Production overview
Use the Production module if you make products yourself. A production order says what to make, how many and by when. Complaia builds the orders from the product's recipe. Each order is done at a workstation. Workers take the material, start the order and report what they made. The finished goods wait at the workstation until somebody moves them to a warehouse.
Where to find it: Production in the sidebar: Production orders, Planning and Configuration (Sites, Production areas). The point of sale (POS) kiosks are set up in Settings → POS terminals.
How the shop floor is set up
Production uses four building blocks. You set them up once, from the largest to the smallest:
| Building block | What it is | Where you set it up |
|---|---|---|
| Site | One physical location of your company, with its own warehouses, areas and workstations. Most companies have one site and never need this screen. | Production → Configuration → Sites |
| Production area | A part of the shop floor that groups workstations. It decides how automatic distribution shares orders between them. In advanced warehouse mode it also decides where material comes from and where finished goods go. | Production → Configuration → Production areas |
| Workstation | One place where work is done, for example a bench, a machine or a line. It has limits for its queue and its crew, and it can accept only chosen items. | Production → Planning, in the More menu. Workstations have no menu item of their own. |
| POS terminal | A shared screen on the floor, also called a kiosk. It shows the workstations attached to it. The same terminal can also offer warehouse work. | Settings → POS terminals |
Several sites matter only in advanced warehouse mode with at least two active sites. Then every warehouse and every area belongs to one site, and a workstation belongs to the site of its area. An order belongs to one site too. It takes material only from the warehouses of that site, and automatic distribution places it only on workstations of that site.
What can be produced
You can create a production order for a product or a component that you make yourself. Three kinds of item never get an order:
- an item that you buy from a supplier instead of making it (see Product types);
- a variant parent product, which is only a template for its variants. You produce a specific variant;
- a product that is no longer in the catalog.
How Complaia builds the orders depends on the recipe:
| What you produce | What Complaia creates |
|---|---|
| A product without a recipe | One production order |
| A product with a recipe | One main order for the product, plus a sub-order for each component in the recipe that you make yourself |
| A set | No order for the set itself. One order for each product of the set that has to be made. |
Sub-orders follow the recipe downwards, level by level. Quantities multiply on the way down. For example, 10 units that need 4 brackets each give a sub-order for 40 brackets. A component that you buy gets no sub-order: it is taken from stock as material. A product used inside another product's recipe is taken from available stock first. It gets a sub-order only for the part that is missing.
The details are on Production orders.
How work reaches a worker
Nobody on the floor sees an order until it has a workstation. A new order normally has no workstation. It gets one in one of two ways:
- By hand, in Planning. On the Planning screen, drag the order from the pool onto a workstation's card. The order is planned on the day the screen shows.
- Automatically. Distribute automatically places all orders without a workstation on the workstations that take part in automatic distribution. See Distribute orders automatically.
Either way, a workstation refuses an order when its queue is full or when the item is not on its list of allowed items. An older product that still has a workstation saved from earlier sends its orders straight to that workstation, under the same rules.
Within a workstation, nobody sorts the queue by hand. Orders with a production time come first, then the earliest due date. A sub-order always comes before the order that waits for it. Planning, the kiosk, the mobile app and the printed workstation list show the same order of work.
An order on a workstation can start only when three conditions are met:
| What blocks the start | What clears it |
|---|---|
| Sub-orders are not finished | Finish them, or bring and take what they made as material for this order |
| Material from the recipe has not been taken | Bring the material to the workstation and take it for the order |
| Too few people are logged in at the workstation | Log in at the workstation. The number required is the workstation's People needed to start. |
The details are in Shop-floor execution.
The pipeline
ORDER ──▶ WORKSTATION ──▶ MATERIAL ──▶ START & REPORT ──▶ BUFFER ──▶ WAREHOUSE
what to by hand in brought, pieces made, finished label scanned
make Planning or then taken order finishes goods wait or goods
automatic for the at the returned
order workstation- A production order is created by hand for stock, from a customer order, or from a claim. An order from a customer order is created only for the quantity that is not already in stock.
- When the order is saved, it reserves the material it needs from stock, so that other orders cannot take it.
- The order gets a workstation, by hand in Planning or by automatic distribution.
- At the workstation, the material is brought from a warehouse into the workstation's buffer. It is then taken for the order. Taking it is the step that lowers your stock.
- A worker starts the order and reports the pieces made. The order finishes when the reported quantity reaches the target. In the browser and in the mobile app, a worker can also close it earlier, with fewer pieces.
- When the order finishes, the finished goods are booked into the workstation buffer. They are counted, but they cannot be picked or shipped yet.
- Somebody moves the goods to a warehouse: scans the
PRO-label on them, or returns them from the buffer. Complaia chooses the warehouse from the area's settings. Goods that a customer order or a main order waits for are reserved for it straight away.
The status of an order follows the work. There are three statuses: Pending from creation, Started from the moment work starts, and Completed when the order finishes. Nobody changes the status by hand.
An order that is no longer needed is cancelled, not deleted. A finished order cannot be cancelled. See Cancel an order.
Where people work
Workers can do the same work in three places. All three show the same orders.
| Place | How a worker gets there | What it can do |
|---|---|---|
| Browser | Production → Planning, then Details → Produce on a workstation's card | Everything: log in at the workstation, material, start, report, pause, close early, print labels, move goods from the buffer to a warehouse |
| Kiosk (POS terminal) | The Production module on the terminal | Start, report with a personal identification number (PIN), print labels, move goods from the buffer to a warehouse. The order finishes by itself at the target quantity. |
| Mobile app | Scan the QR code on a kiosk, choose a workstation, then open the Production section | Material, start, report, pause, close early, labels as a PDF file, move goods from the buffer to a warehouse |
The steps are described in Shop-floor execution. Checking in on a kiosk is described in POS terminals.
The screens
| Screen | Where | For |
|---|---|---|
| Production orders | Production → Production orders | Creating orders, following them, changing dates, cancelling |
| Planning | Production → Planning | Each workstation's queue for a day, assigning, moving and distributing orders |
| Shop-floor execution | Details → Produce on a card in Planning | Logging in, material, starting, reporting and finishing in the browser |
| Sites | Production → Configuration → Sites | Working with one site or several sites |
| Production areas | Production → Configuration → Production areas | The areas that group workstations, and their warehouses |
| Workstations | More → Create workstation in Planning, or Details → Workstation card | Each workstation's limits, crew and allowed items |
| POS terminals | Settings → POS terminals | The kiosks on the floor, their modules and workstations, and pairing a device |
Permissions
Permissions are granted per role in Roles & permissions. Production uses three groups there: Production, Workstations and POS terminals.
| To do this | You need |
|---|---|
| See orders, Planning and a workstation's orders | Production: View |
| Create production orders | Production: Create |
| Change dates, cancel orders, and assign, move and take orders off workstations | Production: Edit |
| Distribute orders automatically | Production: Schedule |
| Take material, start, pause, report and finish on the floor | Production: Reporting |
| See, create, edit or delete workstations and production areas | Workstations: View, Workstations: Create, Workstations: Edit or Workstations: Delete |
| Add, edit and delete sites | Warehouse: Manage and Production: Edit |
| See, create, edit or delete POS terminals | POS terminals: View, POS terminals: Create, POS terminals: Edit or POS terminals: Delete |
Each page lists the exact permissions for its tasks.
Related
- Production orders · Planning · Shop-floor execution
- Sites · Production areas · Workstations · POS terminals
- Recipe & production · Components — where the recipe an order follows is defined
- Warehouse overview — where finished goods become stock
- How work flows — production's place in the whole chain