Production

Production turns components into finished goods and keeps stock honest while it happens. The flow is: decide what needs making, raise a work order, schedule it against capacity, then complete it so stock reflects reality.

Deciding what to make

The production list and Products on Order together show what customers are waiting for against what you hold. A product with outstanding demand, no stock and a bill of materials is a work order waiting to be raised.

Work orders

A work order says: build this quantity of this product. It draws on the product's bill of materials to know which components are consumed and in what quantity. As the order progresses it tracks work in progress, so stock is not simply teleported from components to finished goods at the end.

Because BOMs nest, a work order for an assembly can depend on sub-assemblies that are themselves made rather than bought. Costs roll up the same way, which is what makes the finished item's cost meaningful rather than notional.

Work centres

Work centres represent where work happens — a machine, a bench, a cell, a team. Defining them is what makes scheduling meaningful: without them there is no capacity to schedule against, only a list of things you would like done.

Scheduling

Scheduling places work orders against work centres over time. The value is seeing the collision before it happens: two jobs wanting the same machine on Thursday is a conversation on Monday, not a surprise on Thursday afternoon when a customer calls.

Quality

Quality checkpoints and non-conformance records attach to production so that a rejected batch is recorded rather than quietly re-made. If you are supplying customers who audit their suppliers, this is the trail they will ask to see.

Projects

Where a job is bigger than a single work order — multiple builds, stages and costs tracked against one deliverable — projects group the work so you can see the whole thing in one place rather than reconstructing it from a dozen orders.