Engineering
Set up work centers
Register the machines, labor stations and subcontractors where operations run, with their capacity, efficiency and cost center, and link outsourced work to a supplier.
3 min readLast updated
In this article
A work center is a place where an operation is performed: a machine, a team of workers, a production line or an outside workshop. Every routing operation runs at a work center. Work centers also appear on the shop floor dashboard and in capacity planning.
Before you start
If you track production costs by cost center, create the cost centers first.
For outsourced work, the subcontractor must exist as a supplier.
Add a work center
Open Manufacturing › Engineering › View Work Centers and select New work center.
Enter a Code (up to 20 characters, unique in your company) and a Name.
Choose the Type:
Machine, Labor or Mixed for your own resources.
Outsourced for work done by a subcontractor. A Supplier field appears. Choose the supplier.
Optionally choose a Cost center.
Enter the Capacity per hour and the Efficiency as a percentage from 0 to 100.
Switch on Bottleneck if this work center limits the output of the whole line, and Maintenance if it needs regular maintenance.
Select Save.
Outsourced work centers
When production is reported for an operation that runs at an outsourced work center, its labor cost is not charged to your internal labor cost account. It is recorded as an amount payable to the work center's supplier instead. The cost still goes into the work order and so into the finished product's cost, and the supplier's balance grows with the work done.
How the fields are used
Efficiency scales the hours a work center offers in capacity planning. A center at 80% efficiency offers 80% of its working hours.
Bottleneck work centers are flagged on the manufacturing dashboard, the shop floor dashboard and the capacity planning board.
Capacity is shown on the shop floor cards so supervisors can compare load with output.
Edit, view or delete
Use the row's actions menu to view, edit or Delete a work center. The detail page shows every field, and for an outsourced center also the supplier's name, code and contact person. A work center that is used by a routing operation cannot be deleted. Remove it from those routings first.
Common questions
Do work centers carry their own cost rates? No. Labor and overhead rates are set per operation on the routing, so the same work center can cost differently in different routings.