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Manufacturing Terminologies

Nomenclatures
A bill of materials (BoM) is a document that describes the materials, the quantity of each material, and the steps required to manufacture a product. Depending on the industry and the nature of the finished product, a different name may be used to describe the same document. For example, in the pharmaceutical industry, the term “recipe” may be used.
Cycle
A production cycle is a frame of time during which an entire manufacturing process can be fulfilled.
Downtime or Leave
Time during which a resource is unavailable. If the resource is a machine, the unavailability is downtime, while if the resource is human, unavailable time is called a Leave.
Finished products
Finished products are the final output of a manufacturing process. They are normally not intended to be used as input into another manufacturing order of the company.
Kit
A kit is a set of components that are described by a bill of materials, but which are delivered separately rather than assembled or mixed.
Multi-level Bill of Materials

A bill of material can quickly grow very complex. To keep it manageable, it can be broken down into several smaller manufactured parts, each having its own BOM. These parts are typically referred to as sub-assembly of intermediate products.

Defining a BOM in multiple levels reduces the complexity of the top-level document and allows components to be reused in other BoMs.

Phantom Bill of Material

A phantom bill of material is always used in the context of multi-level BOMs. It allows to add a sub-assembly as part of a bigger end-product while avoiding to trigger a separate manufacturing order for the sub-assembly.

As such, when a manufacturing order for the final product is launched, the components of the sub-assembly are reflected in the parent BOM as if they were direct components of the parent BOM.

Phantom BOM are thus used for grouping a set of components with the aim of reusing them in many other BOM without the need to launch separate manufacturing orders for the sub-assemblies.

Matières premières

Raw materials and components constitute the input that are transformed to produce semi-finished or finished goods.

The transformation here can take many aspects according to the industry. It can be simple assembly, welding, mixing, etc.

Gammes
A routing is a document that describes a series of Work Orders and the Work Centers at which they will be carried out
Semi-finished products and sub-assemblies
These are products which are manufactured with the purpose to be consumed in another manufacturing order.
Gammes
Work Order Operations specify the set of activities necessary to fully process a manufacturing order. Each activity or operation takes some time to be completed and is performed into a determined production unit (also called work center).
Ordre de travail
A work order is a single manufacturing operation that is scheduled for execution on a given date and a given duration.
Poste de Travail
Work centers identify production units and their resources. They are used to represent the plant capacity as well as costing information. The capacity is a combination of resources and their availability time.
Ressources
In manufacturing a resource can be a human being (employee) or machine available in a work center.
Temps de travail
Each resource has its normal working time. For instance, machines can be set up to operate 7 days a week 20 hours out of 24.