Our team has worked with multiple chemical manufacturing companies and have identified common issues that companies universally face. Chemical manufacturers have complex requirements that create complexity within NetSuite due to technical nuances of the ERP architecture itself. For chemical manufacturing clients, we almost universally recommend using NetSuite’s advanced manufacturing module, which provides the granularity needed for manufacturers to understand costs, track inventory and units of measure, and create bill of materials.
Luckily, our team has created frameworks for common issues we have encountered with clients and can efficiently consult with companies to identify issues that might be arising from your implementation. Learn more about our solutions below.
SwyftERP NetSuite Inventory Management Software
Inventory Aging
One of our clients was tracking their inventory using Excel for years after they had implemented NetSuite, which was leading to frequent issues during audits of materials and wasted materials that repeatedly expired because employees did not have an intelligent system to identify which lots should be used first. Our team consulted to understand the end to end process that the team was going through to identify which materials to use, pull them from the shelves, and then record the selections on paper before re-entering it into NetSuite.
We developed an automated tool that is able to track the amount of time each raw and manufactured good has been sitting on the shelf and sort by expiry. Our system can help automate selection of materials by expiry date or by other preference. Swyft ERP provides easy to visualize reports in NetSuite that allow you to see your fast and slow-moving inventory at a glance.
Inventory Lot Expiration
Older and expiring lots can sometimes be “re-worked” to avoid being counted as a scrap write-off. This can provide large cost savings and reduce waste.
Inventory Counts
With constant inventory being received, fulfilled, and manufacturing builds occurring all in parallel it’s important to have regularly scheduled inventory counts that don’t halt your production. Keeping inventory levels accurate in your NetSuite ERP will lend to greater precision in your demand planning for customer orders.
Common Bill of Material (BOM) Issues
Substitute BOMs
You may not always use the same ingredients, or, may use the same ingredient but from different vendors at your time of manufacturing. Developing a BOM strategy that ties correctly into your variance accounts will provide accurate insights into which products you are manufacturing that have higher or lower than expected profit.
Changing BOMs on the fly
Different strategies exist depending on if you require a BOM change at the time of manufacturing or if you know at an earlier time such as when you place your purchase order. Depending on the situation we employ strategies to effectively make the BOM change per Work Order which ends up providing a correct material, labor, and variance analysis of your manufacturing output vs input.
Correcting a BOM
Sometimes you encounter a translation issue due to unit of measure, e.g. you wanted to use a gallon of a chemical and you receive it from your vendor in liters. Every component on the assembly’s BOM has a designated quantity and unit of measure. If your BOMs are nested then a small change of quantity or unit of measure can have a large impact when rolled up into a top level assembly. We can assist on fixing any incorrect history and provide the tools to make any changes easily in NetSuite or through Excel.
Business Process Translation into NetSuite ERP software:
Capturing Direct and Indirect Labor Costs
What are your costs for your worker’s time, the raw materials consumed, and the electricity overhead to keep your machines running? Capturing this information in your chemical manufacturing process will provide greater insight into your overall profitability and help you think through strategies to adjust the types of costs going into making your product and whether buying a new manufacturing machines as fixed assets that can be depreciated would make more sense for your production in the future.
Routing for specialized processes
Not every manufacturing process is straightforward, in fact the chemical, pharmaceutical, and life science manufacturing processes in NetSuite may need manufacturing process complexity to reach your desired finished good. Some examples include tracking times from and in each machine, resting periods for fermentation, and human intervention for quality assurance at multiple stages during manufacturing.
Performance analysis for your Work Orders
A finished good is considered complete when it has been packaged and is ready to be fulfilled to your customer. With NetSuite you can track every stage of your manufacturing process to analyze which area is costing you in material or labor. Understanding bottlenecks and performance issues across your different finished goods can save organizations millions over time.