A major advantage of entering a product's assembly into Herschel is that you can very quickly add up the costs of all the items that go into an assembly to get a rolled up cost for the product.

 

To do this Herschel explodes the assembly, reading the cost of each component item from the stock file, and calculating the cost of the assembly as it goes.

 

The cost of an assembly is built up from the following costs:


Overhead Cost

The cost of all the overheads used to make the assembly. This is normally related to the time it takes to make the assembly, and is the cost of the overheads (e.g.. heat, light etc.) used.

Labour Cost

The cost of labour used to make the assembly. This is also normally related to the time it takes to produce the assembly, and is the direct cost of producing the assembly (e.g.. wages).

Component Cost

The costs of all the components used. The system can use standard, average or latest costs to do its calculations, although it is advisable to use standard costs if possible. Herschel remembers which type of cost was used for future reference.

 

When a sub-assembly is found in the assembly, it is exploded and its overhead, labour and component costs are added to the total.

 

The roll up assembly costs option performs a cost roll up for any assembly, using standard, average or latest costs:



All the calculations are shown, and items with zero costs are highlighted. The newly calculated rolled up cost can be held in the assembly details, if required:



The roll up can include scrap if required.  If scrap is included the system will ask for a typical batch size so it can calculate scrap allowances correctly (the default batch size is the figure held in the assembly details).  The roll up can also exclude tooling items if necessary.


Note the new rolled up cost does not affect the costs held for the assembly in its partnumber record.  When you're happy with your rolled up costs, run the transfer assembly costs to stock file report to update the stock file costs:



If you are using the Shop module you may have a manufacturing route on file for an assembly. If so it is possible to calculate automatically the overhead and labour costs of producing the assembly using the transfer route costs option. This can save you a lot of work. The details of each assembly contains the route number to transfer and the assumed typical batch size that the system will use when doing its calculations: