Configure production control
Production control questions test the order lifecycle, scheduling, capacity, subcontracting, and lean execution.
Core rules
- Production orders move through Created, Estimated, Scheduled, Released, Started, Reported as finished, and Ended. Each status enables different journals and transactions.
- Estimation calculates material and resource consumption and cost. Scheduling reserves capacity. Operations scheduling schedules operations; job scheduling schedules individual jobs and can be finite or infinite.
- Capacity planning compares required load with resource capacity. Reservations can be made automatically during scheduling or manually.
- Subcontracting assigns a route operation to a vendor resource. You must configure the vendor, service item, and subcontracting parameters.
- Report as finished records output and consumes materials; the cost is posted at end or according to parameters. Scrap and error quantities are recorded separately.
- Lean manufacturing uses production flows, activities, and kanbans. Kanban rules replenish based on demand, and activity-based kanbans execute work at a cell.
Worked example
A customer order for 100 units triggers a production order. You estimate to see material and cost, schedule with operations scheduling to reserve the work center, release to the shop floor, start, then report as finished 100 units. The order ends after cost adjustment. Reasoning: each step validates different data; releasing before estimation bypasses calculated consumption.
Traps
- Releasing without estimation, so material and cost are not calculated.
- Using job scheduling when only operation-level capacity is needed.
- Forgetting that report as finished consumes BOM materials based on the reported quantity.
- Configuring a vendor resource without the subcontracting service item.