Managing manufacturing orders is vital for production and inventory precision. This article explains two types of manufacturing processes: Make-to-Order (MTO) and Make-to-Stock (MTS), each tailored to specific sales and stock needs.
A manufacturing order (MO) is used for producing products from your materials and subassemblies. All manufacturing orders are found in the Schedule tab of the Make screen.
Benefits of using manufacturing orders
Creating and completing a MO triggers relevant inventory movements for the connected product and required ingredients (materials or subassemblies) included in the Product recipe / BOM for the product
It enables managing your production activities (e.g. monitoring production status and priorities)
Helps to check and manage Ingredients availability for production.
Enables managing Production Deadlines.
Types of Manufacturing orders
There are two types of manufacturing orders in Katana: Make-to-Order (linked permanently to a specific sales order) or Make-to-Stock (not linked to a sales order).
Both types are found in the Schedule tab, enabling you to manage production priorities in one view.
Make-to-Order (MTO)
A MO that is producing products for a specific sales order (SO). An MTO manufacturing order is permanently linked to the underlying SO. These orders reflect the exact quantity of product required by the SO - if the Order quantity is changed or deleted, the change is applied to the corresponding MO the same way. Link to the SO, product or the planned or actual product quantity cannot be edited for this type of MO.
Note: If your Katana account is integrated to Shopify and you chose to sync Shopify order changes - these changes may influence your MTO manufacturing orders.
An MTO manufacturing order can only be created by clicking on + Make →
Make to order in the Sell screen or on the SO card. This button is only visible for sales items with a Not available status. You can make to order even if the product is already available or expected from another MO by clicking on the icon at the end of the Sales order line on the Sales order card.
You can also bulk create MTO manufacturing orders for multiple sales orders from the Sell screen, clicking on Bulk actions, and choosing the Make to order option from the top.
The priority of MTO manufacturing orders is automatically synced with linked sales orders. Changing the priority of a SO in the Sell screen will automatically update production priorities in the Schedule tab and vice versa.
Read about how this affects Sales items availability for Sales orders.
Make-to-Stock (MTS)
This is a MO that is producing products to stock (often in bulk) for future sales purposes. MTS manufacturing orders are not linked to any sales orders.
These types of manufacturing orders can be created in 3 ways:
Use the global "+" sign at the top middle of the page and select + Manufacturing order.
Clicking on the + Make on a SO in the Sell screen that has a Not available Sales items availability status and selecting Make in batch.
In the Inventory tab of the Stock screen by clicking + Make at the end of the row for a product.
If there are open sales orders that already require products produced to stock by an MTS manufacturing order, the Schedule tab will display relevant customer names and SO numbers in the Customer column. However, this does not create a permanent link between the MTS manufacturing order and the SO. Sales orders reserve products made by MTS manufacturing orders based on Sales order priority.
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