Production runs on registers. Material goes out of the store on a slip, the supervisor tracks progress on a whiteboard, and the day's output is sent on a WhatsApp group. At month end the owner asks a simple question — where did the material go? — and nobody has a number, only an estimate.
The consumption problem nobody solves with another register
The usual response is a tighter issue register and a daily production sheet. That adds writing on the floor and still leaves the real gaps open:
- Unused material is not returned. Leftover stock stays near the machine and is quietly written off.
- Scrap has no reason. It is thrown out without being booked, so wastage hides inside consumption.
- Job work disappears. Material sent for plating or heat treatment is off the books for three weeks.
- Quality comes after the fact. A batch moves to finished goods before its inspection is closed.
The gap is not effort on the floor. It is that the job is spread across a register, a whiteboard and a phone, so nothing adds up in one place.
What changes when the order holds the whole job
One order, one screen
A bill of materials becomes a manufacturing order, and the order carries the whole job. Its tabs cover BOM, operation and routing, raw material, QC, finished goods, machine log, tools, scrap, activity, daily report and comments. What was planned and what has happened are on the same screen.
The BOM is frozen for the order
The bill of materials and routing are frozen when the order is released. A later edit to the BOM cannot rewrite what this order was supposed to consume, so the comparison stays honest.
Issue, return and scrap on the same record
Material is issued against the order, batch by batch, and whatever is not consumed is returned, not written off. Scrap is booked with a reason. Because every movement is on the order, consumption against the BOM is a number, not an estimate.
Operations logged in sequence
The floor logs produced, scrap and rejected quantities at each work station, in order. A stage cannot be closed while the one before it is open, so the progress on screen is the progress on the floor.
What this looks like in practice
Consider a small factory making machined components in two shifts.
A manufacturing order is released for 1,000 pieces with the frozen BOM. The store issues steel bar against it. By the end of the job:
- 960 good pieces are booked to finished goods with their batch.
- 25 pieces are booked as scrap at the deburring stage, with a reason.
- 15 pieces are rejected at the QC stage and raise a nonconformance.
- Leftover bar is returned to the store against the same order.
The owner opens the order and sees material issued, returned and scrapped, compared with the BOM. The deburring scrap is higher than the BOM allows, so the conversation next morning is about one work station, not about the whole month.
Nothing here makes the machines run faster. What it does is stop material leaking between the store and the finished goods godown — which is where most small-factory margin quietly goes.
Quality that actually gates the close
QC parameters can be attached to the operation and to the order. The order will not close while an inspection on it is still open. A failure raises a nonconformance with a corrective action and an owner, so a failed batch cannot move to finished goods while the question is open.
Job work that stays on the order
Plating, printing, heat treatment and packing often happen outside the plant. A job work order sends material to the processor and receives it back against the same manufacturing order. The stock at the vendor stays visible as yours, and if the processor returns less than they received, the difference is on the order.
Where this meets the rest of the business
Production sits between purchase and sales, and every movement touches stock.
- Stock: issue reduces stock, returns add it back, and finished goods go to the godown with their batch.
- Cost: material is valued as issued, plus the operations logged, so cost per batch is known while the job runs.
- Machines: machine log records running time and downtime against the order, so lost hours have a reason.
- Traceability: a finished batch traces back to the supplier lot and forward to the customer it shipped to.
That is the practical argument for production sitting inside the same system as stock, purchase and sales rather than on a separate register.
A note on planning
Unnati plans production orders against capacity and the stock you already hold. A full MRP run that explodes demand across a planning horizon is on the roadmap, not in the product today. If MRP is central to how you plan, tell us before you sign up so we can be honest about the fit.
Unnati's production module covers BOM, manufacturing orders, routing, material issue and return, finished goods, machine log, scrap, job work, production plan and maintenance. The production feature page shows the screens, and the quality control page covers inspections and nonconformance.
Key takeaways
- Consumption is only a number when issue, return and scrap are all booked on the order.
- A BOM frozen at release keeps the comparison with actual use honest.
- Scrap without a reason hides wastage inside consumption.
- An order that cannot close while inspection is open stops failed batches reaching stock.
- Job work should stay on the same order, not vanish for three weeks.
- Cost per batch is known while the job runs when material and operations share one record.