Fishbowl Can Handle These 5 Manufacturing Processes

April 19, 2017
There are many types of manufacturing processes out there. Did you know that Fishbowl Manufacturing works for the vast majority of them? Here are five of the most popular manufacturing processes. We’ll discuss what they are and how Fishbowl Manufacturing works within them.

Fishbowl can handle many types of manufacturing processes, Fishbowl BlogBatch

Batch-process manufacturing involves making enough items in one batch to satisfy demand, then moving on to another item and doing a batch of it. This process is repeated over and over for every product that needs to be made. Fishbowl Manufacturing allows for batch picking and for adding raw goods and finished goods to work orders in batches. Both of these speed up the manufacturing process.

Continuous

Continuous manufacturing, as you might expect, repeatedly generates identical finished goods again and again. The main difference between Continuous manufacturing and other manufacturing processes is that it generally works with nonmetallic substances, such as liquids, gases, minerals, and powders. Fishbowl Manufacturing makes it possible for many types of units of measure and virtually any type of raw good to be added to a bill of materials.

Discrete

Under the Discrete manufacturing setup, many types of products are manufactured on a single assembly line. This is an extremely flexible manufacturing process. If a company offers highly customizable products or uses a build-to-order business model, they will probably find themselves using Discrete manufacturing. This can, unfortunately, lead to inefficiency and downtime as the assembly line is retooled for different products, but it can be a necessary tradeoff to keep up with various orders that come up. It’s simple to include one-time items or add items with variable quantities to a bill of materials in Fishbowl Manufacturing. So the software can be just as flexible as your manufacturing process requires.

Job Shop

A Job Shop environment is similar to Discrete manufacturing in that it is primarily focused on one-off manufacturing jobs, but it differs by depending less on assembly lines. Most of the manufacturing work is done by hand or with limited automation. If, however, demand increases to the point that it makes sense to scale production dramatically with an assembly line, a company would probably switch to Discrete manufacturing. Fishbowl Manufacturing is scalable, so it can handle a wide range of inventory and manufacturing needs. As you grow and increase production, Fishbowl Manufacturing will still be able to handle the extra load. Plus, instruction notes can be added to line items in a bill of materials so that workers can double-check the procedure, if necessary.

Repetitive

As its name suggests, Repetitive manufacturing involves making the same type of product over and over again. A single assembly line never changes the type of products that come from it, though it can change the frequency of their production to account for supply and demand fluctuations. When manufacturers create a bill of materials in Fishbowl Manufacturing, they can easily save it and duplicate it whenever they need to. There’s never a worry of raw goods or certain parts of the manufacturing procedure being forgotten or lost because everything is standardized. Sign up for a free trial of Fishbowl Manufacturing software and production and start putting it to use, no matter which manufacturing process you use!