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Automatically create manufacturing orders for subassemblies
Automatically create manufacturing orders for subassemblies

Automate subassembly MOs in Katana to streamline complex production setups.

Dayvid Lorbiecke avatar
Written by Dayvid Lorbiecke
Updated over 6 months ago

Katana offers automated creation of manufacturing orders for subassemblies, enhancing efficiency in multi-level production processes. This is particularly beneficial for manufacturers who do not regularly stock subassemblies, allowing for just-in-time production alignment.

If you're creating a manufacturing order (MO) for a product that includes a subassembly in the product recipe / BOM, you have an option to automatically create a MO for the subassemblies.

If you create an MO for subassemblies, the MO will be created for subassemblies included in the recipe/BOM of the main product, as well as those up to 10 levels deep.

When to automatically create manufacturing orders for subassemblies

Automatically creating manufacturing orders for subassemblies is helpful if you aren't keeping most subassemblies in stock.

If you do keep most subassemblies in stock, and would rather make them in separate batches, it's recommended to not automatically create manufacturing Orders for subassemblies but rather consume subassemblies that you have in stock and use safety stock levels to produce more.

Enabling automatic creation of manufacturing orders for subassemblies

If you're creating a MO for a product with subassemblies in its recipe/BOM, a window will open where you can choose to generate manufacturing orders for subassemblies automatically.

This GIF shows how to add a product to a MO and where you can choose to have subassemblies created automatically

You can customize the name and quantity of a product in the window before creating the MO, and a manufacturing order(s) is created for the desired quantity.

If you are creating a Make-to-Order MO for a sales order, the quantity and MO name are taken from the sales order.

Priority in the manufacturing schedule

If manufacturing orders for subassemblies are created automatically, these MOs have a higher priority in the manufacturing schedule than the main product of the MO.

Note: Reordering automatically created manufacturing orders or the main product MO doesn't reorder other manufacturing orders that were created together.

Subassembly manufacturing orders are named from the main assembly MO.

Example:

  • MO - 1 is the main assembly MO

  • MO - 1 / 1 is first level subassembly MO

  • MO - 1 / 1 / 1 is second-level subassembly MO

Additional info

  • Automatically creating manufacturing orders for subassemblies won't take into account the in-stock quantity of the subassemblies
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  • If some subassemblies with automatically created manufacturing orders are in stock already, you can delete the excess manufacturing orders
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  • The quantity of product in an automatically created MO for subassemblies initially is taken from the top-level MO recipe. You can change the quantity if you need to produce a different amount of items
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  • If you create a MO for a product and don't want to automatically create manufacturing orders for subassemblies (or you add a subassembly to the MO recipe), clicking the Make button for that subassembly will allow you to still create manufacturing orders automatically for all subassemblies in the recipe.


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