Work orders
A work order (WO) builds a quantity of one assembly. It lists the components that one level of the assembly's BOM needs, and you pull those parts from stock (kitting), build, then complete it to put the finished assemblies into stock. For assemblies with subassemblies, one step creates a linked group of work orders, so each subassembly you build is kitted into its parent automatically.
Permission
Anyone in your company can view work orders. Creating them and changing their status, kitting and completing all need the Edit work orders permission.
Creating a work order
Creating a work order takes two steps. Nothing is saved until the second one.
- Go to Work Orders and click New. You can also use New Work Order on the dashboard.
- Pick the Part to Build, enter the Quantity, and optionally a Due date and a Reference, such as a sales order number.
- Click Next: Review BOM.
Choosing what to make and what to take from stock
The second page, Review Work Order Explosion, shows the assembly's full multi-level BOM. For each part it shows the quantity Required for this build and what's On Hand. On-hand figures in red are short.
Each subassembly, marked ▼, has a Make? tickbox:
- Ticked (make): a separate work order is created to build that subassembly, linked to the line of the parent work order it supplies.
- Unticked (use stock): no work order is created, and the parent kits that subassembly from stock like any other part.
Subassemblies you're short of start ticked. Change them as you need, then click Create Work Orders. If the part has no subassemblies, confirming creates a single work order.
Every work order starts as Draft. You're taken to the group page described below.
Each work order's lines are fixed when it's created. They're one level of the BOM multiplied by the work order quantity. If the BOM changes afterwards, existing work orders keep their original lines. If a work order has no lines but its part now has a BOM, the page warns you that completing it would stock the assembly without consuming anything. In that case, cancel it and create a new one.
Work order numbers and groups
Work orders are numbered from your company's work order format, which your admin sets in company settings, for example 00002. Work orders created by Make take the top-level number plus a suffix in creation order, for example 00002.001 and 00002.002. That way you can see from the number which build they belong to.
The group page lists every work order in the build, deepest first. That's the suggested order to build them: finish the subassemblies, then the assembly that uses them. Supplies (parent assembly) shows which assembly and line each one feeds. To open it from any work order, click View tree next to Group, or View group on the work order's detail page.
If a subassembly work order is cancelled, the group page warns you. The parent's line then has to be kitted from stock instead.
The Work Orders list shows every work order with its status, and you can search, filter and choose columns (see Lists & search).
Work order statuses
Open a work order and click Edit to see the buttons for its current status.
Status is shown as a coloured label everywhere on screen. The colour groups statuses so a list can be scanned at a glance; the label always names the exact status, so you never have to rely on the colour alone.
- Grey — not started.
- Amber — waiting on you. Someone needs to pick this up.
- Navy — under way on the floor.
- Green — done.
- Red — ended without completing.
The printed PDF shows the status as plain text.
| Status | What it means | How it gets here | What you can do next |
|---|---|---|---|
| Draft | Planned; nothing has happened yet | Created | Release WO; Cancel WO |
| Released | Approved for the shop floor | Release WO | Begin Kitting; Unrelease WO (back to Draft); Cancel WO |
| Kitting | Parts are being pulled from stock | Begin Kitting, or Return Parts to Inventory from Kitted | Kit and Unkit lines; Reopen WO (back to Released, once nothing is kitted); Mark Kitted when every line is kitted; Cancel WO |
| Kitted | Every line has its parts | Automatically, when the last line is kitted; or Mark Kitted | Begin Production; Return Parts to Inventory (unkits every line, back to Kitting); Cancel WO |
| In Production | Being built | Begin Production, or Disassemble from Complete | Complete WO; Return to Kitted; Cancel WO |
| Complete | Built; the parts are consumed and the output has gone to stock or to its parent | Complete WO | Disassemble (back to In Production); Download PDF |
| Cancelled | Abandoned; any kitted parts went back to stock | Cancel WO from any status from Draft to In Production | Nothing further |
Status buttons act straight away, with no confirmation.
Going back from In Production
Return to Kitted moves an In Production work order back to Kitted, with its parts still kitted. To send parts back to the shelf from there, click Return Parts to Inventory.
Kitting parts to a work order
Kitting takes each line's parts out of stock and sets them aside for this work order. Click Begin Kitting on a released work order.
Before kitting starts, Kit From / Location suggests where the stock is. During kitting, each line not yet kitted gets a location picker and a Kit button:
- Pick the location to take the parts from. The picker only offers locations that hold enough of that part for the whole line.
- Click Kit. The line's full quantity is taken from that location, oldest stock first. The line is ticked as Kitted, with who kitted it and when.
When the last line is kitted, the work order moves to Kitted by itself.
- Unkit puts that line's parts back where they came from. If the work order was Kitted, it drops back to Kitting.
- A line supplied by a subassembly work order shows that work order's number and status instead of a picker. You can't kit it from stock. It's kitted automatically when that work order is completed.
- If every line is already kitted but the work order is still in Kitting, Mark Kitted moves it on. This happens when the part has no BOM, or when the subassembly work orders finished before this one reached Kitting.
Completing a work order
Click Begin Production once the work order is Kitted. When the build is done:
- Next to Finish to in the action bar, pick the location where the finished assemblies will go, usually your finished-goods area.
- Click Complete WO.
Every line is marked Consumed, and the finished quantity is added to stock at that location. A message confirms what was stocked, and the location is shown as Finished to on the work order.
Subassembly work orders
A work order created by Make has no Finish to picker. Its output never goes into stock. Completing it kits the parent work order's line directly, so the subassembly can't be used by anything else first. The line shows "from production" instead of a location. If the parent is in Kitting and that was its last line, the parent moves to Kitted by itself.
This is why the group page suggests building from the bottom up: complete each subassembly work order, and its parent's lines fill in as you go.
Disassembling a completed work order
Disassemble on a Complete work order reverses the completion. The work order goes back to In Production with its lines kitted but no longer consumed.
- For a top-level work order, the finished assemblies are taken back out of stock at the Finished to location. If they've since been moved or used, you'll see an error instead.
- For a subassembly work order, the parent's line is unkitted instead, and a Kitted parent drops back to Kitting. This is blocked once the parent has consumed the subassembly. Disassemble the parent first.
Unkitting a parent line that was supplied by a completed subassembly work order does the same thing: it disassembles that subassembly work order.
Cancelling a work order
Cancel WO is available from Draft to In Production. Any kitted parts go back to the locations they were kitted from. A line kitted by a completed subassembly work order is released by disassembling that work order, which goes back to In Production. A Complete work order can't be cancelled. Disassemble it first.
Printing a work order
Download PDF appears in the action bar from Kitting onwards, including on Complete and Cancelled work orders. The printout lists the part to build, quantity, due date, reference and every line with its kitting details, for the shop floor or your records.