Process Manufacturing: Managing Batch Processing and Fill Lines

After the batch is produced, the product can either be moved immediately to filling operations or placed in drums and stored in the warehouse for some period of time.  Once the formula is in the filling operation, finished goods are produced in various sized containers with associated product labeling to meet customer demands.

So, how does Enterprise 21’s process manufacturing software functionality enable these batch process manufacturers to perform their jobs efficiently?  First, one can establish a scalable batch formula that consists of the various ingredients needed to produce the intermediate formulation.  The formulation can be setup as a recipe, where the ingredients and associated process instructions are combined in an order of operations to produce the desired output.  Where necessary, the recipe can also have electronic signatures required for individuals to sign off at various checkpoints during the process for compliance and quality assurance purposes.

The formulation may have certain ingredients that are generally over consumed as part of the production process.  Let’s say that a given production process may require a standard of 100 pounds of a given ingredient to produce a given batch size; however, if that process is not 100% efficient, the system can enable the planning of consumption of more than 100 pounds of that ingredient – say 102%, or 102 pounds of that ingredient for the given batch size in consideration.  In this situation, Enterprise 21’s yielding functionality within the formulation is used in the procurement and production staging processes to account for the fact that 102 pounds of the given ingredient are needed to perform the given operation.

Once the intermediate formulation is produced, there may be a period of time necessary for cooling required before the output can be packaged into a drum or moved to the filling operations.  In this case, one can build queue time into the end of the given production routing step so the associated cooling time is accounted for prior to scheduling and ultimate performance of that next operation.  This is done within Enterprise 21’s manufacturing routing functionality.

Finally, the filling operations can be scheduled as a series of work orders to produce the ultimate finished goods.  The bills of material for the various finished goods would, at a minimum, be comprised of the intermediate formulation produced as described above, the appropriate container for the given product, and its associated label.

In addition to the functionality described above, Enterprise 21 also manages product costing – average, standard, LIFO, or FIFO – on a product-by-product basis, all of the associated inventory and warehouse transactions including complete womb-to-tomb lot traceability to support recall management, and all associated financial accounting transactions in a real-time, fully-integrated system.