Manufacturing

What it is

Manufacturing is a job's production workspace. It takes a joinery unit from an approved shop drawing through materials, machining, assembly, finishing and QA to a crate on a truck and a signed-off install. It is for the project manager who releases work to the shop, the detailer who issues drawings for approval, the foreman who advances units and raises the purchase orders, and the installer who logs what happened on site.

The page is a set of tabs over one list of units: Units (the production board), Drawings, Schedule, BOM & POs, Cut lists, Shop floor, Delivery, Install and Outsourced. The 3D design of each unit is not here. Designing, and estimating a design into the job, happen on the job's Designs page; the Designs link in the top bar takes you there, and each unit's 3D button opens its design.

Before you start

• The Manufacturing module must be on for you (Settings → Team modules). The Design module is needed for the Designs page the units' 3D models come from, and Workshop for the company-wide Workshop board that released units appear on.
• Every unit belongs to a job. Create a job first; the New unit button says so if you have none.
• A unit's shop drawing comes from its saved 3D model. A unit with no model has no sheet to issue, and nothing to cut.
• To release a unit to the workshop it needs an approved drawing, a link to an estimate line (a price) and no dimension still marked TBC.
• Raising a purchase order needs a supplier in Contacts; the picker lets you add one on the spot.

How to

Create a job from the estimate

1. Press New Job.
2. Give it a Job name, or keep the suggested one.
3. Pick the Mode: In-house or Outsourced. For an outsourced job, pick the Subcontractor; a draft supply and install purchase order is created for them with the job. Without a subcontractor, no purchase order is created.
4. Tick the Estimate sections to convert (All / None to select quickly). Each shows how many lines it holds and how many are already converted.
5. Under Make, choose One unit per line (a fitout joinery schedule) or One unit from all lines (a stair priced across several sections folds into one unit). For one unit, give it a Unit name and Qty. If the lines carry scopes, untick the scopes you do not want.
6. Read the preview line, then press Create.

The job appears with one unit per converted line (or one unit), each linked to the estimate line it came from. A job with no estimate sections selected starts empty.

Add a unit by hand

1. Press New unit.
2. Pick the Job, give it a Name, and optionally a Location and Qty.
3. Press Create unit.

The tag (JU-001, JU-002, …) is generated for you and the unit's details drawer opens so you can fill in the rest.

Edit a unit's details

1. On the Units board, press the unit's name.
2. In the drawer, change the Name, Description, Category, Location, Quantity, Estimated hours, Scheduled dispatch or Install date.
3. Under Estimate line, link the unit to the estimate line that prices it (search the estimate and pick), or unlink it. This is half of the release gate.
4. Press Save. Duplicate copies the unit and its 3D model; the delete button asks you to press it a second time.

Issue a shop drawing for approval, and approve it

1. On the Units board, press the unit's drawing status (for example Detailing). The unit's sheet opens: the shop drawing set generated from its saved model, with a title block, the revision table and the standing notes from your Drawings settings.
2. Switch between Technical and Client presentation, and when there is a previous saved revision, press Cloud vs previous revision to cloud what changed. Print prints the whole set; the download button saves the current page as SVG.
3. Press Issue for approval. The status becomes Issued for approval with its revision letter (the first issue is "–", then A, B, …).
4. The approver opens the same sheet and presses Approve Rev A, or Request revisions, types what needs to change and presses Send back.
5. If the model changes after an approval, the sheet offers Issue new revision for approval; the earlier set is superseded.

The decision is mirrored onto the unit's drawing status on the board. Approved is what unlocks machining and release.

Advance a unit through production

1. On the Units board, each row carries one forward action: → Materials ordered, → Materials received, → Machining, and so on through Assembly, Finishing, QA, Ready to dispatch, Dispatched, Installed and Complete.
2. Press it to move the unit one stage on.

Two stages are gated. Materials ordered needs at least one row on the unit's BOM at "ordered". Machining and everything after it need an approved drawing; the button is disabled with the reason until then. The board groups units into stage bands (pending, materials, production, ready, dispatched, installed), and the counts in the status line are filters: press in production to see only those units.

Release a unit to the workshop

1. On the row, press Release. If it reads Release · 2 to go, hover it to see what is missing: an unapproved drawing, no estimate link, or dimensions marked TBC that need a site measure.
2. Once released the button reads In workshop. The unit now appears on the company-wide Workshop board.
3. To take it back, press In workshop, then Pull back? within a few seconds to confirm. It leaves the Workshop board.

