Workflow | Order Processing Procedures

The flowchart below outlines the recommended practice for processing new orders through m-power. A PDF version of this workflow is attached. Key points of this process are discussed with links to further details.

Order Receipt

The order process starts when the client indicates that they wish to proceed with an order. This may be a purchase order, email, verbal order or order placed through the client portal.

Entering The Job

• If the job has been manufactured before, the starting point is to find the previous job, copy it and update the copy with the new due date and other details.
• If the job has been quoted, then the starting point is to convert the quote to a job.
• Otherwise, the order is entered directly into the system

Sending an Order Confirmation

Once the job and pricing details have been entered into the system, we recommend that you send an order confirmation to ensure that both you and the client agree on the detailed requirements and pricing of the job.

If the client does not have an account:

• Raise and send the client an invoice for full or partial payment before proceeding. 
• Tag the job with a 'waiting for payment' status to allow accounts staff to filter the jobs they need to follow up for payment.

Preparing Drawings (if required)

Company policy may allow drawings to be prepared for approval while you are waiting for the order confirmation or payment. If this is so:

• Change the status of the jobs to 'Awaiting Drawings' to allow the art department to filter jobs that require artwork
• Send the drawings to the client for approval  - Change Status to 'Waiting Client'.

Releasing the Job

'Releasing' the job records the point when you are willing to commit the job to production resources. Checklist items you may consider before releasing the job include:

• That you and the client agree on the job requirements | shows that the order confirmation and drawing approval have been accepted.
• Your Trading terms are accepted, which are shown by payment of the deposit invoice or falling with the standard account terms.
• That you can deliver the job to the agreed requirements | materials are available, and delivery dates can be met.

The following actions are recommended for releasing the job:

• The production manager schedules the key tasks within the job.
• The scheduled tasks automatically become visible on the schedule.
• The predicted material requirements are committed to the job | this can happen automatically or as a manually reviewed process.
• A 'timing recipe' may optionally be created | a timing recipe summarises the total material and labour requirements needed across the job when the job contains multiple items. 

Scheduling the Job

Scheduling the job is discussed in detail in another section. The main points are:

• Some key processes within your system are bottlenecks for which you have limited capacity due to machinery or personnel requirements. These processes should be tagged for scheduling
• The system will extract scheduled processes from released jobs and show them as a list
• You can assign these processes to resources (people or machines) 
• Optionally, you may wish to assign these processes to occur on a specific date using a calendar function
• A person assigned a process can view these processes on a list and/or a calendar. They can record time against these processes and mark them as 'complete', which indexes the process to the next stage in the workflow.

Production Workflow

Each job is different and will pass through the processes outlined on the job card. As it passes through each process, we recommend that staff record time against these processes

• recording time updates the status of the job in Work-In_Progress.
• Recording time provides productivity and job-costing data.

Creating a Despatch Docket

A despatch docket (often known as a packing slip) should be completed every time an element of the job is completed and sent to the client. This means one job might have one or many despatch dockets recorded against it. 

Creating a despatch docket by opening the job and pressing the despatch button. This creates the docket. Subsequent jobs can then be added to the docket if multiple jobs are being despatched at the same time.

Job Review

A Job review is reviewing the completed job, ensuring requirements have been fulfilled, and updating the workflow so that the next order is accurate. This process should include:

• Review whether the job has changed since the job was raised and whether extra costs should be assigned to the invoice.
• Comparing the materials that have been committed to the job with the materials that have been used in the job. Any variances should be updated in the job summary area so that job costing is complete. Any materials used that were not on the job card should be added for future costing purposes.
• Reviewing the timing against the job and correcting mistakes, investigating variances with staff, and adding times for processes that have been missed in scanning.
• Reviewing the job cost summary and approving the job for invoicing.

Invoicing

We recommend creating invoices from delivery dockets, as this creates an internal link to the items listed in the job. This link allows variations from the order to be found.

Once an invoice has been raised.

• The invoice is emailed from the system.
• The invoice is exported to the linked accounting system (MYOB or Xero).