Company Details

A few parameters require setting before you use Merlin MRP Factory for the first time.  This screen is accessible only to users with Administrator rights.

On the Company Details tab you should enter your company name, address, phone numbers, etc. exactly as you wish it to appear on printed documentation:

Business Rules

The Business Rules tab stores some information vital to the smooth running of your Merlin system:

Date & Currency

In the Date & Currency panel, select or enter the Currency Symbol, and  the Date Style as appropriate.
Note:  Selecting the currency symbol L for Lira will be interpreted by the program as meaning Maltese Lira, and will show the currency symbol as Lm.

IMPORTANT! The Date Style setting has a function beyond the purely cosmetic.  If you select Date Styles 1 to 4, Merlin produces reports formatted for European A4 size paper (8.25"x11.75"), but if you select Date Style 5 (USA) the reports will be formatted for American Letter paper (8.5"x11").

Administration

n the Administration Panel you set some management parameters.

The Job Prefix field enables you to set an alphanumeric prefix that will appear in front of the sequential numeric Job Numbers AutoCreated by Merlin.  The example above, "MG_" will prefix job numbers with this string, so job number 1001 will become MG_1001.

Merlin will check your last Purchase Order number (which of course will be zero in a new installation), and increment this by one to establish the Next Purchase Order No.  You can change this if you wish, but upwards only.

There are also fields to show your next and last Job Numbers, and the Next Job Number should be set if you wish Merlin to follow a numeric sequence already established.  Whenever you create a new job in Sales Orders & Jobs, Merlin will suggest a Job Number for you in the form of the Job Prefix followed by the next number in the running sequence.  This will look something like this: MG_123456.  You can change this, of course, if you do not wish to follow this scheme.

If you have not entered a Job Prefix, Merlin will take the first three characters of your company name, followed by the underscore character, so the job number will look
something like this: MEG_123456.

Purchase Order Format enables you to choose for Merlin to print your Purchase Orders on plain paper or your own pre-printed stationery by clicking the appropriate button in the box.  If you elect to print on plain paper, Merlin will generate the standard Merlin Purchase Order in landscape format.

If you elect to print on pre-printed stationery Merlin will generate portrait orientated Purchase Orders with data only printed to the page.  You will need to pre-print your purchase order forms with company logo, information, column headers and line rules.  This can, of course, be done in your Word Processor or DTP package, or by a commercial printer.

Please see the sample_PO Word document on the Downloads page of our website for the layout guide, but since all printers a slightly different, before pre-printing any stationery you should print some test orders to establish the precise positioning of data components on the form.  The sample document is a template - Merlin will print the data only - not any of the rulers or headings.

Please note that the Part No. column shows the Supplier Part No.  and the Our Ref. column shows your own internal Part No.

When printing tests you should say NO when the printing dialogue asks if the Purchase Orders printed OK.  This will prevent the system from updating on the basis that the orders were successfully generated.

Additionally, you can test by re-printing existing Purchase Orders.

If you have any special Purchase Order layout requirements, please contact Merlin Support.

The Old Orders & Old Jobs must Predate This field is for you to enter a date which defines "old" records.  It will be used as the reference point when using the routines in Admin to purge old records from the system.  All closed items preceding this date will be removed when the Delete Old routines are run.

Path to...Data

Server: MRP 2000 Import
WorkStation: Merlin Data

Your Merlin MRP 2000 Import Path is shown (Server version only), if it is set.  This is used only if you have been previously using Merlin MRP 2000.  You cannot run this routine from the WorkStation Edition.

However, the equivalent field in the WorkStation version (appropriately labelled) shows the path to your Merlin MRP Factory data on the server.

This will have been set the first time you attempted to run a new installation of the WorkStation, but in the unlikely event that an incorrect path was accepted, it can be reset here. (Please see more information below.)

Working Hours in Day

You must enter the number of working hours in each day of the week for your manufacturing facility.  This will be used for calculating the start and finish dates for jobs, against free shop floor production capacity on each track.

Shop Floor Flow Control

If your shop floor works as a production line, with individual assemblies following one another along the line from process to process, select Process Flow.

If, on the other hand, your production process work as separate batches, so that all assemblies have to complete process one before the first item can proceed to process two, select
Process Batch.

Selecting the correct option is important, because the calculated build times for any given job will not be the same for both modes.

Costing

The Costing tab has fields to allow you to set two parameters for Merlin which are used when costing assemblies in Design Office. You can opt to Round Up costs to the next whole currency unit, and/or you can enter a percentage by which you wish to Mark-up assemblies, if you wish Merlin to do this  automatically.  The same percentage and rounding (if set) will be used calculate a suggested value for jobs you create in Job Manager.

When Assembly Costings are run in Design office, you are advised of the status of these settings.

There are also fields here for entering your VAT (sales tax) rates.

Set MRP 2000 Import Path
(Server)

Set Path to Merlin Data
(WorkStation)

This tab performs a different function on the Server Edition (where it points to your Merlin MRP 2000 data, for use if you have previously been using this system), to that which it serves on the WorkStation Edition (connecting the WorkStation to the Merlin data on you server).  The screens look very much the same, but the labels indicate the different purposes of the function, according to which program you are running.

Before you can import your Merlin MRP 2000 data (Server), or connect with your Merlin server data (WorkStation, in the unlikely event that this was incorrectly set when the program was first run after installation), you must set the path on this tab.  The WorkStation cannot be used if this is not correctly set.

To set the path, click the large button in the centre of the screen, and the file-browsing dialog will appear.  In the Drive dropdown, select the server drive where Merlin is installed, then, in the larger window above, navigate to the MerlinMRP directory by double-clicking your way along the directory tree.

You can see your currently selected path in the line above this window.

When you are happy you have navigated correctly, click Select to save the path information.  A dialog box will confirm your selection.

Please Note: Before you can set the Merlin WorkStation path to your server data, you must map a network path in Windows to the server's c:\Program Files\MerlinMRP directory (or, if the program has been installed elsewhere, to c:\path to\MerlinMRP).

Map precisely to the \MerlinMRP directory and no further.

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