Work Centres

What work centres are

Work centres are the stations, machines and departments where production happens. Assigning orders to work centres shows capacity and load, so you can plan the shop floor and spot bottlenecks before they bite.

Adding a work centre

1. Go to Production → Work Centres and click Add Work Centre.
2. Name it as the floor refers to it, not as the accounts do.
3. Record its capacity — what it can produce in a given period.
4. Save.

Reading load

Production orders assigned to a work centre make up its load. A centre consistently at or over capacity is your bottleneck, and it sets the pace of everything downstream of it.

Planning around a bottleneck

Adding capacity anywhere other than the bottleneck does not increase output. Find the constrained centre first, then decide whether to add capacity there, move work elsewhere, or re-sequence orders.

Maintenance

Servicing is scheduled per work centre in Production → Machine Maintenance. Planned downtime on a bottleneck centre needs to be in the production plan, not discovered on the day.

Tip: Record capacity honestly, including changeover time. A capacity figure that assumes continuous running makes every plan built on it optimistic.