Production Lines
Production Lines are a simple catalog (name and notes) you use to split a Bill of Materials (BOM)'s operations routing into separate manufacturing stations or lines, and then follow up on and schedule those tasks line by line from the Scheduling screen of Production Orders.
What are they and what are they for?
A Production Line is a simple record: it has a Name and optional Notes. On its own it doesn't do anything; its value shows up when you use it to group the operations routing (Work Centers, operation, equipment and hours) of your Bills of Materials.
This lets you model a single finished product that can be manufactured through more than one path — for example, two parallel assembly stations, or a "fast" route and a "standard" route. Each task on the BOM's operations routing is tagged with the production line it belongs to; if you don't pick one, the task stays on the Default Production Line.
When you generate a Production Order from that BOM, the routing (and its production line tags) is copied to the order. From the order's detail screen, the Scheduling button opens the Master Production Schedule (MPS), where the pending tasks are shown grouped by production line so you can assign a responsible employee to each and adjust its suggested start and end date/time.
How to use them
- Create the catalog entry. Go to Production Lines and use the New button. Enter its Name (required) and, if you want, Notes explaining its purpose.
- Assign them on your BOM's routing. On a Bill of Materials' Work Centers tab, pick a Production Line from the dropdown above the operations routing table. While that line is selected, the routing rows you add, edit or view belong to it; switch the dropdown to work on another line's routing, or leave it blank to edit the default routing.
- Generate the Production Order. AdmCloud copies the BOM's operations routing (with each task's production line) to the order.
- Open the order's Scheduling screen. From the Production Order's detail screen, press Scheduling. You'll see one section per production line used in the routing, with its pending tasks.
- Assign an employee and adjust the suggested dates. For each task, pick the responsible employee and review the suggested start and end date/time (calculated from that line's Work Center and equipment load). Press Accept Suggestion on the matching line to save that data back into the order's routing.
- Review or delete a line from its detail screen, once you no longer need it and it isn't referenced on any BOM.
Screens in this area
| Screen | What it does |
|---|---|
| List | Shows every registered Production Line with its name. It's a catalog with customizable columns, just like other AdmCloud lists. |
| Create / Edit | A form with a single required field (Name) plus Notes. |
| Details | A read-only view of the record, with its security log (who created, edited or deleted it) and the buttons to edit or delete it, based on your permission. |
Production Lines also show up, as a read-only reference, on the Bill of Materials (BOM)'s routing (its details view and print template group the routing by line) and on the Scheduling screen of Production Orders, where each line's name links directly to its details.
Key fields
| Field | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Name | Identifies the line on the list, on the BOM routing dropdown and on the order's Scheduling screen. It's required and cannot be repeated. |
| Notes | Free, optional text to describe the line's purpose or characteristics (for example, its capacity or the shift that runs it). |
Validations when saving
- Name required: you cannot save a production line without a name.
- Unique name: you cannot create a line with a name already used by another one.
- A line referenced on a BOM cannot be deleted: if one or more Bills of Materials have routing tasks assigned to that line, the system blocks the deletion and shows you the names of the affected BOMs; you must first remove that line from each routing row (or delete those rows) before you can delete it.
Availability, modules and permissions
- Requires the Enterprise edition with the Advanced Manufacturing module (Work Centers) active. Without that module, there's no Production Line dropdown on the BOM's routing and no Scheduling button on Production Orders.
- This is a beta feature: on top of the Enterprise edition with Advanced Manufacturing, your company needs it specifically enabled. If you don't see the "Production Lines" option in the Manufacturing menu, contact AdmCloud support to request it.
- Access is controlled by the "Production Lines" permission on the user group (with its View, Create, Edit and Delete levels).
Tips and common mistakes
Does your manufacturing process only use one line? Then you don't need to create any Production Line: leave your BOM's routing without one assigned and everything will work under the "Default Production Line", with no loss of functionality.
Create one line per station or manufacturing path you genuinely want to schedule and track separately (for example, two parallel assembly lines). You don't need a line per Work Center — a single line can group several Work Centers in sequence.
Can't delete a production line? Check the error message: it tells you which Bills of Materials still use it. Remove that line from the matching routing rows (or reassign them to another line) before trying to delete it again.