Manufacturing Operations
Manufacturing Operations are a catalog for naming the steps of your production process (for example, "Cutting", "Assembly", "Painting" or "Quality Control"). They're used to identify each step on the Routing tab of your Bills of Materials (BOM) and, from there, on the tasks of the Production Orders generated from that recipe.
What is it and what is it for?
Each Manufacturing Operation 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 Production Stages, but while a Stage groups several recipe lines into the same phase, an Operation pinpoints which step of the process happens on each line of the Routing.
On that Routing line, the Manufacturing Operation is combined with:
- Work Center: where the step is carried out.
- Position (Operator): which position or type of employee performs it.
- Equipment: which fixed asset (machine or tool) is used.
- Hours: how long the step takes to complete.
With that combination, AdmCloud can add up the hourly cost of the work center, the equipment and the operator involved, and use it to calculate the finished product's labor cost when its Finished Product Construction is recorded. The same Operation is also recorded on the tasks of the Production Order generated from the recipe, letting you track how much time was spent on each type of work.
How to use it
- Open the Manufacturing Operations list and click New.
- Enter the operation'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, go to the Routing tab and, on each line, pick the matching operation along with the work center, position, equipment and hours for the step. The Operation field is a search box with autocomplete: type part of the name and choose the operation, without leaving the Bill of Materials screen.
Assigning an Operation to each Routing line is optional: you can leave the work center, position, equipment or operation blank if your process doesn't need it.
Main capabilities
- A simple list, sorted alphabetically by name, with direct access to View and, if you have permission, Edit each operation.
- A quick-search (autocomplete) selector available on the Routing tab of the Bill of Materials.
- Traceability of the operation on the tasks of the Production Orders generated from the recipe, together with the work center, equipment and operator that carried it out.
- Feeds the finished product's labor cost calculation, by adding up the hourly cost of the work center, equipment and operator of each operation.
Key fields
| Field | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Name | Identifies the operation (e.g. "Cutting", "Assembly", "Quality Control"). Required and can't repeat between operations. Maximum 200 characters. |
| Notes | Optional free-form text describing what the process step covers. |
Validations when saving
- Name is required.
- Name can't repeat between existing operations, both when creating and editing.
- Name can't exceed 200 characters.
Deleting
An operation can't be deleted while it's assigned to any Routing line of a Bill of Materials, or to any task of a live (non-voided) transaction, such as a Production Order. In that case, AdmCloud shows you the name of every Bill of Materials or document using it, so you can remove or change its operation 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 Bill of Materials' Routing tab isn't available, so the Manufacturing Operations catalog has nowhere to be used either.
- Access to this catalog is controlled by its own user group permission, "Manufacturing Operations", with separate levels for browsing, adding, editing and deleting (independent of the Bill of Materials permission).
Tips and common mistakes
Define the steps of your actual production process first (for example: Cutting, Assembly, Painting, Quality Control, Packaging) before entering your Bills of Materials, so you can assign them right away on each Routing line without interrupting data entry.
If a message says the record already exists when saving, check the list before creating a new operation with a name similar to an existing one.
If you need to delete an operation and AdmCloud tells you it's in use, check which Bills of Materials or documents are listed in the message and remove the operation from their own line before trying to delete it again.