If you are looking for a new ERP solution for your small to midsize shoe company, Microsoft Dynamics NAV could be a great choice for your industry.
This blog post takes a simplified look at how the Dynamics NAV-based TRIMIT Fashion solution can be use for shoe production, but first we will start with a brief introduction to industry-specific solutions.
Industry-Specific Solutions in Brief
Dynamics NAV is a flexible and scalable ERP that can be used by a wide variety of industries and companies. However, in order to match the exact needs of companies in for instance the food industry, the graphic industry, or the education industry the broad solution needs to be customized to handle industry-specific processes.
Microsoft Dynamics NAV
Instead of two or more companies working separately with developers to customize Dynamics NAV with nearly identical functionality, they can buy a read-made solution from a Microsoft ISV (Independent Software Vendor) that has specialized in their industry.
An industry-specific solution such as TRIMIT Fashion solves most of the challenges faced by companies in a specific industry.
TRIMIT Fashion For Shoe Production - Simplified
TRIMIT Fashion is a comprehensive solution, so the following example of PDM, BOM, sales orders, demand planning, and execution is highly simplified and only showing a small part of what the solution is capable of.
For an in-depth presentation, I recommend that you contact us for a free live demo by one of our product specialists.
PDM - Product Data Management
In order to easily create and manage many styles in the solution, we use masters (templates) to enter all the information that is necessary for the manufacturer to produce the right shoe.
In the shoe industry, a style can have many variants such as: color, surface, sole type, shoe width, and shoe size.
Here is an example of a measurement chart for a shoe. You can have a measurement chart for e.g. design, sample, and final.
We can create a Workflow Activity List to follow up on the shoe's Product Life Cycle or Critical Path.
BOM - Bill of Materials
In TRIMIT Fashion, we work with Master BOMs where we enter all kinds of intelligence. We define conditions so that individual BOMs for specific items can be calculated when needed.
The example I have chosen is for a brogue. The brogue consists of several components, which you can see in the illustration below.
The BOM for this brogue is two layered because the brogue is made of some components, which are sub-assemblies of other components. Please note that this is a simplified example that does not take other possible raw materials such as eyelets, labels, thread, etc. into account.
This is a look at the seond level BOM of the brogue - upper. Here we can see all the different parts as well as the operations.
Below is an example of the calculated BOM for this specific shoe: men's brogue, color black, printed surface, rubber sole, extra width, and size 13.
Sales Order
In the shoe industry, it is common to work with a size range with fixed unit quantities. In TRIMIT Fashion, we can setup the solution to match your distribution needs. Here I will touch upon matrix distribution and assortments.
Here is an screenshot showing the order of 5 x the matrix distribution package of the black brogue with smooth leather and normal width.
Below is an example of a size assortment per color.
Demand Planning
You need to be sure that you have the right materials available for your production process. MRP is used for creating purchase orders for the raw materials and production orders for the finished products and it sub-assemblies.
To plan the production of i.e. two sales orders, the production collecting order is used.
Since the upper and sole are sub-assemblies, there must also be a second level production order. Because the upper is unique for the brogue and has been setup accordingly, the order for this has been created automatically.
The order for the sole has not been created automatically since the sole could be used by multiple shoe styles. Different demands for this sole can be combines in one production order.
Below you can see a production order for a specific upper with it own lines: materials and operations.
With the production orders for the brogues and the related production orders for the uppers created.
We use MRP to calculate the raw materials and sub-assemblies for the production collecting order. The calculation with result in purchase requisitions / purchase quotes for the raw materials and production orders for the different soles.
Below we see a detailed requisition / purchase quote for the raw materials needed to fulfill the requirements for our production collecting order. Notice that the MRP has included multi-level BOMs.
In this example a purchase of shoe boxes has not been planned. This is because we have enough shoe boxes available at the location BLUE, which is our warehouse for raw materials. You can see the details in the fact box in the screenshot below.
Next step is to create a purchase order from the quote. This is done by confirming that we want to converte the quote to an order.
Please note that in this example, the purchase has been planned via requisition. This is useful if you know who the vendors are. If this is not the case, TRIMIT Fashion offers alternative ways for planning.
Excecution
Before we can finish the production orders, we need to receive the raw materials. This is done by posting the receipt of a purchase order for raw materials, after which they are registered in our warehouse BLUE.
In order to assemble a brogue, we need sub-assemblies. In this case we will execute of a sole for a specific brogue.
Below you can see a particular production order for the sole. Now we want to post the output for this particular production order.
We can finish a part of the production one day, and the remaining another day. The finished steps are seen as negative consumption in the image below. In this BOM we have not defined (machine) setup or operations, so nothing is calculated in cost time and cost machine.
With the products finished, we continue with the consumption of raw materials. This can be posted automatically or manually.
The production of the upper is similar to that of the sole. At the end of the production of the upper, we can see the ledger entries as shown in the screenshot below.
Now that the uppers and soles have been produced, the production order for the brogues can be finished. This production is registered the same way as described above.
The last step in this example is to deliver the finished products to the two customers. For this, we create pick documents. The screenshot below shows the brogues ordered by customer 2010.
When the warehouse has carried out the picking, the status is change for In Progress and Picked Quantity Updated is ticked. After this, we are ready to finish it all by generate the posted shipment and the posted invoice.
More Information
You can find more information about our software solution for the footwear industry on the page TRIMIT Fashion.
If you have questions please contact us at [email protected] or request a free demo.