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Managing production deadlines
Managing production deadlines

Help on deciding whether to choose automatic or manual deadlines

Dayvid Lorbiecke avatar
Written by Dayvid Lorbiecke
Updated over a week ago

Each Manufacturing order (MO) has a Production deadline which indicates the Manufacturing order's expected completion date. You can set Production deadlines manually or let Katana estimate the deadline based on the throughput of your workshop.

You can select the preferred method (manual or automatic) from the Make screen:

  1. Go to the Make screen.

  2. Click on Configure deadlines at the top corner of the Schedule tab.

  3. Switch the toggle to your preferred method.

OFF Setting - Production deadlines are set manually

If the toggle button is switched off, you need to manually manage production deadlines for Manufacturing orders.

If you create a new MO, the default production deadline of + 7 days from the creation date) will be assigned to the MO.

You can edit the Production deadline for a Manufacturing order on the MO card. Open a MO, find the Production deadline field and click on it.

ON Setting: Katana automatically estimates production deadlines

If the toggle is switched on, Katana will calculate the Production deadline for a MO automatically based on set parameters. In this case, you cannot edit the Production deadline manually for any MO.

Note: If you set Production deadlines manually and turn automatic estimates back ON, Katana will overwrite any existing manual deadlines which cannot be restored.

Katana uses the planned production time of each MO and the weekly throughput of your workshop to estimate the production deadline for a MO. Production time for a product can be set in the Production operations on a product card.

Other parameters for calculating Production deadlines can be set in the estimates configurations window (when the toggle is switched ON):

  • Weekly throughput - the total hours of production operations completed during an average week. As a guideline, Last 7 days actual indicates the actual throughput over the last 7 days (the sum of production times for all completed Manufacturing orders over the last 7 days). Learn more about setting the weekly throughput.

  • Production timezone - the timezone of your production facilities.

Editing the weekly throughput or production timezone will trigger a recalculation of Production deadlines. If your throughput changes (e.g. new members join the team, a team member is on a vacation), you can easily change the value in the configuration to recalculate all deadlines.

In addition to the above inputs inserted by the user, Katana uses a number of assumptions to calculate the Production deadline. These cannot be edited by the user (hopefully coming soon):

  • Working days - Monday through Friday. In estimating production deadlines, Katana assumes that there are no production activities on Saturday or Sunday.

  • The total weekly throughput is divided equally between working days.

  • A working day ends at 6:00 pm. After this time, all unfinished manufacturing orders are pushed to the next day.

  • If you complete a MO, the defined production time of the order consumes the respective time from the available throughput for that day. Therefore, the production deadlines for future (e.g. tomorrow's) manufacturing orders won't be moved to today as a result.

    If you complete Manufacturing orders with a sum of production times that is more than the available throughput for the day, the next day's throughput will not be consumed and, some future manufacturing orders may get an earlier production deadline.

Production deadlines are calculated based on the priority of Manufacturing orders. Drag-and-drop orders to change their priority and Katana will automatically recalculate Production deadlines.

Note: We recommend using automatic Production deadline calculations for businesses where the average production time for a MO is typically measured in minutes or hours, not days or weeks. If your production process takes longer and you are using parallel workstreams for producing the products, deadline estimations might not be accurate.

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