Hamburger Helper
Just had a break through in developing the BOM structure for making a hamburger. (I’ll work on the MRP related stuff later).
Several tables:
Assemblies- Listed by Part Number. Which has a portal to related records in:
Usages- Where are parts used. Sorted by Assembly Number (which has to be unique, except when an Assembly overrides that), and is the Part Number in “Assemblies”. Many usages go into a single Assmebly. Each usage is really a part number. Quantity used gets stored here. The same Part Number can show up multiple times, and the same Assembly Number This then relates to:
Part Numbers- Lists each unique part number. This is where the description and Unit of Measure are stored. This is related to:
Part Costing- Lists out the part number, an effective and expiration date for the record, and a price per unit. If I did not have changing prices over time, I could eliminate the Effective and Expiration Dates, and make each Part Number unique. This is related to:
Assemblies 2- Really, just another way of looking at the previous Assemblies table, but here Assembly Number is directly related to the part number. If I didn’t do this, the Part Costing table would only give raw material costs. By doing this, an Assembly Number will add up it’s associated costs, and plug that straight into it’s Part Costing record.
Problems: Creating a new assembly isn’t yet performing new record creation in the Part Costing or Part Number tables, but I’m sure I’ll get there. If I manually create that record, and fill in the right Part Number, it fills in the rest correctly.
I’m pretty stoked about this….
March 16th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
Update time!
I now have it, so that if I create a hamburger, the component parts are removed from inventory. Good Bill of Material stuff.
And now, if I do a cheeseburger, the component parts of the hamburger and the cheese are removed too!
And it was suggested to me a few minutes earlier to look at some preexisting items, and make sure I can incorporate into those. Good idea, yes, that I haven’t done yet. My thought pattern is that I can’t understand what is there, until I’ve done it at least once (in theory) myself…
That, and I know some of the preexisting ways say to have an inventory and product database for “breads” and for “condiments” and for “beverages” that never interact.
This, it’s fully interacting, and a real blast.
Known Problems:
1) The usage tracker isn’t self populating, and I don’t know why. Once I manually enter in the raw material numbers though, the math is working out good and fine and dandy.
2) The only way to know if you have a circular BOM is if the dollar value returns a question mark in the final price of the material.
I’m even happier now about this.
Next big tasks:
Add this into the Liberty DB
Convince Ed and Doug that this is a worthwhile reinvention of the wheel, and if I’m right(which since I haven’t looked at some preexisting stuff, is not assured, is as much of an upgrade from human carried sedan chair to a horse drawn carriage.
If I build a real MRP system, then that’s Mr. Ford’s Model T
March 16th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
Oh yes, I still need some peer review too. Anyone want to come by and review this?
I can put the data entry and information return stuff on the web via http, but that won’t let you dig into the formulas and behind the scenes stuff. You’ll need FileMaker for that, or to use my system.
hmm. Oh, and I didn’t mean to sound as if what has come before is bad or wrong. Rather, I think I have a better way of approaching it, but I’m not positive yet. But it’ll be different, so it’s big and bad and scary to think about sometimes. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it…. but also don’t think about how to be better either at times.