Extending the limits of Vision

The core strengths of both Deltek Vision and Deltek Vantagepoint are their focus on people and services. Increasingly the professional services sector is expanding to include new revenue streams that require physical inventory.

The Deltek Equipment and Asset Manager modules allow for basic tracking but are not intended to handle more complex materials management. To effectively manage manufacturing or kitting within their business model, firms will require something more.

This is where Deltek’s partner ecosystem steps in to expand the footprint of Vision and DPS to ensure that even complex manufacturing and bespoke engineering can be managed seamlessly.

FMIS Solutions for Deltek allow users to manage inventory and production using the existing projects, customers and vendors already created within Deltek, thus cutting out the need for multiple standalone systems and the inefficiency that comes with it.

Bill of Materials

For Professional Services firms which produce bespoke engineering products, using a Bill of Materials (BOM) is not only likely, but the BOMs can also be complex and involve multiple levels of kitting. They are in effect putting together multi-levelled products that have inherent parent-child relationships.

Vision and Vantagepoint can manage basic product units within the Purchasing Module and as a unit within the project structure, but neither can create or show all of the separate sub-processes required to construct and manage the kit before its despatch and invoice.

If a Vision customer wants to sell something, a service or a commodity, and that sales process requires a quote and an order then that customer needs FMIS.

Start with the sale

Because Vision and Vantagepoint have no concept of an assembly, kit or BOM that can be sold, purchased, stocked or valued, the software is unable to create quotes or sales orders linked to inventory.

FMIS allows sales teams to create quotes for projects using product catalogues with project specific pricing quickly and efficiently. Converting a quote to a sales order creates a demand profile which can be fulfilled directly from existing inventory or via a purchase order.

Equipment and Inventory

The equipment or asset record within Deltek is a simple entity. The record has an impact on the project regarding depreciation, utilisation and cost, but it cannot be sold or represented in a hierarchy of other related equipment records.

With a kit, assembly or BOM there is an inherent set of relationships, a hierarchy of levels, or BOMs within BOMs. This hierarchy could mean that one top-level product consists of as few as two or as many as hundreds of other products.

Even visually representing this set of relationships can be a challenge. Typically these BOMs represent stock items, but neither Vision nor Vantagepoint support multi-level BOMs or the valuation methods required to value Work in Progress (WIP) or stock-in-hand and deal with complex stock counts.

Asset Tracking

FMIS has at its heart a powerful multi-level equipment system holding all of the physical details about a piece of equipment including the manufacturer, serial numbers, barcodes, asset locations and categorisation.

The system records the whole life history of the equipment record and has a workflow process to manage the life-cycle of each item of equipment. Typical equipment actions include acquisition, disposal, transfer, utilisation, damage, repair and maintenance (scheduled or reactive).

FMIS can account for this piece of equipment and all of its related sub-components as a consumable, fixed asset, or stock item. The FMIS Fixed Assets and Stock modules sit on top of the physical asset tracking engine ensuring an accurate central view of all assets.

Every piece of stock, assembly, sub-component or finished good utilises a unique record. This level of granularity allows for detailed project reporting and costing as well as greater control over stock and inventory.

Allocating Inventory

Sales orders are linked to the Stock Control module meaning that inventory can be allocated for immediate sale, or to a production work order as a raw material. Allocating Inventory to a work order will create a new sub-component, assembly or a finished good.

The stock movements engine generates all of the cost postings within Deltek which account for the cost of sale. Inventory that is in the process of being transformed into finished goods can also be valued as WIP.

Focus on Operations and Logistics

FMIS software is designed primarily for operational and logistics users but retains the project-centred approach that has made Deltek the leading global provider of software and solutions for project-based businesses.

Full integration between the FMIS and Deltek systems reduces costs, improves efficiency and provides a clarity of reporting that is not possible when working with standalone systems.

More information

For more information about FMIS Solutions for Deltek including enhanced Purchasing, enhanced Asset Management and Production Control, please email us at sales@fmis.co.uk or call the offices on +44 (0) 1227 773003.