About Work Orders, Operations, and Serials/Lots

A work order is a request to manufacture a certain quantity of products. It contains information on the model, route, and quantity of a product that must be manufactured. Work orders are created for a specific product and must be completed on a production line.

Work orders are created in Plant Applications from the following sources:

ERP System: You can import work orders from an ERP system to Plant Applications using the import services.
Note: For information on the import services, refer to the Plant Applications ERP Integration Guide.
Route Editor: You can create work orders manually using Route Editor.
Work Order Manager: You can create work orders manually using Work Order Manager.

These work orders then appear in Work Order Manager.

To manufacture each type of product, a sequence of tasks must be performed. Each task or a set of tasks is called an operation. An operation is an executable job performed on a production unit of a production line. Operations can be defined either in the route using Route Editor or in the work order that you import from an ERP system.