Work Centers

Work Centers

Work Centers define the area where a production operation takes place within the business (for example, a specific workshop, room or section of the shop floor). All components for a production operation should be delivered to the work center in order for the production operation to begin consumption.

Work Centers are an advanced manufacturing feature. You will need to add the advanced manufacturing module to your Cin7 Core base subscription to use this feature. See Getting Started with the Advanced Manufacturing module for more information.

Prerequisites

  • Set up Locations and Bins

  • Advanced manufacturing subscription required.

  • Users will need the Capacity Planner permission in order to add and edit work .

Add a Work Center

Work Center can be set up in Settings of the Production module: Production → Settings → Work Centers.

  1. Click the + button to add a new work center.

  2. Enter a unique Work Center Code.

  3. You can specify whether a work center is a co-manufacturing location. See Co-manufacturing for more information.

  4. Enter the Work Center Name.

    • If the co-manufacturer box is checked for this work center, this field will be replaced with a dropdown menu where you can select an existing Cin7 Core supplier.

  5. If the co-manufacturer box is checked for this work center, you can choose a procurement Mode for this co-manufacturer. See Co-manufacturing - Procurement settings configurationfor more information. If the co-man box is not checked, this field will display N/A.

    • Note: Once a work center is in use by one or more production BOMs the co-manufacturing procurement mode can no longer be changed.

  6. Select a Consumption Bin from a dropdown list of all bins configured for the shop floor location. Consumption bin defines where components should be delivered to execute the production process. If no consumption bin is specified, the components will be consumed from the shop floor.

    • If the Work Center is a co-manufacturing work center, the dropdown field will instead allow selection from co-manufacturing locations.

  7. Select an Output Bin from a dropdown list of all bins configured for the shop floor location. Output bin defines where finished products are kept for put away after production. If no output bin is specified, the components will be put away to the shop floor.

  8. Select whether the work center is operational/non-operational.

  9. You can optionally select a Colour code for your work center. This will affect the how production operations taking place in that work center are displayed in the Scheduler.

  10. Save your changes.

In order to delete a Work Center, click on the delete sign next to the entry. Work Center names, codes and operational status can be edited by clicking on the corresponding work center field.

Work Centers can only be deleted if they have not been used in any operations. If they have been used, they can be deprecated, which removes them as a selection option. Alternatively, you can undo transactions using that Work Center in order to delete it completely.

Consumption bins can also be specified from the Settings → Reference Books → Locations → Bins screen. This feature is only available for shop floor locations.

Consumption bins for a production work center define where the components should be brought in order to start a production operation. For example, a sewing work center would require fabric to be brought to the assigned bin.

  

If a bin is not defined for the work center, components for that work center will be delivered to the default Shop Floor location.

  1. Go to Settings → Reference Books → Locations → Bins and select the Shop Floor location from the drop-down list.

  2. Click the + button to assign a work center to the bin. One bin can be connected to multiple work centers, but each work center can only be connected to one bin per Shop Floor location.

  3. Save your changes.
         

Add reasons for Work Center suspension

Production operations may need to be suspended for planned or unplanned downtime, e.g. maintenance or mechanical failure. Enter reasons for suspension here - when a production operation is suspended, the user must select from one of these suspend reasons and the reason will be recorded in the Activity logs and Audit Report. The suspend reason will be displayed prominently on the suspended operation screen.

If your work centers are suspended/non-operational, you can enter the reason from the Suspend Reasons tab. Go to Production → Settings → Suspend Reasons. Use the Gear icon to change the table display, including which work centers are visible.

Note: This is for informational purposes only, adding a suspend reason to a work center does not change the work center status to non-operational. Work centers are suspended from a production operation.

Click + to add a new suspend reason and enter a name. Select whether the downtime is Planed, Not Planned, or Undefined, then use the check boxes to indicate which work centers a suspend reason applies.

  

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