The management of manufacturing described in this chapter covers planning, ordering, stocks and the manufacturing or assembly of products from raw materials and components. It also discusses consumption and production of products, as well as the necessary operations on machinery, tools or human resources.
Manufacturing management in OpenERP is based on its stock management and equally very flexible in both its operations and its financial control. It particularly benefits from the use of double-entry stock management for production orders.
Manufacturing management is implemented by the mrp module. It is used to transform all kinds of products:
You will work in two areas: with products in the first part of this chapter, and with operations in the second part. The management of products depends on the concept of classifications while operations management is related to routing and workcenters.
Note
Bills of Materials
Bills of Materials, or manufacturing specifications, go by different names depending on their application area, for example:
For this chapter you should start with a fresh database that includes demo data, with mrp (Manufacturing) and its dependencies installed and a generic chart of accounts configured. As you will notice, when you select Manufacturing to be installed, OpenERP will install the linked applications automatically.