About Backflushing and Control Points

Control Points

Use of control points can greatly reduce the number of manual entries needed to report production. Control points on operations serve two purposes:

• To define which operations on a routing you will report production from.
• To manage backflushing through multiple operations. You can set each operation on a routing to be a control point and report production for each one, or you can set selected operations as control points and backflush the appropriate production quantities through the previous non-control point operations.

When a work center is created, you must specify whether it is a control point or not. This setting will be the default value for the routing operation when a work center is associated with the operation. It is possible to overwrite the default for each operation of a routing. Any and all operations within a routing can be specified as a control point.

Control Point Processing

Backflushing is triggered automatically when you enter a quantity other than zero for quantity complete or scrapped for a posted transaction. If the operation is a control point, the system will look for preceding operations to verify whether they are control points or not. If not, then the system assumes that the preceding non-control point operations associated with that control point will also have the same quantity complete value backflushed.

When you report a scrapped quantity for a control point, the same scrapped quantity is added to the quantity complete for all prior operations that are tied to that control point.

For a production scheduled item, if scrap is reported on a non-control point operation, the quantity complete is updated for all previously associated non-control point operations and those operations will be backflushed. For a job item, if scrap is reported on a non-control point operation, only the operation reported is backflushed.

What Happens When a Control Point is Posted

Based on how you have set up your Inventory Parameters, Items form Controls tab, Operation, and Material forms for backflushing, the system will perform the following:

• Processes each operation controlled by the control point in turn, starting with the lowest operation number.
• Backflushes materials on the BOM for all operations controlled by the control point where the material has been set up to be backflushed.
• Backflushes labor and/or machine hours for all control points for operations where the Backflush field is set to Labor, Machine, or Both.
• Absorbs/backflushes overhead for all operations controlled by the control point based on the setting for overhead basis in the work center.
• Moves quantities to the next operation or to inventory (if it is the last operation), for all operations tied to the control point.
• Posts or receives into inventory all quantities (received, complete, scrapped and moved), when appropriate.
• Applies scrap factors applies to the material issues.

All calculations and posted amounts will be based on values from the routing. The routing that is used for backflushing is dependent upon the manufacturing type.

No employee-specific labor will be posted except on the control point operation itself, where the posting originated. The transaction for the control point operation will be posted using employee rates and hours based on the appropriate routing.

Reverse Backflushing

Reverse backflushing occurs when you key production transactions with a negative quantity complete amount. Materials issued to the job are moved back to inventory and labor and/or machine hours, overhead, and WIP will all be decreased.

Negative completed quantities may be manually entered for individual operations, or you may enter a negative completed quantity for an operation that is flagged as a control point.

When all production is reversed, so that the quantity complete is zero, setup hours will also be reversed.