Note the following:
- The flow has no input, the Part Records for the Combos are Created during the flow.
- The State of the Parts during the Flow is WIP (Work in Process)
- When the Flow is finished the status of the parts is changing from WIP to RMI (Raw Material Inventory)
- And yes, that Icon representing the Combo of Ham does not look like a Combo of Ham. But throughout EZ-MES and the documentation this Icon is used to represent a Part Record.
To create the design for this flow the first things that have to be addressed are if the flow has an input and what the status of the parts are when they move through the flow and the state of the parts when the flow is done.
Flow Input (Create Part Records)
Are the Combos already in the system when the Traveler is started? Or to put it differently: Does the flow have an Input which already exists in the system?
The Combos could already exist in the system if the Combos were ordered using the EZ-MES Purchase Order object but for this example we will assume the purchasing is handled by an other system. We will create new Travelers to initiate this process and create the Ham Combos.
An other option is to use the inventory flow definition on the Part Definition to automatically launch this flow when the combos are added to Inventory using the Inventory Adjust function.
Part State
Any real world part that is represented by an EZ-MES Part Record always has a Part State. The Part State is being used in different reports, and determines if parts are in Inventory.
To make sure that the Combos show up in RMI (Raw Material Inventory) after the flow is finished, the Part State for when the Flow is finished has to be RMI. For the duration the Combos are Received, weighed and serialized, we will use the WIP Part State (Work In Process). This will take care that Combos that are not yet properly received do not show up on Inventory Reports, and cannot be used for further processing, they will now however show up on the WIP Report. (If you want them to show up on the inventory report just change the state to RMI).
How to set this up?
The following are a couple of links that explain how this first part of the configuration can be done:
- How to create a new Flow Defintion
- How to configure the Parts States on the Flow Definition
- How to configure the flow so that the Part Records are Created
Useful Links
Click one of the following links to learn more about this example: