Work centres and work orders
Set up your machines and lines, what an hour costs, and follow each step of the work.
A work centre is a machine, a line or a bench. A work order is one step of a manufacturing order at a work centre. They come with Standard and above.
Add a work centre
Go to Work centres and click New work centre.
- Name and Working hours - pick a shift, or the business's usual hours.
- Speed - Units at once, Time efficiency %, Setup (min), Cleanup (min) and OEE target %. At 50% time efficiency, work here takes twice as long as the BoM says.
- Cost an hour - Machine, Operator and Overhead. The operator cost is used when the operator has no cost of their own.
- Backup work centres - work moves there when this one is busy or down (Professional and above).
- Allowed operators - choose none and everyone can work here.
- Speed by product - different units at once, setup and cleanup for one product.
- Time off - planning goes around it.
How work orders appear
The steps in your BoM become work orders when an order is confirmed. You can also click + Add step on the order.
Go to Work orders to see all of them across orders: Open, Ready, Running, Blocked and Done, for one work centre or all.
Work on a step
On the order, under Work, click Act:
- Start and Pause - the clock runs while the step is started.
- Mark as done
- Add time by hand - if nobody used the clock.
- Record quantity made
- Block - say why the work stopped. Unblock when it starts again.
On a floor with tablets, operators do all this on the shop floor.
Step statuses
Waiting (for another step), Ready, In progress, Paused, Done and Cancelled.
Time and cost
Each stretch of time keeps the cost of the moment it was worked, so changing a rate later doesn't change past work. If you finish an order with steps nobody timed, those steps count at their expected time, so the cost isn't left short.