The research, development and design of new products or the re-design of existing ones, is the lifeblood of any manufacturing company, but in many cases the design and engineering departments are completely disconnected from the ERP system. Engineers spend their time answering queries from other areas of the company regarding product status, revision levels and design progress. NetSuite offers a host of native collaboration features that makes this information available on a self-serve basis across the organisation.
The Bill Of Materials is established and maintained in NetSuite through the use of assembly items. This ensures consistency for the user as they create and edit the information required to effectively manage multi-level BOM structures with minimal effort. Advanced options are available such as the ability to mark items as phantoms, define the expected yield, maintain revisions and / or set effectivity and expiration dates to ensure you always build the right version of your product.
NetSuite's routing functionality enables you to easily define the people, machines, work centres and time it takes to make your product. This information, when combined with cost templates, determines the expected labour, machine and indirect cost, enabling you to track the appropriate level of cost detail from your manufacturing process. NetSuite's Advanced Manufacturing feature also enables you to automatically generate a finite capacity schedule by defining additional characteristics unique to your facility. Additionally, routing functionality can be defined to be location specific where necessary.
NetSuite has a unique approach to item definition where all items start off from the same screen and then the user picks the type of item they want to create. This provides an item definition screen that has been tailored to that specific item type and requires only the information necessary. Using the SuiteFlow functionality users can easily set up automated item numbering, and hide or require additional fields to automate an approval process.
NetSuite’s File Cabinet was specifically designed as the central repository for all documents, files and attachments required to run a business. Files can be manually uploaded through the system and attached to virtually any record in NetSuite including Customers, Vendors and Orders. By using the optional file drag-and-drop suitelet you add the ability to automatically upload and update files by dragging them from your desktop. Files are stored in folders with unique security permissions.