Understand how Production Operations, Resources, and Shop Floor Operators are connected in Katana to help streamline your manufacturing workflows.
These three elements work together to define what needs to be done, where or by whom, and who is assigned to carry it out.
What are production operations?
Production Operations represent the step-by-step tasks required to manufacture a product.
You can define operations for each product variant on the product card.
Each operation is typically associated with a resource that is used to complete that task.
What are resources?
A Resource is the location or unit where a production operation is carried out.
This could be a workstation, machine, or even an employee.
Resources are not the same as operators, though they're related.
You can assign a default resource for each operation in the product card, but only one resource per operation.
What are Shop Floor Operators?
Shop Floor Operators are users who access the Shop Floor Control App and execute production tasks.
Operators must be manually assigned to tasks or automatically mapped to resources.
Assignments can be made:
Manually per operation on a manufacturing order (MO).
Automatically via Settings > Resources, by assigning default operators to resources.
Operators are not linked directly to operations — they are linked through resources.
How it all comes together
When an MO is created:
Katana pulls in the default production operations for the product.
Each operation pulls in its assigned resource (from the product card).
Katana then checks if the resource has default operators and assigns them to the task.
You can assign multiple operators to a resource, allowing flexibility and shared workloads.
All of this can be adjusted manually within the MO, giving you full control over who does what.
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