Run the floor
Release the and its supporting jobs to make them available on the shop floor.
The schedule
Released work appears on the MES Schedule board, with one Kanban column per . Each column lists its queued by dispatch priority. The Display popover controls whether empty work centers and card fields—customer, description, due date, duration, progress, status, sales order, and thumbnail—are visible. Filters limit the board by work center, process, tag, or assignee.
On the floor the board shows the plan; it doesn't reshuffle it.
The MES board is read-only scheduling output. Operators can filter it but cannot drag work to reschedule it. Planners change work centers, dates, and sequence on the ERP scheduling boards.
Operations & work centers
A job's is an ordered list of operations. Each operation specifies a process, such as Mill, Weld, Anodize, or Assemble; its work center; and separate setup, labor, and machine times for scheduling and costing.
Carbon supports two operation types:
- Inside operation: runs at one of the company's work centers.
- : runs at a supplier and returns to continue the routing.
A supplier-run step raises its own purchase order.
Associate the process with a supplier and mark the operation Outside. Releasing the job creates an Outside Processing PO at the supplier's rate. The operation's lead time is included in the routing schedule.
Work instructions
The shop-floor view presents the current revision of the operation's work instructions. Each ordered step can include a description and measurement tolerance.
At the station
The MES operation screen provides Start and Pause controls and records each action against the job:
- Select a work type and use Start or Pause to open or close a . Labor is available by default; operations with setup or machine time expose those work types in the same control.
- Select Issue Material to components as they are consumed.
- Use Log Completed for good units, Log Scrap with a reason, or Log for reworked units. Complete All reports the entire remaining quantity.
- Select Finish to end all active production events and set the operation to "Done".
Every toggle and every issue lands on the job's real cost.
Carbon prices logged hours at the work center's labor and machine rates and posts issued material at cost. These amounts contribute to the job's actual cost.
Ending your shift is not the same as finishing the work.
Finish closes one operation. End Operations in the sidebar stops all of the operator's active production events without completing their operations. When time cards are enabled, clocking out also stops the operator's labor event.
Backflush & issue
Carbon consumes tracked and non-tracked bill-of-material components differently:
- Issued: operators explicitly issue tracked material when it is consumed, recording its serial or batch identity against the operation. Picking is separate: it transfers material from a warehouse shelf to the lineside shelf without consuming it.
- : Carbon automatically consumes non-tracked material when the operation or job reports completion.
Picked material that remains unconsumed returns to its warehouse source when the operation or job completes, according to the company's inventory setting.
The everyday consumables update themselves as the floor builds.
When an operation reports completion, Carbon removes backflushed material from stock and posts its cost to the job. Tracked parts remain explicitly issued.
Scan & trace
Operators scan tracked parts during production. Carbon represents each serial, batch, or lot as a . Scanning a component into a parent unit records a tracked activity, marks the component consumed, marks the parent produced, and permanently links them.
Two tracking modes, one genealogy.
Use for individual units and for lots. Scanning either tracking type into a parent records the genealogy, including links between serials and batches.