Version 9.44 October 2006
XML Purchase Order Schedule - FactoryMaster Business to Business Interaction
The facility to produce an XML purchase order schedule, combined with an XML sales order import has been added to allow 'Business to Business' interaction between FactoryMaster customers.
The XML purchase order schedule should produce one XML file per supplier and does NOT include Raw Materials.
MS Graphing System
The 'MS Graphing' option implemented in FactoryMaster has been updated to allow users to store graph options between uses. Users can now set how they like the graph to look and save the settings so that they will be used the next time the user visits the graph.
'MS Graphing' functionality is only available if you have 'Microsoft Office (2000 / 2003)' or 'Microsoft Office Web Components' installed on your PC.
Specific hot key links have been added to the Quote Maintenance screen to allow the quoted part number to be passed to the target program.
In the 'Header' view the customer code will be passed when hot-keying to sales orders.
In the 'Detail' view the part number will be passed when hot-keying to sales orders, purchase orders, works orders, assemblies and job costing.
In the screen obtained by pressing 'F5' on the 'Status' field in the 'Header' view, the part number will be passed when hot-keying to sales orders, purchase orders, works orders, assemblies and job costing.
In previous versions it was possible to leave the customer & currency fields blank on a new order until after the call-offs had been added. If this was done it was not possible to enter a value on the call-offs. It should no longer be possible to leave these fields blank.
A new option has been added to the 'Import Manager' to allow simple sales orders to be imported from a CSV file.
In previous versions it was possible to remove the last uninvoiced payment stage when earlier stages had already been invoiced. This could result in the last remaining stage being invoiced before delivery had taken place which in turn resulted in job costing not being updated. Additionally, this action would stop further stages being added and stop the quantity being changed without warning the user.
It is now no longer possible to delete the last uninvoiced stage if any other stage on the call-off has been invoiced. The only exception to this is when nothing has been delivered and the quantity required has been reduced to zero. In this case the uninvoiced stages can ALL be removed.
A new facility has been added to allow packaging items to be added to a delivery when the delivery note is first printed. This can be activated by setting the control flag 'DESPATCH_PACKAGING_SCREEN' to either 'If Packaging Found' or 'Always'.
A default list of packaging items can be defined against stocked parts via the 'Warehousing' tab of 'Stocked Part Maintenance'. These defaults will then be used to build a list of suggested packaging items for the delivery. Packaging items can be either 'Free Issue', 'Loan' or 'Chargeable'.
Please note that the cost of any packaging items added in this way will NOT be included in the job-costing of the items being delivered.
The basic unit cost from the default sales price list has been added to the 'summary' view of the stocked part maintenance screen.
Raw Material Daily transactions screen has been updated to match current FactoryMaster standards and to include the 'batch number' of the transaction. Additionally, the date range on certain sort orders of the transaction report has been corrected.
FactoryMaster users with larger datasets have reported that the new feature to allow resources to have a daily capacity override could cause an excessive overhead on the calculation of the schedule - even when no such overrides had been added.
In this version the overhead has been reduced and it is also possible to disable the new feature entirely so that sites which do not require this facility can completely eliminate the overhead. The control flag SCH_RES_DAILY_OVERRIDE should be set to 'No' to disable the option.
A new control flag AUTO_ORDER_CHECK_FUTURE_SUPP has been added which gets the MRP to check if a future supply of the part could satisfy the requirement and, if so, reduce or set the 'Qty to Order' to zero.
N.B. It is always advisable to check all orders which FactoryMaster suggests using the MRP Auto-Raise options whether using this control flag or not.
With this flag set to 'No' a higher quantity may be suggested than is needed in the long term, but with if set to 'Yes' users may miss the fact that a requirement has been pulled forward and therefore not take steps to see if the supply can also be moved to an earlier date.
The 'New Forecast' figure has always been provided for this purpose to allow an easy view of what the forecast stock level would be if the ticked orders are raised. This figure is now accompanied by the minimum stock figure and colour coded based on whether it is below the minimum, between minimum and maximum or over the maximum. A tool tip on the forecast stock figure spells out the status indicated by the colour coding and also shows both the minimum and maximum settings.
A new report has been added to the 'Auto Create Purchase Orders' option. The 'Predicted Spend Report' shows an estimated monthly expenditure of items in the 'Auto Create Purchase Orders' list.
FactoryMaster has been updated with the introduction of 'Employee Training Records'. Detailed of training course attended by employees can now be recorded and the system will provide reminders when a training qualification approaches renewal.
A new import has been added to allow users to import Phantom parts into the system.
The 'Assemblies' import has been updated to allow users to specify Phantom parts as either assembly components or assembly parents.