Production Order (Work Order, Manufacturing Order)

A production order is an order specifying what is to be sent into production, regardless if it is an in-house or outsourced production. The production order is created within an order management system (which can be a part of an ERP system) and dictates the production process.

When you create a production order in your system, you can specify the end product, producer, time and place, etc. If you have an order management system, that can handle lot numbers, you can specify which lots are to be consumed in the specific production, and hereby support traceability. This, due to the automatically generated documentation of which lots go into which production batch.

Documents regarding a production order

When you create a production order, some documents are typically required for confirmation and transport.

The most common documents are:

Production order confirmation, specifying the end product and quantity, consumed items (lots), and quantity of these.
Delivery note, specifying where the end products are to be transported from and to (e.g. from your warehouse to the producer and back again.)

These documents will, in many order management systems, be generated automatically, based on the information entered in the system.

Order management and inventory management

Many systems for inventory management are based on order management which dictates what goes in and out of your inventory. When you create a production order and send e.g. raw material into production, those materials will be pulled from stock, and the end product will be added to stock.

With tracezilla, you get a very well-functioning order management system as part of an ERP system developed especially for food companies. Read more about order management in tracezilla.