Managing production orders created in SAP Business One

The Produce / Manager production orders list provides an overview of open production orders. To access it, select Production orders from the main menu on the left.

The table covers all data related to production orders, including any active custom fields that you have picked for display in the Column selector. On top of the list, there is a quick filter that allows you to display all orders (which is the default setting) or those that have not been started yet.

The All orders option of the quick filter lists all the production orders if there is no column filter set. If, however, any column filter(s) are set, the list will be filtered accordingly. The Not started orders only option displays a list of orders that have none of their operations started yet. Again, any column filter setting also applies.

The columns that may need some explanation are Start date / End date, Status (the very last column), Operation status, Visible to operator and Priority. We also devote a separate section below to custom fields.

Start date / End date

The content and the data source Start date and End date columns may vary depending on your ERP system and settings.

If your ERP system is SAP Business One,

• and if the Use Schedule start/end date and time checkbox is selected under General settings / Schedule settings, then Start date and End date data are imported from Schedule, and will include not just date but also time.
• If the checkbox is unselected, then the columns display the data shown in SAP Business One which is limited to date only (without time).

If your ERP system is Microsoft Business Central, then Start date and End date data are taken directly from there, and will include both date and time.

Status

You can check and set the overall status of a production order in this, rightmost, column. It may have the following values:

The order is waiting for your approval and cannot be seen by operators on the shop floor. It is in Planned status in SAP Business One. This is the default status of production orders. Approving an order (by clicking the button) will release it in SAP Business One and will make it available on the shop floor in the operation list of Produce / Operator.

-You have approved the order, thus it is in Released& status in SAP Business One and is displayed on the operation list on the shop floor in Produce / Operator, unless you uncheck the corresponding checkbox in the Visible to operator column. However, no operator has started working on the order yet.

At least one operator has started working on at least one operation of the production order. The order is visible in Produce / Operator, and it remains in Released status in SAP Business One.

All operations in the production order have been completed. If you press this button and then the subsequently displayed "tick" () symbol, the order will be finalized, i.e. pushed to Closed status, with the registered time and material data saved in SAP Business One. It will be taken off the list of production orders. Closed production orders are not listed in Netronic Manufacturing.

This Status column cannot be hidden.

Operation status

Produce processes production orders by operations, which are the equivalents of the route stages specified in the production orders in SAP Business One. Therefore, to get a production order processed in Produce / Manager or Produce / Operator, it is mandatory to specify at least one route stage in it in SAP Business One.

It is not recommended to change or delete a route stage in a production order in SAP Business One after the production order has been released. However, if this is necessary, and transactions have already been entered (i.e. materials and/or resource time have been issued for a route stage=operation), the best practice is to close the production order and create a new one. Transactions are not lost, as they can be viewed in the production order in SAP Business One.

If you still need to change the order of route stages in a production order, add a new route stage to your order or delete a route state from it, and you have inspection order(s) linked to those route stages (operations), then make sure you change back the status of the production order to Planned in SAP Business One and then release it again after you have edited it. Failing to do so will break the link to one or more inspection orders linked to the route stages (operations).

The Operation status column shows the progress of each operation in the production order. The circles indicate the following:

- Not started

- Started (in progress)

- Partially completed

- Completed

The Operation status filter shows production orders that contain at least one operation with the selected status.

Visible to operator

As soon as you approve (release) a production order, it will be displayed to shop floor workers in Produce / Operator, unless you untick the checkbox corresponding to the given order in the Visible to operator column. If you do so, the operation(s) of the given order will disappear from Produce / Operator. If at least an operation of a production order is already being processed by an operator, the checkbox belonging to the order is disabled (and checked). Completed orders have their checkbox disabled and unchecked.

The Visible to operator column cannot be hidden.

Priority

In this column, you can check the priority of a production order (based on automatic or manual priority assignment) or change the priority manually. By default, priority is assigned automatically.

Priority column, the system displays production orders with both automatic and manual priority assignments.

Automatic priority assignment
The system automatically sets the priority of each production order to low (), medium () or high () based on the Priority settings.

Automatic priority is calculated or recalculated in the following cases:

• A production order is created.
• If the Start date or Due  date of the production order is changed.
• Every night.

Manual priority assignment
The priority of the production order can be changed manually by clicking in the corresponding cell in the table. You can toggle through the priority settings low (), medium () and high () - each represented by the same symbol as their automatic counterparts, but on a colored background.

When you click on a cell that is set to manual high priority (), it will push the production order from manual to automatic priority setting, indicated by the symbol which, in a couple of seconds, will be replaced by the symbol of the priority that is automatically calculated for the production order based on the Priority settings in Produce / Manager.

Yet another click will switch the order back to manual low () priority, etc.

To change the priority of multiple production orders at the same time, select the necessary production orders and click Change priority on the bar displayed on the top. In the dropdown menu select the desired priority.

Custom fields

If you selected and activated any custom fields in your Produce / Manager settings, those fields are available in the Column chooser in the Production orders list. You can select them for display, filtering and sorting as any other, "standard" column.

Material availability

You can also use the production order list to check if the materials for one or more production orders are available. To do so, select your production order(s) and click the Material availability button on the bar displayed on the top.

The Material availability table will be displayed.

In the Status column the system shows the availability of the materials as follows:

- The total stock level is higher than the planned quantity.

- The sum of the total stock and the incoming quantity is higher than the planned quantity.

- The sum of the total stock and the incoming quantity is less than the planned quantity.

The total number of materials for each status is displayed in the top right-hand corner.

The Planned column displays the planned quantity of a material in a production order. In the Completed column you can see the issued quantity of a material in a specific production order. In the Outgoing and the Incoming columns the system shows the corresponding data retrieved from SAP Business One.

Production order detail view

Production order numbers displayed in the list have a link on them. Clicking on that link will open a detail view of the selected production order.

On the left, the detail page contains the following data about the order:

• status (Not started, In progress, Completed, Closed)
• processing period
• customer
• quantities (planned, completed, remaining, scrap)
• the content of any active custom fields .

In case there are no active custom fields, the corresponding section is not displayed.

On the right, the page provides the same details about each operation contained by the production order. It also shows the resources and materials used for the operation, as well as the transactions associated with it.

As you start and register work for an operation, you can see the operation's status and the quantities updated accordingly.

After finalization, the page will show that the order has been closed by a green banner notification.

At this point, the order will disappear from the list of production orders.