Bill of Materials and Production Tracking
How a manufacturer linked finished products to raw materials in Zoho Inventory, with a barcode-scanning Zoho Creator app tracking work in progress across the shop floor.
Client details generalized to protect confidentiality.
Manufacturers assembling from components where material consumption and work in progress are tracked on paper or estimated.
The Challenge
Finished goods and raw materials were both tracked in inventory, with no structural link between them. Material consumption was estimated after the fact from production output, so raw material counts drifted and reordering was reactive. Work in progress was tracked on paper travelers that moved with the job, which meant nobody outside the floor knew what stage anything was at without walking out and looking.
The Solution
Bill of Materials Framework
Finished products link to their component materials with quantities, so consumption is derived rather than estimated.
- BOM records per finished product
- Component quantities and units
- Multi-level assemblies supported
- Revision control on BOMs
Material Consumption on Production
Producing a finished item consumes its components automatically, keeping raw material counts accurate.
- Consumption posted from the BOM
- Scrap and yield handling
- Substitution recorded when used
- Variance against expected consumption
Barcode Work in Progress Tracking
A Creator app on the floor scans jobs through stages, so WIP status is visible without walking the floor.
- Creator app with barcode scanning
- Stage transitions by scan
- Operator and timestamp captured
- Works on shop floor devices
Floor Visibility and Reporting
WIP position, stage dwell time, and throughput report from scan data rather than from paper travelers.
- WIP by stage and job
- Dwell time per stage
- Throughput by day and line
- Bottleneck identification
Apps in This Solution
Zoho Inventory
Zoho Creator
Under the Hood Technical detail
- BOM Revisioning
- BOMs carry revisions rather than being edited in place, so a job built last quarter can be costed against the BOM that was current then. Editing in place makes historical cost analysis wrong in a way nobody notices for months.
- Consumption Timing
- Components consume at production posting rather than at job start, since jobs are sometimes cancelled after starting. Consuming at start would have required reversal handling on every cancellation.
- Substitution Handling
- When a substitute material is used it is recorded as a substitution rather than silently consuming the substitute. This matters for both costing and for the recurring question of which substitutions are happening often enough to warrant a BOM change.
- Scan Granularity
- Stages are defined coarsely enough that scanning is not burdensome. The most common failure in floor tracking is defining so many stages that operators stop scanning, at which point the data is worse than paper.
- Notable Constraint
- Shop floor devices and connectivity are imperfect. Scans queue locally and sync when connectivity returns, so the WIP view can lag briefly, and supervisors treat it as near-live rather than instantaneous.
The Results
- Material consumption derives from the BOM rather than being estimated.
- WIP stage is visible without walking the floor.
- Stage dwell time exposed where jobs actually queue.
Tracking Production on Paper?
We have built BOM frameworks and barcode floor tracking across Zoho Inventory and Creator. Tell us how your production is tracked.