Creating and Releasing Orders

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to create and release orders

Production Order Lifecycle

The following figure shows a typical lifecycle of a production order in SAP Digital Manufacturing:

A typical lifecycle of a production order in SAP Digital Manufacturing:

It starts with the creation of the order (1). At creation, the Production Supervisor specifies how many units of a product to manufacture with this order. In the next step, they release the order (2). The order release authorizes the Shop Floor Personnel to produce the specified quantity of the material. You can release the entire quantity or less to the shop floor, to balance, for example, production capacity load or resource and material availability. When you release less than the entire quantity, you can release one order multiple times until the sum of all released quantities reaches the ordered quantity.

At order release, the system creates SFC (Shop Floor Control) numbers according to the quantity settings of the material master of the produced good and the SFC number creation rules. Furthermore, the system references a BOM and a production routing. Both come either from the data in the order (if maintained) or from the material master.

Note

What is a Shop Floor Control number or SFC?

An SFC is a unique identifier representing a specific instance of a particular material being built during the manufacturing process. In practice, if you manage your material in serial numbers, one SFC number in SAP Digital Manufacturing corresponds to one serialized item, for example one bicycle with one serial number. If there are quality problems, you can track each individual bike via the serial number.

If you manage your material in production lots, you assign one SFC number to one production lot in SAP Digital Manufacturing. For example, you produce wheels for your bicycles but you don't want to track each individual wheel. In this case, you could create a production lot per order and day and group all wheels you manufacture that day under one lot. If there are quality problems, you can only track the production lot, but you can’t identify individual items in the production lot.

Based on the identified routing, the system puts one or more SFCs into the queue of the first manufacturing operation (3). The Operator who is responsible for the execution of the first step reviews the SFCs that are queued at their operation using a Production Operator Dashboard (POD). In the POD, the operator enters the used resource at their work center and logs the start of the manufacturing operation by choosing a respective button. If necessary and maintained in the master data, they display work instructions that explain details of the manufacturing process. In addition, the operator records which and how many components they consumed during the operation (4). They then collect extra data (for example, component serial numbers, used inventory numbers, other assembly and manufacturing-related data, 5) that are required to document the production process.

If in-process quality inspection is required, the operator records the respective data in the POD (6). If non-conformances are detected, the operator can maintain the respective data (for example, type of defect and a description, immediate actions, and so on) in a non-conformance record (7). After the operator has finished their work, they complete the SFC at this operation and the system routes the SFC to the following operation (8). Based on the operator input, the following operation can be the next manufacturing step in the routing (default flow), or special operations that the system selects based on the defect data. The production process continues until the SFC has gone through all production steps (9). When the operator at the last manufacturing step completes the SFC at this step, the SFC status changes to done. The system puts this product to inventory by creating an inventory record (10).

The POD is the user interface (UI) that users use to perform a multitude of activities on the shop floor against the SFC. You can adapt the UI and the underlying functions to your company's use cases: From a simple production process over capturing of assembly or quality data, to the display of 3D working instructions.

Create and Manage Orders

Introduction

The Bike Company has received a customer request to produce 100 units of the Model A bicycle. The request was received by the commercial department of The Bike Company. The commercial department collaborates with the production planning department to assess if the customer's requested delivery date can be met. Currently, the production planning department has available capacity, as well as raw and semi-finished materials, to fulfill the request.

Once the sales order is received by the commercial department, the production planning department can create the production order in SAP Digital Manufacturing. A constant exchange of information is necessary between the production planning and control level and the production level. This exchange of information ensures that production is progressing as planned and that the production order will be completed on the scheduled date.

Note

Alternatively, you can also create production orders in SAP S/4HANA and transfer them to SAP Digital Manufacturing after releasing the order.

Orders

In SAP Digital Manufacturing, an order is an authorization that details specific work that is to be done on the shop floor.

You can create and edit orders in the Manage Orders application. When creating an order, in the Order Information tab, you can view and modify the most important details for an order. Mandatory fields, such as the material and build quantity, are marked with *.

