are included in the current schedule (ie were outstanding at the time the schedule was run).
Workshops
Customers who have been using FactoryMaster for a long time will have a workshop in their data with a blank code and the description 'Whole Company'.
For customers who have had FactoryMaster installed more recently (since around the end of 2001) the 'Whole Company' workshop will have a code of 'WC' (providing it has not been deleted / modified manually). Since around the same time, it has not been possible to create a workshop with a blank code.
From this version onwards, the blank workshop will be replaced by a workshop of WC. This will be updated on all stock records and works orders as well as in the workshop file itself. On a few sites there might already be a 'WC' code as well as the blank one - in this case another code will be used as the replacement for the blank.
All methods of raising works orders will now populate the workshop code with the appropriate default.
Scheduling Detail Level
In previous versions, scheduling has allowed a maximum of one operation from any given works order to be scheduled in any given hour of the day. In this version it is now possible to change this using the control flag 'SCHEDULE_DETAIL_LEVEL'. This can be set to 'Hour', 'Half Hour', 'Quarter Hour' or 'Minute'. If set to 'Hour' then scheduling will work in the same way as in past versions. If set to 'Half Hour' then the system will allow a maximum of one operation from a given works order in any given half hour of the day, and so on.
The length of time the scheduling process takes to calculate is affected by this setting. If you generally have long operations then the Minute option could dramatically increase the time it takes to calculate the schedule, but will not generally change the results. On the other hand, if you generally have very short operations, the 'Minute' option will not cause a dramatic difference in the time it takes to run a schedule, but could make a big difference to the results - allowing the operations to be packed more closely together.
Scheduling Overlap
It is now possible for operations on the same works order to be overlapped in the schedule. The existing travel time option from previous versions has been expanded and renamed 'Travel Type'. This can be...
Sequential - a travel time can be entered and the operations are scheduled sequentially with a MINIMUM of the travel time between them.
Percentage Overlap - a percentage can be entered. A subsequent operation will be allowed to overlap this one, but not until AT LEAST this percentage of the operation time on this operation has passed.
Quantity Overlap - a quantity can be entered. A subsequent operation will be allowed to overlap this one, but not until AT LEAST the operation time required to make this quantity on this operation has passed.
Time Overlap - a time can be entered. A subsequent operation will be allowed to overlap this one, but not until AT LEAST this length of operation time has passed on this operation.
These options are set on a resource-by-resource basis, but can be overridden on individual manufacturing routes. The travel details entered on an operation apply to the behavior between it and the following operation. The travel details are copied to the works orders whenever the route is used but can be altered separately on the works order if required.
The working of these options will also be affected by the 'SCHEDULE_DETAIL_LEVEL' as described in the above section.
For example: 'SCHEDULE_DETAIL_LEVEL' is set to 'Hour'. An operation takes 20 minutes and allows an overlap with the next operation after 5 minutes. The operations in this case will NOT overlap as the setting of 'Hour' on 'SCHEDULE_DETAIL_LEVEL' means there can only be one operation in any given hour. If this option were set to 'Minute' then the operations WOULD overlap (providing the second resource has capacity available).
Forwards Scheduling
This option is now performed in one pass rather than two. Previously if operations were obviously late they would be scheduled in the first pass with all others in the second pass. This meant that lower priority jobs which were already overdue would take precedence over higher priority jobs. Forwards schedule now uses exactly the priority order of the other scheduling methods and is processed in just one pass.
An error whereby the 'Cleardown Contract Orders' date was being reset in the 12-month version of the report has been corrected.
This screen will now allow purchase orders to be raised for raw materials which are priced 'by weight'.
RTF Route Card
'Sales Order Number' & 'Customers Sales Order Number' tags have been added to the RTF route card.
It now possible to include customer concessions in the 'Customer Returns PPM' calculations. Concessions will only be included if the new 'Customer Code' field on the concession record has been completed.
Job Costing
In previous versions, the 'Complete / Incomplete' setting on works orders within 'Job Costing' could occasionally be different to the setting for the same works order in 'Works Order Enquiry'. This was then reflected in 'Job Costing' related reports. It is no longer possible for these to get out of step as all job costing screens now read the setting from the main works order file rather than storing it separately on the job costing files.