Production Stages
Production Stages are a catalog for splitting your manufacturing process into phases (for example, "Cutting", "Assembly", "Painting" or "Packaging"). They're then assigned to the Finished Products, Raw Materials, Services and Routing lines of your Bills of Materials (BOM), so you know which phase of the process each material, product or task belongs to.
What is it and what is it for?
Each Production Stage is a simple record with a Name and free-form Notes. It has no tabs or detail lines: it's a supporting catalog, similar to Bill of Materials Classes, but instead of grouping the whole recipe, it's used to tag each line inside it.
Once you've created your stages, they become available in the Stage column of the following grids on a Bill of Materials:
- Finished Products: which stage produces each finished product in the recipe.
- Raw Materials: which stage consumes each raw material.
- Services: which stage applies each manufacturing service.
- Routing: which stage each operation in the process runs in.
That same stage is later recorded on the documents generated from the recipe (raw material dispatches, finished product constructions and production tasks), letting you track production phase by phase instead of as a single block.
How to use it
- Open the Production Stages list and click New.
- Enter the stage's Name (required, can't repeat), such as "Cutting" or "Assembly", and if you want, add free-form Notes to describe it better.
- Click Save.
- When creating or editing a Bill of Materials, pick the matching stage in the Stage column of each Finished Products, Raw Materials, Services or Routing line. The field is a search box with autocomplete: type part of the name and choose the stage, without leaving the Bill of Materials screen.
Assigning a stage to each line is optional. If your production process is simple and you don't need to split it into phases, you can leave the Stage field blank on your Bills of Materials.
Main capabilities
- A simple list, sorted alphabetically by name, with direct access to View and, if you have permission, Edit each stage.
- A quick-search (autocomplete) selector available on the Finished Products, Raw Materials, Services and Routing grids of the Bill of Materials.
- Traceability of the stage on the documents generated from the recipe: raw material dispatches, finished product constructions and production tasks.
Key fields
| Field | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Name | Identifies the stage (e.g. "Cutting", "Assembly"). Required and can't repeat between stages. Maximum 200 characters. |
| Notes | Optional free-form text describing what the stage covers. |
Validations when saving
- Name is required.
- Name can't repeat between existing stages, both when creating and editing.
- Name can't exceed 200 characters.
Deleting
A stage can't be deleted while it's assigned to any Finished Products, Raw Materials or Routing line of a Bill of Materials, or to any production document already generated (dispatches, constructions or tasks). In that case, AdmCloud shows you the name of every Bill of Materials or document using it, so you can change their stage (or leave it blank) before trying to delete it again.
Availability, plans and conditions
- This feature requires the Manufacturing module active in your company (available as an add-on module of the Enterprise edition) and also the Advanced Manufacturing module active. Without either one, the screen shows a "not available on this edition" message.
- If the Advanced Manufacturing module isn't active, the Stage column shows up disabled on the Bill of Materials grids instead of letting you pick one.
- Access is controlled with the same "Bills of Materials" permission of the user group used for Bills of Materials (BOM), with separate levels for browsing, adding, editing and deleting.
Tips and common mistakes
Define your stages to match your actual production process first (for example, in the order they occur: Cutting, Assembly, Painting, Packaging) before entering your Bills of Materials, so you can assign them right away on each line without interrupting data entry.
"This stage already exist" shows up when the name you typed matches an existing stage; check the list before creating a new one with a similar name.
If you need to delete a stage and AdmCloud tells you it's in use, check which Bills of Materials or documents are listed in the message and change their stage from their own line before trying to delete it again.