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Work Centres 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 centre in order for the production operation to begin consumption.


NOTE: Work Centres are an advanced manufacturing feature. You will need to add the advanced manufacturing module to your DEAR 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 centres. 


Table of Contents


Add a Work Centre

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Work Centre can be set up in Settings of the Production module: Production → Settings → Work Centres.

  1. Click the + button to add a new work centre. 
  2. Enter a unique Work Centre Code
  3. You can specify whether a work centre is a co-manufacturing location.  See Co-manufacturing for more information.
  4. Enter the Work Centre Name
    • If the co-manufacturer box is checked for this work centre, this field will be replaced with a dropdown menu where you can select an existing DEAR supplier.
  5. If the co-manufacturer box is checked for this work centre, 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 centre 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 Centre is a co-manufacturing work centre, 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 centre is operational/non-operational. 
  9. You can optionally select a Colour code for your work centre. This will affect the how production operations taking place in that work centre are displayed in the Scheduler
  10. Save your changes.


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


NOTE: Work Centres 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 Centre 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 centre define where the components should be brought in order to start a production operation. For example, a sewing work centre would require fabric to be brought to the assigned bin. 


NOTE: If a bin is not defined for the work centre, components for that work centre 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 centre to the bin. One bin can be connected to multiple work centres, but each work centre can only be connected to one bin per Shop Floor location. 
  3. Save your changes.


Add reasons for Work Centre suspension

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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 centres 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 centres are visible. 


NOTE: This is for informational purposes only, adding a suspend reason to a work centre does not change the work centre status to non-operational. Work centres 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 centres a suspend reason applies. 


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