Unlike SAP S/4HANA production orders, SAP Digital Manufacturing production orders do not have components and operations but reference the production order bill of materials (BOM) and Routing. If these values are not populated in the Order, the system uses BOM and Routing specified in the corresponding fields in the Manage Materials app, for the material that is being produced.

Order information

When a routing is selected, the order schedule displays the operations listed in the routing. The date specified for the schedule start is shown as the start date for the first operation. The start dates for the subsequent operations are calculated based on the setup, processing, and tear down times defined for the previous operations. The Planned Operations tab provides visibility into the planned operations.

On the Planned BOM tab, you can view all data for a planned BOM for the respective order. The data you see here may have been created in the Manage BOMs app or may have been transferred along with an order from an external system.

The build quantity is the required build quantity of the material for the production order. The build quantity is a mandatory entry when creating a new order. For orders that have been released or have been transferred from an external system, the order quantity cannot be changed.

If you want to use an existing order that you created locally as a template for a new order, you can copy it. For example, if you want to create another order for the same plant or operation.

After you create an order, its release status is set as Releasable. The release status focuses on the journey of an order from the arrival in SAP Digital Manufacturing to the start of the production of the first item. The system automatically sets the release status. The release status Releasable means that you can start the production process by releasing the full or a partial quantity of the order to the shop floor.

The following remaining release statuses are available for orders in SAP Digital Manufacturing:

  • Partially Created: This status is set automatically by the system. The order has just arrived in SAP Digital Manufacturing for execution and isn't technically complete yet.
  • Released: You've released the full order quantity.
  • Partially Released: You've only released a part of the order quantity and can release the remaining quantity later. Moreover, this status is set by the system if the order quantity was increased after the release of the order.
  • Release On Hold: You can't release the order at the moment because the release has been put on hold in the Manage Orders application.
  • Not Releasable: You can't release the order any longer. This status is set automatically when an order was discarded in the Manage Orders application.

In addition, the execution status is set as Not in Execution. The execution status represents the various stages that an order undergoes during production on the shop floor. The system sets the execution status automatically. The statuses of the different shop floor controls (SFCs) for the order impact the execution status. The Not in Execution status indicates that there is no production activity taking place. No SFC is in an Active or Hold status.

The following remaining execution statuses are available for orders in SAP Digital Manufacturing:

  • Active: There's at least one SFC that is in Active status. For example, the order has been released to the shop floor. In the Order POD, the production of the first SFC has been started. The SFC status changes to Active and the order execution status is set to Active.
  • Completed: All the SFCs of the order are in Done or Scrapped status. There's at least one SFC that is in status Hold, which means that its production has been interrupted. When this SFC is unholded, the status of the order is reverted to Active. This status exists only for production orders.
  • Discarded: This status can be set in the Manage Orders app and is irreversible. Once it has been set, the order can no longer be executed or changed.
  • Closed: This status is set by the integrated ERP system, which sends a TECO (technical completion) notification to SAP Digital Manufacturing for execution. Once it has been set, the order can no longer be executed or changed.

Note

For more information about orders, refer to the SAP Application Documentation.

Release Orders

Introduction

The production planning department releases an order when they know that all the necessary components needed to produce Model A are available. Also, the department is aware of the required timing to manufacture the ordered quantity. Production starts when the order is released to the shop floor.

Release Orders

Releasing the shop order creates demand for product, which in turn creates shop floor control (SFC) numbers used to track production on the shop floor. SAP Digital Manufacturing generates SFC numbers based on the lot size of the material in the order. SFC numbers generated by SAP Digital Manufacturing follow the numbering pattern defined in the Manage Next Number app for the SFC Release number type, if any.

When you release an order, it means that the order has been sent to the production area for construction of the appropriate number of a material. You can release the total quantity of the material or perform a partial quantity release. Orders can be released in specified amounts until the total build quantity or the planned production date is reached. In SAP Digital Manufacturing, orders are released using the Manage Orders application.

Once the work is released, it is placed in queue at the first operation of the routing associated with the material. The production operator can view the work released in their production operator dashboard (POD).

Note

For more information about releasing orders, refer to the SAP Application Documentation.

How to Create and Release a Production Order

Watch the following demonstration to learn how the Production Supervisor creates and releases a production order in SAP Digital Manufacturing.

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