ERPGAP Blog / Odoo Manufacturing Orders
Odoo Manufacturing Orders

Odoo Manufacturing Orders


How to manipulate manufacturing orders


The Fourth Industrial Revolution has created the need for many companies to move from traditional processes to a more digital and automated way of working. Nowadays all kinds of companies need to keep up with new technologies and must be willing to move toward implementing them if they want to survive.

The software you pick can have a huge impact on the future of your company, so it is normal to have doubts and fears at the beginning of this change. Some questions can arise, such as “Is this option as flexible as I need?” or “Will I be able to find a software that fits my company’s needs?”

Today we will show how easy it is to manipulate Production Orders with Odoo and even customize the process to your needs. It doesn’t matter whether you produce bottles of water or cars, with Odoo you have options.

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Manufacture Orders

Imagine your company produces furniture and there is a product that, depending on the quality of a component, needs more or fewer screws. You can create that “Special Table” in the system, and you just have to make sure the components consumption is flexible. So your Bill of Materials (BOM) will look like this:

Odoo - Manufacture Orders

Here you have a Manufacturing Order (MO) for five Special Tables. In this form, you have the information of the components and the quantity you need to consume to produce the five tables. A soon as you check availability, you will reserve the components from the stock and you’ll be ready to start producing.

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Imagine you start producing this order close to break time, and you know you will only finish two tables. To do this you need to click Produce and set the quantities you will be able to finish.

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Normally, when you start producing the table you need to get the components from your stock. That’s why, after you inform the system you will produce two tables, a button in the MO appears called “Product moves”. This will show you the Inventory moves of all products. The operations are all marked red because you only produced two of five. It will change to black when you produce the required quantity.

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After the break you still need to produce the three tables left to finish the MO. The system will automatically show you what is missing when you click Produce.

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This time everything went as planned and the MO was “Mark as done”. When that happens “Valuation” and “Cost Analysis” buttons appear. This gives you:

  • All the information related to the value of the components that went out from the warehouse
  • The final product that arrived to stock
  • The final product cost
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Imagine now that after the break, you stop production. You need to finish that order in the system with a different quantity. Easy! You just need to update the quantity To Produce and change it to two and the quantities To Consume and Reserved will adapt right away, as well as the components and final product Forecasted Quantity.

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Let’s create another MO but this time we need two extra legs and four extra screws. This could be because you realized during production that those options would be safer. To manage this, when you click Produce you need to edit the consumed quantity. The product lines that you changed will be yellow to clearly display the difference in comparison to the BOM. The Valuation and Cost Analysis will consider the change you made.

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Lastly, imagine you need to unreserve components because you had an unexpected order that you’ll need to fullfil first. Simply click the “Unreserve” button, and it will unreserve every component you have.

Of course, sometimes that is not what you want. You may just need to unreserve one of the components or a certain quantity. It’s not a problem with Odoo. You can easily customize it to fit your needs.

You may also want to cancel an Order. Just click on Cancel and the system will automatically unreserve all the components and cancel the order. Could it be any easier?

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Learn More About Odoo for Manufacturing



Work Orders

While using only manufacture orders is a simpler method to help during production, some companies need something more elaborate. This could be because they use different venues to produce their products and need more control over all the processes. In that case, using work orders is the right choice for more complex companies.

You just need to check work orders in Manufacturing Settings and start configuring work centers and the routing that products should use.

Odoo -  Work Orders

Below, you can see the configuration of a work center. We will not go into detail here. For more information, read the article ”Lean Manufacturing”, where you can also see how Odoo includes the applications necessary for great workflow and efficiency in production.

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After creating the necessary work centers, you have to build the routing for your Special Table. This routing contains information about the operations you need to carry out and where the work is done.

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It is also at this stage where you can define the steps to follow when manufacturing the product, such as:

  • Angles you need to measure
  • Pictures to take
  • Questions you need to answer

Now you link the routing to your product in the Bill of Materials and all the necessary configuration is done. You can start using work orders.

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To start this workflow, create a Manufacture Order with your Special Table. Check availability to reserve the components and plan the order.

After you plan the Order, the work orders are automatically created, and the first one to go stays green.

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Manipulating Work Orders can be more demanding, and in some ways impossible to do, unless you customize your system to enable it.

When you are inside the work order you can:

  • Block the order
  • Scrap damaged components
  • Ask for maintenance
  • Set a quality alert
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And that’s not all!

You can also go to the previous step if you made a mistake with a lot number or other requested information. You can pause the process or simply mark it as done. At the end you will have a record of all the steps, and if you missed something you can easily click on the step and mark it as completed.

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Of course, you can also have flexible consumption as in Manufacture Orders. You may need to change the quantities used to produce the final product. Simply go to the work order form and edit.

Important: make sure the status of the order is “In Progress”, otherwise it will not work.

When editing you can settle different consumed quantities for components and even different quantities in production. In the example below we double the quantity in production and it automatically doubles the list of components.

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Using the standard method, after you finish one of the work orders, it is impossible to unplan the next work order. And if you cancel it, all the work done will be canceled too. This may be something you need to customize if your company has a lot of these cases.

After finishing all the work orders and the manufacturing order is marked as done, you have multiple buttons that help you navigate to the reports related to this process.

If you need more information on how to work with maintenance requests and quality alerts, feel free to check out this article.

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Find Out About Odoo for Sales and CRM



Conclusion

We all know that unpredictable things often happen during manufacturing. Sometimes you need to fulfill an order that came late, because it is more urgent than others. Other times a product needs more raw materials than usual to be safer, more practical etc. This can make it difficult to manage what is planned in the system. But not with Odoo!

The Odoo Manufacturing App is intuitive and has many practical, helpful features to improve your flow and make dealing with obstacles a piece of cake.

Above, you saw the standard way of using it. Take note: if you want to unreserve only one product line or a certain amount of each product, if a step in the process doesn’t suit your company’s needs or if you need adjustments and automation, talk to us. The ERPGAP team will be happy to make your system even more efficient and see your business grow.

Contact us

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Odoo is a management software that fits all sizes. This software is for small, medium and large companies. Your company's information is all in one place. You don't have to go back and forth to check something. All apps have real-time access to your database.

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