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The purpose of this topic is to describe in general terms the production cycle within All Orders. There are many variations on this work flow which will be discussed in other topics.
In All Orders the work order is the document that handles production. Work orders are internal documents that specifies the finished goods that need to be produced as well as the components required to produce them. Before creating a work orders you must first create one or assembly type items. Typically an assembly item will have a bill of materials. The bill of materials or BOM is like a recipe, it tells All Orders which components are required to make the finished good. When a work order is created, All Orders knows how much of each component is required and displays the quantity available for each component on the work order. A BOM will also have one or more production steps. Production steps allow you to split the BOM into multiple processes. In addition to help you track components and manage production, the work order assist in determining the cost of your finished goods.
A few important notes regarding a Work Order is a follows:
Steps must be finished in sequence.
Finished good become available when the work order is finished.
To demonstrate the work order flow, I created an assembly item with a bill of materials as follows:
I then created a work order so that 50 Widgets can be produced as follows:
Please note the following regarding the above:
The 'Ordered' quantity of the finished goods multiplies the Qty Per on the bill of materials to determine the components 'Required'.
The 'Ordered' quantity is included in the 'On Order' quantity on its item info.
The 'Required' creates demand for the components for the purchasing purposes.
The 'Produced' quantity is how much of finished good is actually produced.
'Produced' can be equal to, less than or greater than the 'Ordered' quantity.
The 'Allocated' is the quantity of the components that are reserved for the work order and is deducted from the 'Available'.
'Allocated' can be equal to, less than or greater than the 'Required' quantity.
There are a variety of work order forms that can be used by your warehouse staff to pick components or as a router for production.
You will also note that the status of the first step is 'Waiting' meaning that before the step begins, the components must be allocated. (Note Labor which is a service item and non-inventory items can be allocated without regard to 'Available'). Allocating each item on a work order can be cumbersome so All Orders will do the job for you. To pick all the available components on the current step click Activities --> Pick Selected and for all the steps at the same time click Activities --> Pick All.
When the status is 'Ready' you can change it to 'In Production' (see understanding status). You change status by clicking the Details icon, then Change Status --> In Production.
If there is no lag between production and finishing a step you can change the status to 'Finished' directly which I have done on this example.
You will that there is an extra component on the work order. It turns out that there was not enough stock of 7909-0094 so I added 7809-0093 which is an alternate part. All Orders allows you to change the components on the work order without affecting the original bill of materials.
You continue until all the steps are finished. All Orders also has a function to pick all components and finish all steps at the same time. To accomplish this click Activities --> Finish All.