Production Runs

Coordinated manufacturing executions that group related batches and track progress from start to completion.

A production run groups related batches into a single coordinated manufacturing execution, tracking progress from start to completion.

What a production run is

Each production run has:

  • Unique number: an auto-generated identifier for tracking
  • Responsible user: the person accountable for this run
  • Timing: Started At and Completed At timestamps
  • Batches: the collection of batches being manufactured in this run

How a production run is created

There are three ways a run comes into existence:

  1. Releasing a week of a published production schedule. This is the primary path once planning is in use: one week of the plan becomes one run, with one batch per planned lot. See Publishing and releasing.
  2. By hand. You create the run and define its batches yourself.
  3. From an Estimate sales order. The run is generated from the order and stays linked to it.

Creating batches by hand

When creating a production run by hand, you define the batches that will be manufactured. For each batch you specify:

  • Item: the part or product being produced
  • Quantity: how many units, with the appropriate unit of measure
  • Machine(s): which machines will process the batch
  • Number of batches: how many batches to create for that item

Each batch is assigned a unique ID and a QR code label that can be printed and used for scanning on the production floor.

Production run statuses

A production run moves through three statuses:

  1. Pending: the run has been created but manufacturing hasn't started
  2. In progress: batches are actively being processed through scanning stations
  3. Completed: all batches in the run have been scanned into process

Production schedule connection

Releasing one week of a published production schedule creates a single run holding that week's work. Each planned campaign becomes one batch per planned lot, so a 360-unit campaign planned at a 60-unit lot arrives as six batches. The release is all-or-nothing, and releasing the same week again fails rather than creating a second run.

Every campaign released this way records the run now carrying it, and progress flows back the other way: as batches are scanned, the campaign's scanned quantity and the machine status board advance on their own. Deleting the run puts its campaigns back to planned.

Sales order connection

Production runs can be generated directly from a sales order. When a sales order is in Estimate status, you can generate a production run from it. This links the run to the order, so you can track which manufacturing activity is fulfilling which customer demand.

Tracking progress

From a production run, you can:

  • View all batches in the run and their current status
  • Monitor how many batches are open vs. closed
  • See which production steps batches are currently at
  • Track overall completion progress
  • View the batch flow diagram for the entire run, showing all batches and their transformation relationships as an interactive graph

Related

Next: Batches