Enter the (Production) Matrix, Neo

Sipping from the firehose

The Production Matrix (found under the Build menu) is a handy view that we use a lot when producing a weekly labor schedule in our small manufacturing business. It shows all Products and Sub-products that are needed to fulfill open Sales Orders. It’s a little intimidating at first, but here’s some guidance to get the most out of this view:

• Orange numbers are how many are directly on a Sales Order.

• Red numbers are how many you need to build beyond what’s in-stock.

• Blue numbers are how many are in-stock.

• Green numbers are how many can be built with current inventory.

• The clock shows how many hours are left.

• Percentage is the completion percentage.

• After that, the rest of the columns are the open sales orders, in order of ship date, with the number of each product due to ship.

Filtering the data

It’s a lot of data packed into spreadsheet-esque view. Maybe too much data? I hear ya. At the top of the page are 3 slide switches that you can manipulate to filter down to a more manageable size.

• Subproducts — turn this off to hide any “products” that are not directly on a Sales Order. These are subproducts used to produce sold products. I usually leave this on, because it shows what is need for the WIP (work-in-process), but it can really reduce the clutter if you just want to see what items need to ship out to customers.

• Built — turn this off to hide all the products that are already built. This hides anything that doesn’t demand labor to ship. I usually turn this off when working on a production schedule because these items don’t need more work. Handy to flip it on to see all items due to ship, but usually can be ignored for scheduling.

• Buildable — turn this off to hide any products that can’t be built yet. If you’re missing parts, maybe you don’t even want to consider scheduling labor yet. I toggle this on/off a lot when working on a production schedule. Most of the time, if we can’t build it I’ll defer scheduling any labor. But, if there’s an order due to ship soon, but I can’t build the product I want to dig deeper by following the product link and checking parts stock. Where’s the PO? When’s it due to arrive? Purchasing, get on it!

Sort sales orders

Sorting by Ship Date

The Sales Order columns are sortable. I often like to arrange the Product list sorted by priority (what’s gotta ship soonest). Doing that is pretty easy, but maybe not obvious. While holding down the SHIFT key, click on the sort icon in the column headers. Click twice to sort DESCENDING which will bring the highest quantity to the top of the list. Keep sorting while holding SHIFT and work your way down the column. Now the Production Matrix is sorted in priority order so you can see which Products should be worked on first to hit your shipment dates. Should there be a shortcut to sort this way? Yeah, probably…. but for now, that’s how you can do it.