Production planning tells you what to make and when. Shop floor execution is where that plan becomes reality. In iVendNext, the shop floor execution layer covers everything from the moment a work order is created to the moment finished goods are received into the warehouse — including the routing of operations across workstations, the tracking of materials and time through job cards, capacity management, real-time floor visibility, machine downtime, and quality inspection.
For a retail business with a manufacturing operation, getting this layer right is what determines whether production runs on time, at the right cost, and to the right standard.
A Work Order is the operational document that authorises and tracks a production run. It specifies the finished good to be produced, the BOM to use, the quantity to manufacture, the planned start and end dates, the source warehouse for raw materials, the WIP warehouse for in-process stock, and the target warehouse for finished goods.
Work orders can be created in three ways: directly from a Production Plan (the most common route in a planned production environment), from a Sales Order (for make-to-order scenarios where each production run is tied to a specific customer commitment), or manually (for ad hoc production runs).
Once submitted, the work order triggers the generation of Job Cards for each operation in the BOM, with materials committed to the production run.
Overproduction controls allow you to define a tolerance percentage at the work order or sales order level. If production yields slightly more than planned — a common occurrence in process manufacturing — the system accepts the overage up to the configured threshold without raising an error, while still tracking the variance for reporting.
Serial numbers and batch IDs for finished goods can be generated automatically on work order submission, based on the settings in the item master. This ensures traceability from the moment production begins, with each finished unit or batch carrying a unique identifier that links back to the work order, the BOM, and the raw materials used.
A Routing is a reusable template of operations that can be applied to any BOM. Rather than defining the same sequence of steps every time you create a BOM for a product in the same product family, you create a Routing once and reference it in each BOM.
Each operation in a routing specifies the workstation where it is performed, the time required, the hourly rate for that workstation, and the batch size. This information drives both the job card generation and the cost roll-up in the BOM — so that the finished good's standard cost includes not just raw materials but the operating cost of every step in its production.
Sequence enforcement is a critical control for operations where the order of steps matters — and in most manufacturing environments, it always does. By assigning sequence IDs to operations in a routing, iVendNext prevents operators from completing a downstream job card before the upstream one is finished. Attempting to mark a packaging operation as complete before the assembly operation is done, for example, will generate a validation error. This prevents out-of-sequence production that could result in defective goods or inaccurate cost tracking.
A Workstation in iVendNext represents any machine, bench, or work area where a production operation is performed. Each workstation is configured with its operating costs (electricity, rent, consumables, wages), its working hours (by shift and day), a holiday list, and its production capacity — the number of simultaneous operations it can handle.
This configuration data is what enables meaningful capacity planning. When a work order is submitted, iVendNext schedules each operation against the relevant workstation based on availability — checking working hours, existing job card allocations, and production capacity before assigning a planned time slot.
Capacity planning by work order ensures that production commitments are grounded in what the floor can actually handle. If a workstation is already fully allocated for the next five days, the system will not schedule a new job card to start before capacity becomes available — and will alert the planner so they can adjust the plan, shift demand to another workstation, or enable overtime.
Overtime scheduling allows individual workstations to run beyond their standard working hours when demand requires it. This is configured per workstation in Manufacturing Settings, giving you granular control over which stations can extend and which cannot.
Holiday-aware scheduling links each workstation to the organisation's holiday calendar. Production is never scheduled on non-working days, preventing the common planning error of calculating lead times without accounting for public holidays or planned shutdowns.
Time between operations allows you to configure a mandatory gap between consecutive operations on a workstation — useful when changeover, cleaning, or setup time is required before the next job can begin.
Job Cards are the shop floor operator's view of what needs to be done. Each job card corresponds to one operation in a work order and contains everything the operator needs: the item being produced, the operation to perform, the workstation assigned, the planned start and end times, the raw materials to use, and the quantity to produce.
Operators interact with job cards by marking them as started, paused, resumed, or completed. This time-tracking creates an audit trail of actual production time versus planned time — data that feeds directly into production analytics and helps identify where operations consistently run over schedule.
Material transfer from the stores warehouse to the WIP warehouse can be triggered directly from the job card, ensuring materials are physically moved to the right location before production begins. For operations where this step is not needed — where operators consume directly from the source warehouse — the Skip Material Transfer option can be enabled.
QR code integration allows operators to start and complete job cards by scanning a QR code on the work order or job card document. This eliminates the need to navigate the system manually at the workstation — a particularly useful capability on active production floors where operators' hands and attention are occupied with the work itself.
Semi-finished goods tracking is supported at the job card level. For multi-stage production processes, each operation can produce a defined semi-finished good that becomes the input for the next operation. The system automatically produces and consumes semi-finished goods as job cards are completed, providing full traceability through every stage of the production process without requiring separate work orders for each stage.
The Plant Floor feature gives production supervisors a live visual map of their manufacturing environment. Workstations are displayed on a floor plan with real-time status indicators — active, idle, or in downtime — so supervisors can see at a glance where production is flowing and where it is stalled.
From the plant floor view, operators can also process job cards directly — starting, pausing, and completing operations without leaving the floor interface. This makes it a practical tool for active production environments where supervisors need to both monitor status and intervene quickly when issues arise.
The stock summary per floor adds inventory visibility to the operational picture. Supervisors can see the current stock position for each plant floor location — raw materials, WIP, and finished goods — and can initiate stock movements from the same interface.
Machine downtime is captured through Downtime Entries — simple records that log which machine was down, for how long, and why. This data accumulates into the Downtime Analysis report, which shows total downtime hours by machine over any selected period. For retail manufacturers with equipment-dependent production, this report is the first tool for identifying maintenance priorities and production bottlenecks.
Quality gates in iVendNext Manufacturing prevent substandard goods from reaching the finished goods warehouse. Quality Inspections can be configured to trigger at key points in the production process — after specific operations, before goods are received into finished goods stock, or at both points.
Each inspection records whether the batch was accepted or rejected. Accepted batches move forward in the workflow; rejected batches are flagged for review and cannot proceed until the inspection outcome is updated. This creates a hard gate that prevents quality failures from flowing downstream.
The Quality Inspection Summary report provides a period-level view of inspection outcomes — total inspections, acceptance rates, rejection rates, and trends by item, workstation, or time period. For a retail brand where product quality directly affects customer trust and return rates, this report is an important operational control tool.
Shop floor execution in iVendNext covers the full journey from work order creation to finished goods receipt. Routing and workstation configuration standardise the production process and enable meaningful capacity planning. Job cards give operators clear, trackable instructions. The Plant Floor view provides supervisors with live operational visibility. Quality inspection gates prevent defective goods from entering finished stock. Together, these capabilities give retail manufacturers the operational control they need to produce consistently, on time, and at the right cost.