Work Centers
A Work Center identifies the place, machine or station where a step of your production process happens (for example, "Cutting", "Assembly Line 1" or "Paint Oven"). It's used to indicate where each step is carried out on the Routing tab of your Bills of Materials (BOM), to calculate labor cost from its hourly cost, and to group pending work on the Production Floor.
What is it and what is it for?
Each Work Center has a Name, free-form Notes, an Hourly Cost and, optionally, a Work Calendar that defines on which days (and, if it applies, at which hours) that center is available to produce.
On the Routing tab of a Bill of Materials, each line can combine a Work Center with a Manufacturing Operation, a Position (Operator) and an Equipment. AdmCloud adds the Work Center's hourly cost to the equipment's and the operator's to calculate the finished product's labor cost when you record its Finished Product Construction.
That same assignment is recorded on the tasks of the Production Order generated from the recipe, which lets you group and track work by Work Center from the Production Floor.
Screens in this area
| Screen | What it does |
|---|---|
| List | A table with all Work Centers ordered by name, showing their Name as a link to the details. From here you create new centers and edit existing ones if you have permission. |
| Create / Edit | A form with the Name, Notes, Hourly Cost, the optional Work Calendar and the Inactive checkbox. |
| Details | The same card in read-only mode, with an Edit button if you have permission. |
How to create a work center step by step
- Open the Work Centers list and click New. You need the "add" level of the Bill of Materials permission; if you don't see the button, ask your administrator for access.
- Enter the center's name. It's required (up to 200 characters) and must be different from any other Work Center already registered.
- Add notes, if you need to. A free, optional field to describe the center (physical location, capacity, remarks).
- Enter the Hourly Cost. It's used, together with the equipment's and operator's cost assigned on each Routing line, to calculate the finished product's labor cost.
- Assign a Work Calendar, if your company uses them. It's optional; it defines on which days (and hours, if you captured them) the center is available to produce. You can only pick one if your company has Work Calendars available.
- Save. The Work Center becomes immediately available to assign on the Routing of your Bills of Materials.
Key fields
| Field | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Name | Identifies the center on the list and when assigning it on the Routing or on the Production Floor. Required and unique (maximum 200 characters). |
| Notes | Free, optional text to describe the center (location, capacity, remarks). |
| Hourly Cost | The cost associated with each hour of using the center. It's added to the equipment's and the operator's cost on each Routing line to calculate the finished product's labor cost. |
| Work Calendar | An optional link to a Work Calendar, which defines on which days and hours the center is available to produce. Only shows up if your company has that feature available. |
| Inactive | Doesn't delete the center or prevent selecting it on the Routing, but excludes it from the Production Floor board. |
Validations when saving
- Name required and within the maximum length (200 characters).
- Unique name: it cannot repeat another Work Center already registered.
Availability, permissions and conditions
- This feature requires the Advanced Manufacturing module active in your company (available as an add-on module of the Enterprise edition). Without it, the screen shows an "unavailable in this edition" message and the option doesn't appear on the menu.
- Access is controlled with the "Bill of Materials" permission of the user group (Work Centers don't have their own permission), with separate levels for browsing, adding, editing and deleting.
- The Work Calendar can only be assigned if your company also has Work Calendars available: the Premium Plus Payroll plan, or Enterprise with the Payroll module active, or with Advanced Manufacturing and the "Production Lines" feature enabled.
- A center used on a Bill of Materials' Routing, or on a task of an open transaction (for example, a Production Order that hasn't been voided) cannot be deleted: the system blocks the deletion and tells you which Bills of Materials or documents reference it. Update or remove those references first.
Tips and common mistakes
You won't be able to delete a Work Center linked to a Routing or to open Production Order tasks. The error message tells you every Bill of Materials or document that uses it; update those references before trying the deletion again.
Mark a center as Inactive (instead of deleting it) when you stop using it, so it disappears from the Production Floor without losing the history of the Production Orders and Bills of Materials that already reference it.
The Work Calendar is optional. If your company doesn't need to control which days or hours each center operates, you can leave it blank; the Work Center keeps working normally on the Routing and on the Production Floor.