1: Just Go with the Flow!
The Merlin HOME Screen is your work desk presented in logical workflow sequence. Each of the blocks is a button which is colour coded according to its departmental home in the program, and these departments are listed on the tabs along the top. Have a look around and become familiar with the more detailed control these departmental screens provide for system housekeeping and lesser used functions, but for now you can work entirely from the Home Screen to take any job from start to finish.
The top row of buttons, 1 to 3, control the record cards for your referential data:
1. CRM (suppliers and customers contact records);
2. Manufacturing Resouces (materials stock, assemblies, and manufacturing steps);
3. Assemblies & Bills of Materials (BoM) control. All of these will need to be present for each manufacturing job before it can start.
The middle row of buttons, 4 to 6, are to:
4. Create Sales Orders and Jobs and authorise them for manufacture;
5. Shop Floor Control to progress production through the shop floor (check shortages, allocate materials, run the MRP process if you wish to do it for this job individually (which will also take care of the material allocation for you), and issue materials to the job;
6. Receive Goods In for any materials the job may be awaiting.
The bottom row of buttons, 7 and 8, are:
7. Job Control and Assembly Sign-off where finished assemblies can be signed-off as required and entered into stock, which backflushes the Work in Progress (WiP) and, if the job is complete or being stopped short,, close it;
8. Despatch the finished assemblies (or parts) from stock to your customer, along with a despatch note and/or and invoice generated by the system if required. Job Done! Easy peasy.
