Aptean Production Enhancements

The Aptean Production Enhancements app extends Aptean's Process Manufacturing solution for Business Central with production planning improvements aimed at food and beverage manufacturers. It gives planners a fuller picture of what a production BOM is expected to yield, weigh, and cost per batch, takes the manual work out of setting shelf-life dates on manufactured output, and makes a production order that is already under way possible to adjust.

Key Features

Enhanced BOM Cost and Yield Visibility

The BOM Cost Shares screen gains new figures: product yield %, process weight change %, scrap %, total input weight per batch, total output weight per batch, and cost per batch.

• Yield where it means something — yield describes what a production BOM turns its inputs into, so it is shown only on lines produced from one, and is derived from that BOM's total input and output net weights rather than maintained by hand. Component lines are left blank rather than reading a misleading 100%.
• Expected batch weights — the total input and output weight per batch are summed from the attached BOM lines, in the weight unit of measure, showing at a glance how much material goes in and how much product comes out.
• Process weight change on components — each component line instead shows Aptean's process weight change %, the weight that component loses or gains during manufacturing, so the detail behind a parent's yield is visible line by line.
• Scrap % from either source — a component line shows the scrap % of its production BOM line, and a capacity line shows the scrap factor % of its routing line, so scrap reads consistently down the whole structure rather than stopping at the components.
• Cost per batch — the line's total cost applied to the output weight per batch, rounded to the unit-amount rounding precision, giving a directly comparable batch cost.
• Version aware — the yield and the batch weights are read from the production BOM version that was effective for the line, not from the BOM header. A version can carry a different yield to its header, so this keeps the figures consistent with the version actually behind the cost.
• Target batch size on the fact boxes — the Top-Level Item and Selected Line fact boxes show the target batch size of the production BOM behind them, so the batch that the per-batch weights and cost are stated against is visible beside the lot size rather than having to be looked up on the BOM.

Automatic Expiry Dates on Manufactured Output

When finished goods are registered as output from a production order, the system calculates and applies an expiration date automatically, based on configurable rules.

• Rules per item, variant, or category — a rule can target a specific item, an item and variant combination, or a whole item category. An item-level rule is used in preference to a category rule, so general defaults can be set once and overridden where needed.
• Choice of base date — the expiration date formula is counted from either the work date or today's date, whichever suits how the site records production.
• Capped to the ingredients used — a rule can limit the output's expiration date to the earliest expiration date among the ingredients consumed on that production order line, so a finished product never carries a longer shelf life than the shortest-lived component that went into it.
• Item Output Expiration Date Setup — a dedicated setup list where the rules are maintained: type, item or category, variant, calculation method, formula, and whether to cap to the minimum ingredient date.

Visual Cues in Production Descriptions

Manufacturing Setup can identify an item attribute that needs to be highly visible during production, such as an allergen. Its value is added to the description Business Central assigns to production orders and production order lines, providing a consistent visual cue wherever those descriptions are shown, including shop floor production activities.

Configure Visual Cues

1. Open Manufacturing Setup and select the item attribute in Description Item Attribute.
2. Open Production Scheduling Attributes, select that item attribute, and open its Production Scheduling Attribute Values.
3. Enter an optional value in the Symbol column for each attribute value that needs a visual cue, such as a distinct allergen symbol.
4. When prompted after changing Description Item Attribute, select Yes to update existing production orders and production order lines.

• Visible important information — when an item number is entered or changed, its assigned attribute value is added in brackets to the production order and line description. This keeps information such as allergens visible to planners and shop-floor operators without requiring separate lookups.
• Instant visual recognition — where the matching Production Scheduling Attribute Value has a symbol, that symbol is prefixed to the description. The released production orders shown below show how operators can identify important item characteristics at a glance.
• Update existing orders — changing the setup attribute can update all existing production orders and lines in one operation, so the visual cue is applied consistently to work already planned. Progress is displayed while the update runs, and only descriptions that need to change are written.

Adjusting Production Orders Already Under Way

Standard Business Central resists changing a production order once it has been started. These actions let a planner reduce or restructure an order that is already part way through.

• Cancel Reservations Entries — an action on released production orders that removes the reservations the application created for semi-finished products, so output quantities can be reduced and lines deleted on an order already in progress. The same cancellation runs automatically when an order is refreshed, and the date-conflict warning that would otherwise follow is suppressed.
• Cancel Shopfloor Entries — clears every shop floor time entry on the order and resets the shop floor status on its routing lines, so an operation started on the shop floor does not block a change to the order. Refused once any entry, capacity ledger entry, or item ledger entry has been posted, so completed transactions are never disturbed.

Post Shop Floor Time Entries in One Step

From the shop floor time entries list, a Post Time Entries action opens the posting batch job already filtered to the released production order behind the current entry, saving the planner from setting that filter by hand.

Shop Floor Awareness in Auto Finish

The Advanced Production auto finish process decides whether a production order is complete from the standard Business Central routing status. Where Aptean Shop Floor Production is in use, operators work against Aptean's own shop floor status instead, so these checks read that status as well.

• Routing finished from the shop floor — an operation counts as finished when its Aptean shop floor status is Finished, not only when the base Routing Status has been set.
• Line finished on the shop floor — a production order line whose shop floor status is Finished is treated as ready to finish.
• Open time entries hold the line back — a line with shop floor time entries that have not been posted is never finished, so unposted labour is not stranded on a closed order.
• Visible on the log — the outcome of the time entry check is recorded as Time Entry Result on the Auto Finish Production Order Log, alongside the output, consumption, routing, variance, and warehouse results.

Prerequisites

The following modules must be installed in your environment:

• Aptean Process Manufacturing for Food and Beverage
• Aptean Production Scheduling for Food and Beverage
• Aptean Shop Floor Production for Food and Beverage
• Aptean Foundation Layer for Food and Beverage
• Aptean Integration Layer for Food and Beverage
• Aptean Feature Control for Food and Beverage
• Aptean License And Subscription Management
• Advanced Production

See also

• Changelog
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