Build the bill of materials and raise a purchase order

1. Press the BOM & POs tab. Each unit is a band showing its rows, how many are received, and the planned cost.
2. Press Add component under a unit, fill in the description, quantity, unit and unit cost, and press Add. Change a row's status between planned, ordered, received and cancelled with the selector on the row. Ask the assistant to "break down the joinery" to draft BOMs from the plans.
3. Tick the planned rows you want to order and press Raise PO.
4. Pick the Supplier, a Delivery date and Needed on site date, and any Notes to the supplier. If some rows have no price, tick the box to put them on the order at $0 for the supplier to price on their invoice.
5. Tick Issue now to issue it straight away (it counts as committed immediately), or leave it off to keep a draft and issue it later from the job's Subcontractors page. Press Issue purchase order or Raise draft PO.

Each ordered row shows its PO number. Amounts are ex GST, one order line per row, against the job's budget line. Rows that name more than one supplier need one order per supplier.

Produce a cut list

1. Press the Cut lists tab and pick a unit from the list on the left. Only units with a saved 3D model appear; a house frame is excluded (frames have their own cut lists on the Frames page).
2. Set the sheet size, kerf and trim. The panel schedule, nested sheets, edge banding and hardware are computed from the saved model, never from an unsaved draft.
3. Download the nest as DXF for the CNC, or copy the list.
4. To put the materials on the unit's BOM, press the push action and confirm. The push replaces what the last push wrote; rows already at "ordered" are left as they are.

Read and print the drawing register

1. Press the Drawings tab. There is one row per unit, showing the newest saved set and every earlier set as history. A set is stored at the moment the model was saved, so it is a record of what the shop was handed, not a live render.
2. Press a set to page through it. From the viewer you can download a page as SVG, Print the set, render the whole set as one A3 PDF, or file the set in the job's Documents as a Drawing.
3. A unit modelled before drawings were kept shows as Not drawn; press its generate action to draw its set now.

Issuing and approving happen on the unit's live sheet, not here.

Print the schedule and record a transmittal

1. Press the Schedule tab. The unit register lists every unit with its dimensions, carcass and front finishes, drawing status and production stage; an asterisk marks a dimension still TBC.
2. Press Print. The register and the finishes legend go to paper; everything interactive stays off it.
3. Under transmittals, record who was issued which revision: pick the Issue state (For approval, For construction, For record), Sent to, the Rev and a Note, then save.

Pack and dispatch a crate

1. Press the Delivery tab, then New Crate (needs at least one in-house job).
2. Pick the Job, give the crate a Crate number, and tick the Units in crate. Only units at "Ready to dispatch" are offered.
3. Press Create.
4. On the crate's row, press Mark packed, Mark dispatched and Mark delivered as it happens.

Marking a crate dispatched moves its ready units to Dispatched and sets the job programme's Delivery and Install dates.

Log an install

1. Press the Install tab. Units that have been dispatched are listed here.
2. Press Log on the unit and choose the Outcome: Installed cleanly, Requires rework — back to shop, or Installed with a defect — logged to Defects. For a defect, describe it and set the severity (Minor, Major, Critical). Add notes if you like.
3. Press Log.

A rework loops the unit back to the shop floor. A defect creates an item in the job's Defects register linked to the unit. When every unit on the job is installed, the job's Install programme task is marked complete.

What happens on its own

• Saving a unit's 3D model on the Designs page stores a new drawing set in the register. A person still issues it for approval; saving never approves anything.
• Approving or sending back a drawing updates the unit's drawing status on the board, which is what the machining and release gates read.
• Dispatching a crate advances its ready units and moves the programme's Delivery and Install dates.
• Logging the last install on a job completes the job's Install task in the programme.
• For outsourced jobs, a daily sweep flags any job whose status has not moved in seven days and pings the head project manager's inbox.
• The assistant can create jobs and units from estimate lines, propose a BOM, move units through production, create and stamp crates, and log installs when you ask it in chat. It does none of these from a background run.
• Pressing / anywhere on the page jumps to the search box, which filters the Units board as you type.

Things that surprise people

• The Shop floor tab is a placeholder: stations cannot be set up yet, so units are advanced on the Units tab. The tab says so.
• Release does not move a unit's production status; it puts the unit on the Workshop board. A unit can be released and still at "Not started".
• A unit is not priced because it is on the board. Release needs an estimate line; a unit flagged Not in estimate has to be estimated from the Designs page or linked to a line in its drawer.
• Issue now on a purchase order commits the money at once. A draft is not committed until someone issues it from the Subcontractors page.
• A cut list push replaces the previous push's rows. Hand-added rows ride along, but anything already ordered stays untouched, so order the materials you are sure of before re-pushing.
• The drawing register shows the sheet as it was when the model was saved. If the model has moved on, the register does not change until the next save, and the live sheet offers a new revision.
• An outsourced job created without a subcontractor has no supply and install purchase order behind it.

Related

• Workshop, the company-wide board of released units.
• Designs, where units are modelled and estimated.
• Purchase orders and Subcontractors, where draft orders are issued and tracked.
• Drawings settings, the paper and title block every sheet uses.