Production Board

The production board is your live view of the shop floor. It shows every active work order organized by equipment, so you can see at a glance what's running, what's queued, and what needs attention.

Board Layout

The board displays one column per piece of equipment, grouped by equipment type (e.g., CNC Mills, Lathes, Welding Stations). Each column contains work order cards stacked in queue order.

Outside operations (work sent to external suppliers) appear in separate columns on the right side of the board, grouped by operation type.

Use the left and right arrows to scroll horizontally if you have more equipment than fits on screen.

Views

The production page offers three ways to view your work orders. Toggle between them using the buttons in the top-right corner:

• Board — the default drag-and-drop board organized by equipment columns. Best for day-to-day shop floor management.
• List — a flat table of all work orders with columns for job, part, operation, machine, customer, due date, quantity, and status. Good for searching and sorting.
• Gantt — a timeline view showing work orders plotted against your shop schedule. Useful for spotting scheduling conflicts and visualizing capacity.

Work Order Cards

Each card on the board shows:

• Job number and part reference — click the job number to go to the job detail page
• Part number and name — what's being made
• Operation type — the manufacturing process (e.g., CNC Milling)
• Quantity — how many units
• Estimated time — total setup + run time
• Due date — highlighted in red if overdue, orange if due within two days
• Phase stepper — dots showing which phases apply (Programming, Setup, Running) and which is active
• Assignee — who is assigned to the current phase
• Part thumbnail — if files are attached to the part, a thumbnail image appears at the top of the card
• Status badges — "On Hold" or "Blocked" badges when applicable

Drag and Drop

You can drag work order cards to:

• Reorder within a column — drag a card up or down to change its position in the queue. The new order is saved automatically.
• Move between equipment — drag a card to a different equipment column to reassign it. Forge only allows moves to equipment that is configured for the work order's process type — invalid targets are dimmed during the drag.

Process constraints: If you have a CNC Milling operation, you can only move it to equipment that has been set up for the CNC Milling process. This prevents accidentally assigning work to the wrong machine.

Filtering Work Orders

Use the filter bar at the top to narrow down what's visible:

• Status — show only work orders in a specific phase (Created, Programming, Setup, Running)
• Machine — show only work orders for a specific piece of equipment
• Customer — filter by client
• Job — filter by a specific job
• Due date — show overdue items, items due today, or items due this week
• Show On Hold — toggle to include or exclude work orders that are on hold

The status pipeline bar below the filters gives a visual summary of how many work orders are in each status. Click a segment to filter by that status.

Selecting a Work Order

Click a work order card to select it. When selected:

• The card is highlighted with a colored ring.
• All other work orders for the same part are also highlighted, showing the full routing sequence.
• Connector lines are drawn between related work orders so you can trace the flow across equipment.
• A routing flow panel appears on the right side of the screen, showing materials, purchased items, and all operations for that part — with their received/completion status.

Click the card again or click anywhere on the background to deselect.

The Routing Flow Panel

When you select a work order, the routing flow panel shows the complete picture for that part:

• Materials — each raw material needed, with a checkmark if it has been received
• Purchased items — each purchased component, with receipt status
• Operations — each work order in sequence, showing its status (pending, in progress, completed) and the assigned machine

This panel helps you answer questions like "Can we start this operation? Have the materials arrived? Are the upstream operations finished?"

You can also view attached part files (drawings, 3D models) from this panel.

Operator View

If you're logged in with an operator role (someone who can view production but not assign work), the board automatically filters to show only work orders assigned to you. Work orders where you're assigned to a later phase (but someone else is working on the current phase) appear dimmed with a "coming up" indicator.

Related Articles

• Work Orders — how work orders are created and configured
• Tracking Progress — starting, completing, and timing work orders
• Jobs Overview — understanding the jobs that feed the production board