Discrete Manufacturing

Discrete manufacturing is distinguished by the production of distinct items that use bills of
material and routings to determine costs and lead times.
Examples: Automobile manufacturing, computer manufacturing, dishwasher and washing
machine manufacturing, etc .
Typically they follows either a Product, Process or a Combination Layout these layouts can be
understood like:

Product Layout - Processes come to the product . typical example are Ship
Building, Car Assembly Line, PC's, etc.
Process Layout - Products go to Process areas Typical Example are Cabinets and
Casings, Sub-assemblies, Rubber Mixing, etc.

Is normally a Product that is "Built Up" from components or sub-assemblies.

A note with Oracle Product
Discrete manufacturing is Oracle Applications method to handle the unique problems in
manufacturing equipment, like electronics, medical devices or a complicated assembly like the
space shuttle as indicated above.
Discrete manufacturing is based on piece parts that are assembled or machined to make larger
assemblies.
Oracle Discrete Manufacturing has a great deal of functionality to manage the Bills of Materials,
Routings and Engineering changes that are required to adequately track assembly and cost the
finished product.
Flow Manufacturing
Flow manufacturing is also called Lean Manufacturing or JIT(Just-In-Time) and uses the
principles of demand flow manufacturing to produce product is required, for customer orders,
quickly and to meet the demand exactly on-time.
Usually, in order to use Flow a company needs to have production facilities that subscribe to the
principals of Lean Manufacturing. It is necessary to design production facilities so that
production lines, resources, machines, and labor are making only what is needed for immediate
customer orders.
Process Manufacturing
Process manufacturing is distinguished by a production approach that has minimal interruptions
in actual processing in any one production run, or between production runs of similar products.
This approach produces multiple unique products in relatively small batches flowing through
different production operations throughout the factory.

They typically follows a Process Layout.

They are normally producing a Product that is "Homogeneous" and equally divided for the
convenience of packaging.
Typical examples are Food, pharmaceutical and other batched-based manufacturers such as
refineries, wineries, etc .
A Note with Oracle Process Manufacturing
The OPM capabilities allow for multiple units of measure because the flexibility in batch
production is required in process industries.
Process manufacturing is used at companies that make products that use formulas, receipts
and/or have co-products or by products. Typical users of OPM are manufactures of food
products or chemicals that have complex internal processes and need a high level of control.
The OPM capabilities allow for multiple units of measure because the flexibility in batch
production is required in process industries.
What makes process manufacturing different from discrete?
Process manufacturing uses formulations or recipes. A discrete manufacturer uses Bills of
Materials (BOMs). A discrete manufacturer assembles along a routing, whereas a process
manufacturer blends in a batch.Apart from these other difference with other factors are
summurized as:

BASIS TYPE
The following table details the basis types available for use with each sub element.

Activity
Use the Activity basis type to assign an activity cost to an item. An activity is
an action or task that you perform in a business that uses a resource or incur
cost. For material overhead sub elements, the cost per item is calculated
within each cost type as follows:
Cost per item = (Activity occurences / Number of items ) * Activity rate
Item
You use the item basis type to assign a fixed cost per item.

For material and material overhead sub elements, you define a fixed amount per
item
For resource, Outside Processing (OSP), and Overhead sub element, you can define a
fixed per item moved through an operation.
Lot
You use the lot basis type to assign a lot charge per item or operation. For
material and material overhead sub elements, the cost per item is calculated
within each cost type as follows
Cost per item = Rate or amount / Items costing lot size.
For resource, Outside Processing, and Overhead sub element, the cost per
item is calculated within each cost type as follows
Cost per item = Routing usage * Rate or amount * 1 / Items costing lot size

Resource Units
You use Resource Units basis type to allocate overhead to an item based on
the number of resource units. For material overhead and overhead sub
elements, the cost per item is calculated within each cost type as follows:
Cost per item = Overhead rate * No of resource units earned in routing operation

Resource Value
You use Resource Value basis type to allocate overhead to an item based on a
percentage of the resource value. For material overhead and overhead sub
elements, the cost per item is calculated within each cost type as follows:
Cost per item = Overhead rate * Resource values earned in the routing operation

Total Value
You use Total Value basis type to allocate overhead to an item based on a
percentage of the total value.
For material overhead, the cost per item is calculated within each cost type as
follows:
Cost per Item = Total cost Material overhead earned at this level * Material overhead rate