This article is relevant if you are using NetSuite to produce light assembly or manufacturing operations and you need documents to help you produce worker operations on your shop floor.

Background

During a recent manufacturing implementation for a client who produces FDA class III medical supplies, a need for supporting documentation to run the shop floor was an important requirement.   NetSuite was configured to track lot-numbered assembly items which helped with traceability.   Normal assembly operations require the organization to pick specific lots of underlying components in order to support the ultimate build-up of intermediate lot assemblies.

The operation requires shop floor employees to gather materials to bring them to a central workstation to assemble and manufacture the assembly.  Knowing which materials to gather demands information about specific lot-based inventory availability in respective bin and location warehouses.  All of this information is in NetSuite; yet it is not handy.

Using Advanced PDF Technology to Generate Documents

Out of the box, NetSuite does not offer a consolidated concept of these two documents:

1. Work Order Traveler: information needed about all the elements required to produce an assembly.
2. Work Order Pick List: for each subcomponent needed as referenced in the Work Order Traveler, information about where those items are currently located so they may be gathered.

NetSuite’s Advanced PDF technology can be used to help generate high-quality documents.    Yet, it may be challenging to gather all the information needed in one place to output the Work Order Traveler and Picklist with NetSuite’s built-in toolset.

Readers of my past articles likely know that my firm has created a tool called the Content Renderer Engine.  The idea of this tool is that you can create multiple linked saved searches together to produce a data universe that can then be used to generate PDF (or other) outputs.

In this case, our client wanted a button on the Work Order record that would launch a new browser window that would make it very easy to print one single PDF that first outputted the Work Order Traveler (as it acts as a summary of the work needed) and then a Work Order Pick List page for every item that is needed to be collected to produce the manufactured product.

Click related images to get a feel for the documents.

Get the Content Renderer Engine to Output NetSuite Manufacturer Documents

Like all the algorithms we have previously created, our Content Renderer Engine is available to our clients license-free.  Naturally, by producing templates, we build upon all the previous work for other clients to help accelerate new implementations.  Our tools are one of the many ways we demonstrate our superior capacity to extend NetSuite to adapt to specific business situations.

If you found this article helpful, feel free to sign up to receive notifications of new articles as I post them.    Our ethics are not to send unsolicited email.  If you have challenging NetSuite manufacturing requirements and can see value in our previous work in your situation, let’s have a conversation.

Marty Zigman

Holding all three official certifications, Marty is regarded as the top NetSuite expert and leads a team of senior professionals at Prolecto Resources, Inc. He is a former Deloitte & Touche CPA and has held CTO roles. For over 30 years, Marty has produced leadership in ERP, CRM and eCommerce business systems. Contact Marty to set up a conversation.

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