Build better with ALERE

Meeting your manufacturing software requirements now and in the future

ALERE Manufacturing draws on our in-house staff's extensive real-world manufacturing experience and over 30 years of feedback from our clients. As a result, ALERE provides streamlined solutions for common issues over which many other manufacturing-centric ERP packages, material resource planning (MRP) solutions, and work order tracking solutions stumble.


ALERE provides superior traceability and the best lot and serial control available today. ALERE accomplishes this by posting captured data in real-time, which enables reporting on any process immediately. The transactional nature also simplifies expensive complicated ISO and regulatory traceability reporting requirements as data required for these capabilities is readily available through powerful search methods within the ERP system.


ALERE features a single-pass Material Resource Planning (MRP) process that pushes through the top level of a BOM and any subsequent lower-level components within the entire BOM structure. ALERE then automates the generation of manufacturing orders, purchase orders, and transfer orders, yet still offers users tools to make the best decision based on the many soft factors that permeate manufacturing environments.


One of ALERE's most powerful features is its unique BOM structure which seeks to solve the ever-prevalent problem of BOM sprawl. Typical engineering practices require the creation of a unique BOM for each finished good offered by the organization. However, provide a large enough selection of goods and BOM maintenance quickly becomes a full-time job since bills of material multiply exponentially.



ALERE addresses the issue of BOM sprawl by providing both modular BOM and variable BOM structures. Unique to ALERE, these features allow for the creation of a rules-based configurator within a BOM. This method enables the compression of thousands of substantially similar BOMs into a single structure and enables configuration options to appear on a sales or work order. Furthermore, additional options can quickly be added to the BOM structure, saving significant engineering and maintenance time.


ALERE also features an in-process work order update utility. Work orders which utilize a material list from a BOM which receives an engineering change may have their material lists selectively updated to the new revision with only a few clicks. This process provides significant time savings and significantly reduces the chances of a data entry error.


ALERE also contains a finite scheduler to reduce expensive queue times at work centers and assist with ever-increasing demands for manufacturing efficiency. In addition, the scheduler can incorporate time-phased machine preventative maintenance schedules to avoid double scheduling or breakdowns.


ALERE also incorporates barcoding and data collection systems to increase the accuracy of data entries, speed up data collection, and can be used to guide users through the complex processes utilized by the modern manufacturing floor.


Curious if ALERE will work for you? Visit our Industries Page for a small cross-section of the industries we serve or, Contact Us to discuss your individual needs.

BUILD YOUR ERP SYSTEM MODULE BY MODULE

Each module serves a purpose and fulfills a function in your production facility

Order

The Order module creates the documents that give manufacturing permission to produce an item. It then manages that build through the manufacturing process. A standard work has information on what to make, the route to use to make it, what material to use, how it is to be configured if it can be built in different ways, and what lot/serial/traits go into making it. The work order also gathers all the transactions to document the actual process.

When the desire is to simply and quickly process a work order to make an item, then the express order is used. Just enter the item to be made, add a quantity, choose where to issue the inventory material from, and go. The work order is created, released, material issued, standard route labor posted, finished goods posted in inventory, and the order completed - all automatically! 

ROUTE

The Route module is where the various master routes are created and stored. A route details the method of manufacture of a particular item. ALERE will create as many different routes as are required. Routes are one of the three key elements, including material lists (BOM’s) and product configurations that are appended to work orders as they are created.

A master route consists of the route name and associated information, plus a detailed listing of the operation steps to be performed, their sequence, the work centers that will be used, and the standards for setting up and running each step. 

MACHINE

In the Order module, work orders tell the manufacturing facility what work needs to be done, while the Machine module provides the resources to do it. It measures, records and plans the capacity of the manufacturing facility. The capacity of manufacturing may be defined as the highest reasonable output rate that can be achieved with the facility’s work force, equipment and vendors.

Various factors affect capacity on a day to day basis. These include the number of hours a day each work center is available for work, the training and motivation of the workforce, the number of interruptions expected from machines requiring repair or maintenance, and the dates the facility is closed for holidays, vacations, etc. 

BOM

The BOM (Bills of Material) is the foundation of a manufacturing system. A BOM is a listing of all the subassemblies, parts and raw materials that go into making a parent assembly and shows the quantity of each required to make that assembly. It is used in conjunction with the production schedule to determine the items for which purchase orders and work orders must be released. A variety of BOMs are supported, including the single-level bill of material, the indented bill of material, the modular bill, the variable bill, the phantom bill, and the costed bill.

A BOM may be up to twenty-five levels deep. The parent BOM supports revisions with active/inactive dates as does each component on the bill, which allows components to be smoothly substituted or replaced. 

SCHEDULE

The function of the Schedule module is to efficiently schedule work orders through a production facility, using finite capacity scheduling (FCS) techniques, to arrive at predicted completion times for each of the orders. It takes each work order, assigns it a priority, looks at the route to build it, reserves time on the work centers it will use, and predicts a date when it is expected be done. With this method there is no need to manage queues as every step on a job has time slots assigned on work centers.

The scheduler supports Synchronous Manufacturing, a very advanced way of tying the production schedule to MRP planning. The key is that the components on a bill of material can be matched up to the route operation steps on which they are used. When the steps on work orders are scheduled you are, in effect, also scheduling when the material is needed. 

PLAN

Perhaps the most powerful tool in ALERE is the Plan module. It is in this module that the full range of MRP techniques that use bill of materials, inventory data, and scheduling are used. All levels of a bill, from the item being manufactured down to the raw materials, are calculated in one pass instead of the traditional MRP method of one level at a time. Not only are the requirements for materials calculated, but the purchase orders and production orders that are recommended can be automatically generated and released. In addition, because the planning is time-phased, it makes recommendations to reschedule open purchase orders and work orders when they are not in phase.

This tool employs bills of material data, inventory data, sales orders, purchase orders, and the production schedule information to calculate requirements for materials. Using a time-phased approach, planning is accomplished by exploding the bill of material, adjusting for inventory quantities on hand or on order, and offsetting the net requirements by the appropriate lead times. 

COST

The Cost module fulfills multiple functions. It monitors work in process (WIP) which can be one of the most difficult aspects of managing inventory valuations. Especially for a company that is primarily order driven where a significant portion of its inventory is tied up on the shop floor. It measures actual versus planned costs on an order-by-order basis to help detect and correct problems with manufacturing processes.

Lastly, it performs item cost roll-ups using a BOM, a route, an inventory cost, and fixed and variable overhead methods to find the predicted cost of manufacturing an item. This cost can then be used to automatically set the standard cost of the item in inventory with adjusting general ledger entries.  

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