There are several business issues to consider before using work orders in QAD Enterprise Applications. This section does not discuss all potential issues, but presents some issues to generate thought and discussion.

Work orders control and monitor the manufacturing of discrete items.

Repetitive manufacturing uses production line schedules.

Repetitive manufacturing typically involves continuous work and production lines dedicated to one item, or a family of items, for relatively long times.

Repetitive manufacturing and work orders are appropriate to different environments.

The system handles repetitive manufacturing in the repetitive and advanced repetitive modules.

Rework work orders manage the repair, reprocessing, or completion of nonconforming items.

Whether to charge the costs to the original order or to a separate order:

Charging to the original order: None.

Charging to a separate order: Create a rework department, work center, and possibly alternate routings.

Possible reclassification of variances for accounting.

Co-products are intended results of a base product. By-products are incidental results of these same base products.

The system processes these products differently from standard work orders because of the product structures, variances, and multiple end items.

The system handles co/by-products differently from regular products.

This course does not cover co/by-products.

Configured products offer the customer variations on the original product.

Configured products come out of the Sales Order module.

Configured products come from Sales Order Release to Work Order.

Set up Configured Products Control.

Discussed in Training Guide: Sales Orders

Shop Floor Control enables you to move items through work centers and operations to provide detailed analysis of the work.

Identify variances the Post Variances at SFC setting in Work Order Control affects.

Work Order Control settings.

Discussed in Training Guide: Shop Floor Control.

The closing of work orders completes the life cycle and:

If work order transactions have not been properly completed before the closing process, then the variances created are possibly not legitimate.

Procedures must be in place to ensure proper reporting.

The timely issuance of work order components affects the value of work in process inventory and the ability to verify inventory accuracy through cycle counting.

Set procedures for your company that allow you to maintain accurate counts.

Shortages of work order components are one of the worst non-value-added problems, using up human resources and causing delays.

Set strict procedures to ensure accurate inventory counts.

The compliance module controls lot and batch numbers and work order bill substitutions.

Compliance is important for highly regulated products and controlled substances