Hi. Is anybody using the Production Activity Tracker to monitor production against Resource Groups? It looks like it should do everything we want but we are struggling to get it to work. We have found KnowledgeBase KB0038506 but it isn’t very easy to follow and doesn’t even advise the correct order for the setup screens.
We have raised this with our consultant who agreed with the above and has requested more information but it is has been a few weeks and so far and we would really like to see if it will do everything we believe it will! Thanks.
Hi John. Thanks for replying. We’re not using MPS - according to the Help this is to allow you to schedule part quantities before you receive orders? The Production Activity Tracker is supposed to allow you to review actual production quantities against planned by Resource Group, date, shift, etc.
These are the things the KB says need to be done for it to work but we are still struggling:
In order to get the Production Activity Tracker to work you need to set up a couple of things:
Production Activity Day
Production Activity Week
Production Activity Plan
Production Activity Schedule
Also Make sure you select the Track Production Activity checkbox in the resource group you link to yourProduction Activity Plan
After you complete the above, run the Generate Production Activity process.
Correct, all of those screens are what make up the MPS functionality. If you are not using the MPS functionality (which is similar to Forecast, but with a focus on manufacturing, not sales) this will not work.
What MPS is good for is seasonal sales. Think of snowblowers, those get purchased most in the winter. You cannot possibly manufacture enough snowblowers for the winter in a couple of months, so you create an MPS to manufacture quantities all year long to support the hockey stick of sales that will come in the fall.
Hi John. Thanks for the explanation - I understand what you are describing for the MPS but it is not mentioned on any of the Help for Production Activity.
The Help for the MPS describes it as being used to schedule the part quantities you plan to manufacture before you receive the orders, but the Help for the Production Activity is described as being used to set targets for the actual production figures to be measured against and this is what we would want to do
Yes, very confusing I know. Epicor is quite good at using multiple terms for the same functionality. MPS is Production Activity and Production Activity is MPS.
I just wanted to update on here that I have managed to get this working to a degree and can confirm it does not need MPS.
The process is detailed as using the ‘Track’ field on the Resource Group to track Production Activity. There are quite a few setup screens and a process which you use to generate the target records. Then the system checks matches actual production to target. This sounds perfect for us as every manufacturing area has it’s own Resource Group. The downside is that it doesn’t count any backflush operations (we do have a few due to the physical manufacturing process). I have an open case and am still looking into anything I can do to pick this up as a customisation but thought it might help someone else looking to review production v target figures.
Thanks for info, I was looking into setting this up for us but most of our operations are currently backflushing. Did Epicor ever get you any info on that? We are slowly working to having certain departments report time and qty on operations but still have a ways to go.
As we have quite a few backflushed operations too I have raised an Idea to request this to be fixed. For now though I have added it to my project list to look at creating a BPM that will add backflushed LaborDtl records to the count (Log In - Epicor Identity). Not sure when I’ll get to start looking at it yet though.
