Starting and Managing a Production Run

Starting and Managing a Production Run

Once materials are reserved and you are ready to begin making your product, you start the production order. This marks the run as active and unlocks the logging features — material consumption, machine hours, and labour time.

Starting Production

1. Open the production order (status: Materials Reserved, or Planned if you skipped reservation).
2. Click Start Production.
3. Confirm the start. The order status changes to In Progress and a start timestamp is recorded.

Starting production does not automatically consume stock. Materials are only deducted when you explicitly log consumption. This is intentional — you may use materials across multiple sessions, and CrafterBy lets you log each session separately.

What You Can Do While a Run is In Progress

• Log material consumption — record how much of each material you actually used. See Logging Material Consumption.
• Log machine hours — record how long each machine ran. See Logging Machine Hours Used.
• Log labour time — record who worked on the order and for how long. See Logging Labour on a Production Order.
• Update progress — move the order between stages or update a percentage complete.
• Add notes — record observations, issues, or process changes on the run.

Using Production Stages

For complex or multi-step production runs, you can break the work into stages. Stages let you track which part of the process is active and are useful when different team members handle different steps.

Example stages for a candle production run:

1. Wax Melting
2. Fragrance Blending
3. Pouring
4. Cooling and Setting
5. Quality Control
6. Labelling and Packaging

To move between stages, open the production order and select the current stage from the Stages section. Each stage transition is timestamped. You can log materials, machine hours, and labour against specific stages — useful if you want to analyse where time and materials are spent in your process.

Stages are optional. If your production runs are simple, you do not need to use them.

Multi-Session Production

CrafterBy does not require a production run to be completed in a single sitting. You can:

• Start production on Monday, log wax and fragrance consumption
• Come back on Tuesday, log the remaining materials and labour hours
• Complete the order on Wednesday after QC

All logging is additive — each entry adds to the running totals. The production order remains In Progress until you explicitly mark it complete.

Editing a Production Order While In Progress

You can still edit the target quantity, planned dates, and notes while an order is In Progress. You cannot change the product. If you need to produce a different product, cancel this order and create a new one.

If you reduce the target quantity, CrafterBy does not automatically adjust reserved or consumed materials. Review the materials section and release any excess reservation manually.

Completing a Production Order

When production is finished:

1. Confirm all material consumption, machine hours, and labour have been logged.
2. Click Complete Production Order.
3. Enter the actual yield — how many good units were produced. This may be less than the target quantity if there was waste or quality failures.
4. CrafterBy calculates the actual cost per unit and adds the finished quantity to stock.
5. The order status moves to Completed and is locked against further edits.