Efficient production order management is crucial for a smooth experience of the shop floor workers during production registration, reducing errors. This also applies to back-office users when creating and managing production orders.

Given the importance of this feature and its wide usage, along with its impact throughout the production tracking process, several best practices should be considered. Ensuring that only the most relevant information is presented avoids overloading both workers and back-office users with unnecessary information.

Below, you'll find our recommendations split into two categories: one regarding actions on the production orders lists, and another about the settings (which includes automatic behaviors of Fusion Operations).

1. Avoid having production orders open that are idle for too long. These orders are usually finished and fall into oblivion.

We recommend that production orders that do not have production records in the last 30 days be closed. However, this value can vary between industries, so adjust it to what you feel is a reasonable value.

For this, go to the production orders menu (1), open the table filters (2) and type 30 in the field 'No records on last days'(3). All production orders where no production records have been made in the identified days will be presented.

Using the bulk actions, select "Close". If you need help on how to use the bulk actions, check this article.

2. Avoid having Production Orders that are open for too long.

To ensure efficient data management, it is recommended to close Production Orders that have been open for an extended period. For instance, if a Production Order has been active for over 6 months, it is advisable to close it and create a new one with a similar code. Like before, this time interval can vary according to your industry.

For example, to check which are the production orders that have been open for over 6 months we recommend that in the production order menu apply the date filters with the same start and end date from 6 months ago. This will present all production orders, whose start date and due date interval are from 6 months ago (and that are still currently open).

3. Avoid having fully completed production orders opened.

These orders often reflect orders that haven't been closed by mistake, so closing them ensures workers are not presented with unnecessary information in the tablet.

To check this, you can go to the production orders reports and generate a report with the filters presented below. Note that the "date" filters should be filled with the appropriate dates. You can have more information on how to generate a production order report here.

4. Avoid production orders with a large set of products by grouping them by shipping

This not only enables a more concise and organized display of production order information but also allows for the application of filters in the production order menus and reports, facilitating the data management process. See images below:

To make sure the shipping is associated with the production order, the following field must be filled:

This field can be automatically filled when the production order is created from a sales order. If you want to know more about this topic you can check this article.

However, it is also possible to associate the shipping manually or when importing the production orders through the PO import. You can check this article to have more information on this topic.

1. Consider applying the setting to close production orders automatically.
Activating the setting below will facilitate the production order closure process, eliminating the need for intervention via the back office. Once all units of a specific production order are completed, the system will automatically close it.

Alternatively, that trigger can be done by a worker on the shopfloor if the selected option is 'Allow worker to close if order is completed'.

2. In the mobile app, consider having the production order screen filtered by the shipping identified in the production order.

Having this setting disabled, as it is shown in the image below, will prevent the worker from being presented with several production orders, that may not need to be worked on for several weeks. Once again, with this, we avoid displaying unnecessary information.

To take full advantage of this setting, the production orders must be associated with a specific shipping, as it was mentioned in point 4 of the production order management.

3. Consider hiding future and/or completed operations

Reducing the number of operations (and consequently production orders) presented in the tablet can facilitate the worker process in the shop floor, since no unnecessary/outdated information will be displayed. Note that considering the industry/business model of your company, not all settings are applicable. We also recommend discussing it with your account manager.

Note: The FAQ section of this article presents a more detailed explanation of the behavior of these settings

1. What is the impact of having the settings mentioned in point 3 activated?

If after reading this article you still have some doubts, feel free to reach out to us through our Live-chat feature, or directly to your CSM.

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