Production management software for SMEs in Morocco: bills of materials, manufacturing orders and requirements

When production runs on Excel: where it breaks

In many Moroccan workshops, from a metalwork shop in Aïn Sebaâ to a furniture maker in Fez, production is run from an Excel file kept by the workshop manager. It lists material quantities per product, sometimes a unit cost worked out once and never revisited, and the orders waiting to be made. But the file does not know what is actually in the store, it does not move when the price of steel sheet goes up, and it usually forgets the scrap.

The consequences always arrive at the worst moment: a batch is launched and locks run out at assembly, a large order is accepted without knowing how much steel to buy, a product is sold at a price based on a cost from two years ago. Raw-material and finished-goods stock are never right, because nobody records what goes to the shop floor.

• Component shortages discovered halfway through a batch
• Scrap and offcuts never included in the cost
• A frozen unit cost while purchase prices move
• Purchasing decided by guesswork, too early or too late
• Wrong raw-material stock because issues are never recorded

The bill of materials: the production recipe, scrap included

A bill of materials (BOM) describes what it takes to make a product: each component, its quantity and its scrap rate. It can be set up for one unit or for a batch. The scrap rate increases the quantity consumed: 18 kg of steel sheet with 5% scrap means 18.9 kg leave the store, because part of every sheet ends up as offcuts at cutting.

Take a workshop making metal office cabinets. Per cabinet: 18 kg of steel sheet at 14 DH per kg with 5% scrap, 0.6 kg of epoxy powder paint at 45 DH per kg and one lock at 22 DH. The material cost of one cabinet is 313.60 DH, of which 264.60 DH is steel. Without the scrap, steel would have been costed at 252 DH: a gap of 12.60 DH per cabinet, or 630 DH on a batch of 50, quietly eaten out of the margin.

SOGESTIO calculates this cost from the weighted average cost (CMUP) of each component in stock, as in the table below. When steel is bought at a higher price, the cost of the BOM follows.

Manufacturing orders: planned, in progress, done

A manufacturing order says what to make, how many and by when. It gets a sequential number, starts from the product's active bill of materials and moves through three states: planned, in progress, done. Before you start, SOGESTIO shows for each component the quantity needed, the quantity available and any shortfall, so you know before cutting whether there are enough locks to finish the batch.

On completion, one operation does everything: components leave stock, the finished product enters stock at the actual cost of what was consumed, and that cost feeds its weighted average cost. For an order of 50 cabinets, SOGESTIO issues 945 kg of steel, 30 kg of paint and 50 locks, then receives 50 cabinets worth 15,680 DH, or 313.60 DH each. If the shop only finishes 48, you close the order on 48 and consumption is calculated for 48.

• Automatic numbering of manufacturing orders
• Component availability check before launch
• Components issued and finished goods received in a single operation
• Quantity actually produced entered at completion
• Cancellation possible until the order is done

Requirements planning: what to make and what to buy

Requirements planning, a simple form of MRP, starts from open customer orders. For each product with a bill of materials, SOGESTIO calculates: open customer orders + minimum stock − stock on hand − production already planned. Example: customers have ordered 120 cabinets, you hold 20 and want to keep at least 10. You need to make 120 + 10 − 20 = 110.

The 110 cabinets are then exploded into components, scrap included: 2,079 kg of steel, 66 kg of paint and 110 locks. With 1,250 kg of steel, 80 kg of paint and 35 locks in store, you still need to buy 829 kg of steel and 75 locks; the paint is sufficient. The buy list then turns into purchase requests and supplier orders in the purchasing module.

Production cost: what SOGESTIO calculates, and its limits

The cost carried by a manufacturing order is the cost of the components consumed, valued at their average cost when the order is completed. That is the base of your cost price: the material share, usually the heaviest in a processing SME. Labour and workshop overheads are not added to the manufacturing order automatically; to follow them, cost accounting assigns invoices and expenses to cost centres (workshop, activity) and reports a result per centre.

To be clear about scope: SOGESTIO covers bills of materials, manufacturing orders, stock, material cost and requirements. It does not do machine scheduling, capacity planning or routings (work centres, set-up times). For an SME whose real problem is knowing what to buy and what a product costs, that is usually what matters; a plant that must sequence dozens of machines will need a specialised tool alongside it.

Production connected to sales, purchasing and accounting

The strength of an ERP over a stand-alone production tool is that everything connects. A confirmed customer order feeds requirements, the delivery note issues finished goods, and the supplier goods receipt brings steel into stock at net purchase cost and recalculates the average. Sales and purchase invoices are posted automatically under the Moroccan chart of accounts (CGNC), and the dashboard shows gross margin per product.

• Multi-warehouse stock: raw-material store and finished-goods store
• Batch and serial-number tracking
• Minimum-stock alerts on components
• Gross margin by product and by customer in reports
• Shop-floor payroll with CNSS, AMO, income tax and seniority

Which plan for production management?

The Production module is part of the Pro and Groupe plans; it is not included in Starter. Pro costs 449 DH/month or 4,490 DH/year excl. VAT for one company and up to 10 users, with purchasing, banking, accounting and payroll. Groupe, at 990 DH/month excl. VAT, adds multi-company management and consolidation, with three companies included and up to 30 users. The 14-day free trial needs no bank card: build the bill of materials of your best-selling product and compare the cost with the one in your spreadsheet.