Assemblies and Parts Explosion

Many companies not only stock complete units, but also the components which are used to make complete units. A jam manufacturer, for example, would need to stock jam-making materials, empty bottles, labels, bottle tops and packing cases, as well as the finished products.

The Datafile Software assembly facilities are designed to handle the stock movements which occur when components are used to make complete units. The facilities offered give a single-tier assembly definition capability, but the components of an assembly can be assemblies in their own right.

Assembly are handled in two stages:

An assembly is defined, together with a list of constituent parts. For example, a bicycle could be made up of a frame, a front wheel, a back wheel, two brakes, two brake levers, brake cables, a saddle, some handlebars, and various nuts and bolts to keep them all together. The wheels, frame and brakes could themselves be assemblies. An assembly is a stock item in the stock file in its own right.

Assemblies are made. Components are purchased through purchase orders in the normal way, but a stock of an assembly only occurs because they have been manufactured, and the net result of manufacture is to increase the quantity of assemblies, and to reduce the stock of components.

When assemblies are made, you are warned if there is insufficient stock of a component to make all the assemblies. If the out-of-stock component is itself an assembly, you can make some of that too, repeating the process until all levels of the original product have been made. (See also Standard Costing below.)

See ‘Maintain Assemblies’ in User Instructions for a full description of the assembly facilities.