Manufacturing

Work Centers define the manufacturing resources that carry out production, managed through the WorkCentersPage. A work center represents a station, machine, or group of resources where production operations are performed.

Each work center tracks capacity and efficiency, giving a measure of how much the resource can process and how effectively it operates. Work centers also carry cost rates per hour, so the time spent in a work center can be associated with a cost. Like BOMs, work centers have an active or inactive status, allowing a resource to be taken out of planning without being deleted.

Work centers are assigned to work orders: a production run references the work center or centers where its operations take place. This connects the resource definition to actual production, so the organisation knows which resources a given work order consumes.

A worked example: an organisation defines several work centers, each with its capacity, efficiency, and hourly cost rate. When a work order is created, it is given work center assignments that determine where its operations will be executed. A work center that is being serviced or decommissioned can be set to inactive so planners do not route new work orders to it, while its historical assignments remain intact.