What is a Production Order?

What is a Production Order?

A production order is the record of a specific manufacturing event — a plan to make a defined quantity of a product at a particular point in time. Think of it as the difference between a recipe and an actual cooking session: your product definition is the recipe; the production order is the event of following that recipe to make 50 batches this Saturday.

Every production order tracks:

• What you plan to make and how many units
• Which materials are required (based on the product bill of materials)
• What materials were actually consumed during the run
• How long the production took
• The actual cost per unit once the run is complete

Product Definition vs. Production Order

These two concepts are closely related but serve different purposes:

• Product definition — describes how to make something: ingredients, quantities, machine requirements, expected labour time. This is your template.
• Production order — records the actual event of making something: a specific date, a specific quantity, real materials consumed, real time spent.

A product definition can be used for hundreds of production orders over its lifetime. Each production order stands on its own as a historical record.

Why Production Orders Matter

Your planned cost — the figure calculated from the product specification — is based on estimates. Actual production almost always differs: you might spill a little wax, a fragrance might be slightly heavier than expected, or a batch might take longer than usual.

Production orders capture the gap between planned and actual costs. Over time, this data tells you:

• Whether your waste factors are realistic
• Whether your labour time estimates are accurate
• Which products consistently run over or under budget
• How your costs trend as you scale up batch sizes

Without production orders, you are pricing based on theory. With them, you price based on evidence.

A Concrete Example

You plan to make 50 Lavender Soy Candles this weekend. You create a Production Order for 50 units. CrafterBy calculates that you need:

• 9.0 kg soy wax
• 1.5 L lavender fragrance oil
• 50 cotton wicks
• 50 glass jars

You reserve these from stock, run the production, and log what was actually used: 9.2 kg of wax (there was some spillage during pouring). When you mark the order complete, CrafterBy records the actual cost per unit — which is slightly higher than planned due to that extra 0.2 kg of wax.

Next time you produce this candle, you adjust your waste factor for wax from 2% to 4% — and your planned cost becomes a more accurate forecast.

Production Order Lifecycle

A production order moves through the following statuses:

1. Planned — created, materials calculated, not yet started
2. Materials Reserved — stock set aside for this run
3. In Progress — production has started; you are logging consumption and time
4. Completed — production finished; finished goods added to stock; actual costs recorded
5. Cancelled — order abandoned before completion

Each status change is logged with a timestamp so you have a full history of every production run.