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Production Operations
Production operations convert demand and materials into finished output. Use the Production menu for generic manufacturing work, even when an industry pack such as Apparel supplies the terminology or templates.
Production operations provide manufacturing context and execution orchestration, but they do not replace the shared owner ledgers for documents, stock, inspections, billing, payments, or reporting.
Open Production -> Operations.
Standard Flow
| Step | Workspace | Business Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Quotations | Offer manufactured goods or services to the customer through shared document context. |
| 2 | Sales Orders | Capture confirmed demand through shared document context. |
| 3 | Production Planning | Run MRP, review shortages, and create supply suggestions. |
| 4 | Procurement | Order missing inputs. |
| 5 | Material Receipts | Receive accepted inputs into stock through shared inventory consequences. |
| 6 | Production Orders | Plan and release factory work. |
| 7 | Resource Planning | Create capacity slots and reserve required resources. |
| 8 | Shop Floor | Record operation progress, scans, labor, and output. |
| 9 | Quality Control | Inspect WIP or finished output through shared inspection evidence. |
| 10 | Dispatch | Release approved finished goods through shared document and inventory consequences. |
School Uniform Example
For a school-uniform manufacturer, the Apparel/Garments category may provide defaults such as style terminology, size/color templates, garment QC checks, and label formats. Users still work through the same Production flow:
| Flow Step | School-Uniform Example |
|---|---|
| Quotation | Quote shirts, tunics, trousers, sweaters, logo embroidery, and delivery terms. |
| Sales Order | Confirm quantity by school, size, color, and delivery date. |
| MRP | Calculate fabric, thread, buttons, labels, packaging, and shortage actions. |
| Procurement | Order missing fabric, trims, labels, and packaging. |
| Material Receipt | Receive approved fabric and trims into stock. |
| Production Order | Release cutting, sewing, branding, QC, and packing work. |
| Shop Floor | Track bundles, operation progress, scrap, rework, and partial output. |
| Quality Control | Check measurements, stitching, logo placement, stains, and packing accuracy. |
| Dispatch | Deliver approved finished uniforms to the school. |
| Costing | Review material, labor, overhead, scrap, rework, and variance. |
See Manufacturing Industry Categories And Examples for the full school-uniform walkthrough and additional food, plastics, metal, roofing, furniture, and assembly examples.
Operations Form Reference
These forms are shared across manufacturing categories. Category packs may change labels or defaults, but the business meaning stays the same.
| Workspace | Form Meaning | Key Fields To Review |
|---|---|---|
| Quotations | Commercial offer before confirmed production demand. | Customer, product design/item, variant, quantity, price, delivery date, terms. |
| Sales Orders | Confirmed demand that can drive MRP. | Customer, due date, delivery location, order lines, linked quotation, approval state. |
| Production Planning | Material and supply planning run. | Business unit, horizon, warehouse, item scope, planning mode, included demand flags. |
| Procurement | Purchase or replenishment for missing inputs. | Supplier, material/component, quantity, expected date, receiving location, price. |
| Material Receipts | Accepted inbound materials received into inventory. | Supplier, receipt lines, accepted/rejected quantity, warehouse, QC state. |
| Production Orders | Planned or released factory work. | Produced item/design, quantity, BOM, routing, due date, location, priority, status. |
| Resource Planning | Capacity and booking controls for constrained work. | Resource, date/time, capacity slot, booking purpose, linked order or operation. |
| Shop Floor | Operation-level execution and WIP movement. | Operation, input/output status, material issue, completed quantity, scrap, rework. |
| Quality Control | Inspection evidence and release/hold decisions. | Template, sample size, measurements, defect category, disposition, inspected record. |
| Dispatch | Approved finished goods released to customer/location. | Customer, packed quantity, dispatch lines, delivery note, destination, carrier. |
| Billing | Invoice and payment follow-up after commercial trigger. | Invoice customer, delivered lines, taxes, payment terms, allocation status. |
| Production Costing | Cost and variance review before or after closure. | Material, labor, machine, overhead, scrap, rework, WIP, finished goods, variance. |
Production Planning And MRP
Use Production -> Operations -> Production Planning after confirmed demand is captured and before production orders are released.
Planning helps users:
- run MRP for a selected business unit, horizon, warehouse, or item
- review demand, material requirements, shortages, suggestions, and exceptions
- convert production-order suggestions into planned production orders
- open planning reports with the current run or row filters already applied
See Production Planning And MRP for the full workflow and report reference.
Resource Operations
Production resource operations are exposed from Production -> Operations and use the shared Resource Capacity engine scoped to PRODUCTION resources.
Use them to:
- create capacity slots for work centers, machines, lines, tools, and labor pools
- reserve resources for production orders or operation-level work
- block capacity for maintenance, downtime, cleaning, setup, or unavailable shifts
- review utilization by resource, business unit, location, and date range
- detect bottlenecks before production is released or dispatched to the floor
Keep the downstream ownership clear during operations:
- Sales Orders, Procurement, Material Receipts, and Dispatch may open from Production context, but the structured document truth remains in shared Document Transactions
- stock issue, receipt, transfer, valuation, and availability remain owned by Inventory
- inspection pass/fail, defect, and evidence truth remain owned by Inspections
- receivable invoicing remains owned by Billing
- money movement, settlement, and payouts remain owned by Payments
Operating Rules
- Do not release production until BOM, routing, materials, location, and quality setup are ready.
- Use material receipts and stock movements to keep inventory traceable.
- Use capacity slots and bookings when production work depends on constrained resources.
- Record partial completion, scrap, rework, and exceptions instead of forcing a clean completion.
- Use inspections to block or release output before dispatch where quality control applies.
- Close production only after output, material usage, costing, and variance review are complete.
Do not create a second production-only commercial, stock, or QC ledger to explain these outcomes. Use the shared primitives and let Production provide only the manufacturing runtime context.