The Manufacturing Management add-on adds production-related workflows, including manufacturing orders (MOs), the Make screen, production scheduling, and task management.
Without this add-on, Katana will function purely as an inventory and sales management system without production tracking.
Basic features
Manufacturing orders (MOs)
An MO tells Katana to produce a product from materials or subassemblies.
MOs:
Drive inventory movements (raw materials → finished goods)
Enable production scheduling
Track costs and progress
Two types of MOs
Linked to a specific Sales Order (SO)
Priority synced with the SO
Not linked to any SO
Created for future demand
Priority managed independently
The Make screen
All MOs are managed in Make → Schedule tab
Acts as a central production queue
What you can see/manage:
MO list (MTO + MTS)
Production status (Not started → Done)
Ingredient availability (In stock / Expected / Not available)
Deadlines (production & delivery)
Customer links (for MTO)
Priorities
MOs are executed top to bottom based on priority
Priority is changed via drag-and-drop
Why priority matters:
Determines:
Which orders get materials first
Which products are produced first
Automatically recalculates:
Material allocation
Product availability across orders
Key relationships:
MTO → priority linked to SOs
MTS → priority independent
Production statuses track progress
Each MO has a production status, typically:
Not started
Work in progress
Done
Why statuses matter:
Show real-time production progress
Trigger inventory updates
Materials consumed
Finished goods added
Two levels of production management
Katana supports:
A. MO-level (simple)
Update status directly on the MO
High-level tracking only
B. Task/operation-level (advanced)
Break production into operations & tasks
Assign to:
Resources (machines/workstations)
Operators (people)
Managed in the Tasks tab
Advanced features
Manufacturing insights and reporting
Manufacturing insights
Manufacturing insights offer a comprehensive view of production processes to provide data on efficiency, costs, and capacity utilization. This helps you track manufacturing performance, identify bottlenecks, and optimize resource allocation.
The insights are broken up into 3 distinct reports: Cost overview, Ingredients, and Resources.
Production operation routings and types
When dealing with production, it's usually necessary to complete steps in a specific order or even to complete certain tasks simultaneously. The Advanced Manufacturing add-on can add that type of specificity to your shop floor.
With the add-on, you can add more distinction to the types of operations that you create. These different types of operations all utilize different types of calculations to better match the actual tasks being completed and to help you keep better oversight over costs.
The four types of operations available are Process, Setup, Per unit, and Fixed cost.
Ingredient picking
When manufacturing, the required ingredients must be available beforehand (on the table). This means that those ingredients must already be removed from the warehouse—this is where picking comes in. Someone picks the necessary ingredients and then can start the manufacturing process.
With ingredient picking enabled, you'll see a Pick all option on each MO, where you can pick the necessary ingredients for that MO. The pick status will also show next to the Ingredients table.
Picking for an MO is a great way to reserve ingredients and prevent unexpected delays due to unavailable stock.
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