With manufacturing on, Production under Inventory gains five views beside Runs (the production runs, as always) and the formulas: Schedule, Timeline, Resources, Materials and What to buy. It stands on advanced inventory: your tanks and lines are at a plant, and a plant is one of its locations.
Turn it on
- Open Inventory, Setup, Advanced inventory, and turn it on if it is off.
- Under Setup, Manufacturing, turn on Use manufacturing.
- Open Production, Resources. With no plant yet, add one there: it joins your locations with a place to keep the materials its runs use.
Resources
A resource is a tank, a line, a room or other equipment that runs take their turn on.
- Choose Add a resource, and say what it is.
- Pick the unit it works in: a tank by weight or volume (kg, L, ml), a fill line by the unit (ea).
- Say what one batch can be up to, how much it makes an hour, the setup each run takes, and the minutes to pick and stage a run's materials there before it begins.
- Set the hours it works each day. A tank that runs through the night works All day. A batch that runs past the close carries on when it next opens.
A run fits a resource when its batch turns into the resource's unit and is no more than it holds. How long it takes is the setup plus the batch at the resource's rate; a run can also say its own length, in minutes, hours or working days on the resource. A run's time to make starts from its finished good's. Picking and staging comes before the run, once its materials are there.
The schedule
A run you make yourself has no maker: under Runs, leave Maker as We make it ourselves.
- Open Schedule and choose Place what is waiting. Rush runs go first, then by due day, each on the resource it has to run on or on whichever can make it soonest, after what it waits for and once its materials are there.
- Drag a run to another day or another resource. It is pinned there, and what it overlaps moves after it. Tap a run to open it.
- In a run, Make it wait for a run: a fill waits for its tank's batch, with a lag such as a night to cure. Arrows on the timeline show what waits for what.
- Priority and length sets rush, normal or when there is room, the resource it has to run on, and its own length.
- Start on the run says it began, now or when it really did. A run whose start has come and that nobody has said began is overdue: placing the runs again moves it to now, unless a person pinned it there. A run that has begun stays where it is.
- Pull it in shows what would move if the run went earlier, and which of its materials would run short sooner. Nothing changes until you choose Move it there.
A late run, one that ends after its due day, is outlined in red. One whose materials will not be at the plant when it starts is shaded, and says what it waits on. By resource shows each resource's queue: what is on it now and what comes next. The assistant answers "what's next on tank 2" from the same schedule.
The plan moves on its own
Each day the plan looks at every run on the schedule that has not begun, so dates are not left behind when nobody moves them:
- A run whose start has come and that nobody has said began moves to now, and what waits for it moves with it.
- A run whose materials can't be at the plant by its start, picked and staged, moves to when they can be. What is not ordered yet counts as ordered today, coming its lead time later; a purchase order past its expected day counts as coming today.
- A run whose materials come in time stays where it is. One still short the next day moves again.
How a run moves is yours to choose under Inventory, Setup, Manufacturing, When a run can't start on time:
- Move it alone, to start: it goes to the first free time on its resource after it can start, behind whatever is there. The others keep their places.
- Push what follows: it keeps its place in line, and what comes after it on that resource backs up with it.
- Let it overlap: it goes to when it can start, even on top of another run there. Both are outlined on the schedule, with a to-do to sort them out.
A run that has begun never moves. A pinned run stays where a person put it: it is marked Late to start, with a to-do for each person who changes stock, until someone moves it or what held it up comes. Each move is in the Activity log under Settings, Team, from The plan, saying why. With Skip weekends on under Purchasing Settings, the plan's moves start runs on weekdays only, and lead times count working days.
The timeline
Timeline shows each manufacture order on the schedule at a plant as two lines: its making, from its first picking and staging to its finished product's end, and its purchasing, from the first purchase it waits on to the day the last of them comes. A line is red when something it needs comes after it should begin, is to be ordered by a day gone by, or is short with nothing coming.
- Open a manufacture order to see its work orders in order: a bulk batch made as a stage, then its fill.
- Open a work order to see the purchases it waits on: purchase orders placed (with their stage), drafts, transfers to the plant, and what is still to buy from each vendor, with the day to order it by.
- Open a purchase to see its items, each with its lead time and where that came from, and its parts when they are known. A purchase's bar shows its parts: making it, getting it ready (lighter), and in transit (striped). An order on an inbound shipment is drawn by the shipment's own days, and says whether it is being made, ready to ship or in transit.
- Open an item to see the work orders it unlocks, in the schedule's order after what the plant has: #226 in full, #228 by 4,000 of 6,000.
Drag a purchase's end to the day it will come, or choose it and set the day. For a purchase order, that is the day it is now expected: not the vendor's confirmation, which is still recorded on the order. For what is still to buy, it is its items' lead time with that vendor. The plan, the forecasts and the order-by days move with it.
Purchases lists every purchase with the work orders it holds up. On a phone the timeline is the same levels as a list. The assistant answers "what is holding up production" from the same timeline.
Materials
Materials takes what the scheduled runs at the plant need of each material in the week they start, against what is there now and what is coming: purchase orders delivered there, transfers to it, and what runs there make. The week a material's balance goes under zero is when it runs short.
- Open a material to see its weeks, the runs that need it, what is coming, and where else you have it.
- Send to the plant drafts a transfer for production from a warehouse.
- A run's own materials go to the plant from the run: Send materials to the plant. Received there, they count as sent for the run, and recording what was made uses them from the plant.
Purchasing
What to buy lists what to buy, by vendor: enough of each material that it never runs short through the weeks shown, in whole cases when it comes by the case, by the last day it can be ordered. That day is the week it runs short, less the lead time: the item's own with that vendor (set by hand, else measured from its orders), else the vendor's, else your usual lead time under Purchasing Settings. See Purchasing: what to order and when.
- Change an item's lead time on its line when the vendor tells you.
- Choose Draft the purchase order. It is a real purchase order, a draft delivered to the plant. Check it and issue it under Inventory, Purchasing; nothing is sent from here.
A purchase order you write by hand says where it is Delivered to, so the plan counts it at that plant.
Purchases to place by week, under Reports, Purchasing, lists everything still to place for the plan at every plant: each draft not yet issued and each item still to buy, in the week of its order-by day and by vendor, with its lead time and where it came from, the day it would come and the work orders it holds up. What is late to order comes first. It downloads as a spreadsheet, and the assistant answers "what do I have to order this week" from the same list.
Best practices
- Give each resource its own name, the one the floor uses, so "what's next on tank 2" has one answer.
- Set rates from real runs, then keep them current: the schedule is only as good as how fast each resource really works.
- Put every run that waits for another on it, with its lag. A fill line scheduled before its bulk is made is the most common mistake a schedule makes. A bulk made as a stage of the fill waits for you.
- Say each run began when it does. A run nobody started keeps moving, and its materials with it.
- Place the waiting runs every morning, and drag only what has to move: a pinned run stays where a person put it.
- Pin a run only when its day is fixed (a customer pickup, a booked crew). The plan moves the others for you; a pinned run it can only flag.
- Pick Push what follows when the order of the runs on a line matters (light colors before dark, an allergen run last), and Move it alone when it does not.
- Read Materials before Purchasing. A material short with nothing coming is a purchase to draft today.
- Look at the Timeline each morning: a red line is a run that will wait, and the purchase holding it up is the one to chase or move.
- Issue and receive orders on the days they happen, so each item's lead time is measured from them; the usual lead time is only a guess.