Routings & Operations

A manufacturing operation is one step in a Product's production process — "Cut Frame," "Weld Joints," "Quality Inspection." Operations are defined at the Product level as reusable templates, ordered by a sequence number, and then copied onto work orders when production starts. This separation means you define the recipe once and every work order for that Product inherits the right steps automatically.

Operations vs. work order operations: a manufacturing operation is the template attached to the Product. A work order operation is the live instance copied onto a specific work order — it carries the same fields plus runtime data like status, assigned user, start/end times, and actual cost.

Creating an operation #

Operations are managed under Manufacturing → Operations → New Operation. You can also add them inline from the Production Operations tab on any composite Product's page.

• Product — the composite Product this step belongs to. Required. The tab on the Product page is only visible when the Product has Has Bill of Materials turned on.
• Name — a short label for the step, e.g. "Assemble Housing." Required.
• Step # — the sequence value that orders steps lowest-first on work orders. Defaults to 1; change it to place the operation correctly in the flow.
• Work Center — optionally assign the step to a work center (a physical station or machine). When set, the work center's cost per hour is used to calculate planned and actual labour cost on the work order.
• Est. Minutes — an estimate of how long this step takes. Used on work orders to compute planned labour cost and track scheduling.
• Instructions — a free-text field for detailed process notes visible to the operator running the work order step.

The operations list #

Manufacturing → Operations shows all operations with their Product, work center, step number, and estimated minutes. Sort by any column; search by operation name or Product name. The Deleted records filter surfaces soft-deleted operations that are no longer active but remain linked to historical work orders.

How operations flow onto work orders #

When a work order is created for a Product, the system copies all of that Product's operations — in sequence order — onto the work order as work order operations. Each copy is independent: editing the template operation afterwards does not change in-flight work orders.

On the work order's Operations tab you can add extra steps, reorder them, or delete ones that don't apply to this specific run. Each work order operation tracks its own lifecycle:

• Pending — not yet started.
• In Progress — an operator clicked Start; started_at is recorded.
• Completed — the step is done; completed_at is recorded and actual cost is computed.
• Skipped — bypassed for this run; contributes no actual cost.

From the work order's Operations tab you can Start, Complete, or Skip any non-terminal step with a confirmation click, or edit its assigned user, estimated minutes, and notes inline. The planned cost and actual cost columns are derived from the work center's cost_per_hour (stored in cents) multiplied by estimated or actual time.

Work centers #

A work center is the physical location or machine where an operation runs — "Press Room 1," "CNC Lathe," "Inspection Bay." Each work center optionally carries a cost per hour (in cents) that feeds the planned/actual cost calculation on work order operations. Work centers are managed at Manufacturing → Work Centers. The active flag controls whether a work center appears in the operation form's dropdown; inactive work centers are hidden from new assignments but retained on existing records.

Operations and work order operations both point at a work center; the work order operation can override the template's work center for a specific run.

Relationship to other modules #

• Products — only composite Products (those with a bill of materials) carry production operations. The Operations tab is hidden on simple Products.
• Work Orders — operations are copied onto work orders and drive step-by-step production tracking. See Work Orders.
• Work Centers — see Work Centers for managing the stations and their hourly rates.

Doing it from the API #

# List all operations for a specific Product
curl "https://your-domain.com/api/v1/manufacturing/operations?product_id=<product-id>" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

# Create an operation
curl -X POST "https://your-domain.com/api/v1/manufacturing/operations" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "product_id": "<product-id>",
    "name": "Weld Frame",
    "sequence": 2,
    "work_center_id": "<work-center-id>",
    "estimated_minutes": 30,
    "instructions": "Use MIG welder, 180A setting."
  }'

# Update a work order operation's status
curl -X PATCH "https://your-domain.com/api/v1/manufacturing/work-order-operations/<id>" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"status": "completed", "completed_at": "2026-06-02T14:30:00Z"}'

Filter the operations list by work_center_id to see all steps assigned to a particular station. Work order operations are available at /api/v1/manufacturing/work-order-operations and accept work_order_id and status filters; only GET and PATCH are supported — add or remove steps from the work order's Operations tab in the UI or via the work orders API.