The ability to manage your sales, manufacturing and outsourcing processes based on order priorities gives you the operational flexibility you need in a modern business. When circumstances change (e.g., a customer requires a product sooner, materials arrive late from suppliers), you can simply drag-and-drop Sales and Manufacturing orders, or change the Expected arrival date of Outsourced purchase orders to adjust their priority. Your production schedule, tasks, materials, and products will be recalculated automatically based on the new priority.
How the priority of Sales Manufacturing and Outsourced purchase orders affects product and material commitments takes a few minutes to comprehend fully, but it's good to learn and easy to apply once you understand it.
Orders with priority levels
In Katana, Sales orders (listed on the Sell screen), Manufacturing orders (found in the Schedule tab on the Make screen) and Outsourced purchase orders (found in the Outsourcing tab on the Buy screen) have priority levels.
Depending on the situation, changing the priority of an order on Sell screen will also affect the priority level on the Make screen and vice versa.
Understanding the link between a Sales and Manufacturing order
There are two types of Manufacturing orders in Katana: Make-to-Order and Make-to-Stock. Both are found in the Schedule tab of the Make screen, allowing you to manage your production priorities in a single view.
Read more about creating Manufacturing orders.
A Make-to-Order Manufacturing order (MO) is linked permanently to specific Sales Order (SO). The priority of these types of Manufacturing orders is automatically synced with their linked SO, so changing the SO's priority will automatically update production priorities in the Schedule tab and vice versa.
A Make-to-Stock MO isn't linked to any SO. Changing the priority of a SO won't affect the priority of these Manufacturing Orders and vice versa.
How priorities affect Sales items availability
Sales items availability displays whether the required product for a specific SO is In stock, Expected, or Not available. The priority of Sales orders in the Sell screen has a different effect on the Sales Items availability of a SO depending on whether the products required by the SO are Made-to-Order or Made-to-Stock (there is no Sales Items availability status for Manufacturing orders).
If you create a Make-to-Order MO for products required by a SO, the Sales Items availability status won't be dependent on the SO priority. These Sales orders expect products from a linked MO and, thereby, don't reserve any products you have available In stock or being Made-to-Stock.
If you haven't created a Make-to-Order MO for a SO, the Sales Items availability for this SO is calculated based on the priority of the SO. Higher priority Sales orders reserve products in your stock or products expected from Make-to-Stock Manufacturing orders or Outsourced purchase orders (OPO) first. This means that even if you have some quantity of the required product In stock, the Sales Items availability for this particular SO might still show Not available if another higher priority SO has already reserved the same product.
Read more about Sales items availability.
How priorities affect Ingredients availability
Ingredients availability displays whether the required ingredients for a product on a SO, MO or OPO are In stock, Expected, or Not available.
Ingredient availability is displayed for Sales, Manufacturing and Outsourced purchase orders. While Ingredient availability on a MO provides stock information to the production floor, on a SO it is especially relevant for Make-to-Order businesses because it gives immediate information about the availability of materials required for making customer-ordered products. On the OPO Ingredient availability indicates whether sufficient quantity of ingredients is available at the contractor's location.
The Ingredient availability status is always calculated based on order priority. Materials aren't permanently linked to any orders, so even if you have the required ingredients in stock, the Ingredients availability for a particular order may still show Not available if a higher priority order has already reserved the same ingredient.
Again, both Sales orders and Manufacturing orders reserve materials you have In Stock or Expected but are displayed in separate lists (Sell screen and Make screen > Schedule tab), which don't always match.
For example:
You didn't create a Make-to-Order MO for all existing Sales orders
You have a Make-to-Stock MO for the product(s) that any current SO doesn't require.
How does Katana combine the order priorities in the Sell screen, Make screen > Schedule tab and Buy screen > Outsourcing tab to display relevant Ingredient availability statuses?
Katana applies the following principles to Ingredients availability calculations:
All open Sales, Manufacturing and Outsourced purchase orders in the same location (Track ingredients in location for OPOs) are evaluated as a single queue
If Sales Items availability for a product on a SO is In stock, the Ingredients availability for this product is Processed, and materials are no longer committed to this product (this product doesn't take part in Ingredients availability calculations)
If Sales Items availability for a product on a SO is Expected and a Make-to-Order MO produces the product, the Ingredients availability is calculated based on the SO priority in the queue (i.e., all higher orders reserve materials first)
If Sales Items availability for a product on a SO is Expected and a Make-to-Stock MO or OPO produces the product, the Ingredients availability for this product displays the Ingredients availability status of that MO or OPO
In the queue, existing Make-to-Stock Manufacturing orders have a priority position in your Schedule tab relative to any Make-to-Order MO behind or in front of them. Make-to-Stock Manufacturing orders always have a priority over Sales orders that book ingredients directly from stock (i.e., SOs with Not available Sales Items availability)
All Manufacturing orders have a priority over Outsourced purchase orders in the same location. The priority of different OPOs is determined by the Expected arrival date, where the earliest date is the highest priority
If Sales Items availability for a product on a SO is Not available, then the ingredients required for making the missing product are booked directly to the SO. This gives you information about Ingredients availability before adding the related MO to the Schedule tab. It is important to note that all open Manufacturing orders prioritize reserving ingredients before any such SO. In other words, manufacturing always has a priority on ingredients over Sales orders for which no production has been scheduled
In the Schedule tab, the Ingredients availability for a Make-to-Order MO is displayed based on the Ingredients availability for the products on the underlying SO in the queue.
Read more about Ingredients availability.