Releasing a Job to Production

Moving a job from Open to In Production is the moment its operations join the machine queues on the production board. Because that can push work already queued behind the new job, Forge shows you exactly what will happen before it happens: a four-step modal that opens automatically when you change the job's status.

Opening the Release Modal

On the job detail page, use the status dropdown to change the job's status to In Production. Forge opens the release modal instead of applying the change immediately: nothing is released until you confirm on the last step.

Step 1: Summary

The first step shows three numbers: how many operations are about to join a machine queue, how many of those are outside operations (sent to a supplier rather than run in-house), and how many machines are affected. This is a quick sanity check before you go further: if the machine count looks wrong, it usually means a work order's process or equipment assignment needs a second look.

Step 2: Assign Equipment (only if needed)

If any internal operation has no machine assigned yet, Forge adds an extra step listing each one. Pick a machine for every operation here; you cannot continue until the list is empty. Outside operations don't need a machine and never appear on this list.

This step is skipped entirely if every internal operation already has equipment assigned.

Step 3: Choose How to Sequence It

You choose one of two placement modes:

Add to the end of each machine queue. Every operation goes behind whatever is already queued on its machine. Nothing currently scheduled moves.
Smart sequencing. Each operation is inserted by the job's promised delivery date, ahead of operations promised later, but never above an operation the shop floor has already started. This can move other jobs' operations later in their queues, which is exactly what the next step shows you.

Smart sequencing is unavailable when the job has no promised delivery date: there's nothing to sequence it against, so append is the only option in that case.

Step 4: Impact Preview

The last step lists every operation the release pushes to a later date, grouped by the job it belongs to. Each row shows the client, part, machine, the old and new date, and how many days later it now finishes. A job is flagged Now late if this release is what pushes it past its own promised delivery date.

If nothing is pushed later, this step just confirms that: no queued operation is affected. Either way, the release itself only happens when you click Release to production on this final step; leaving the modal at any earlier point (including the machine-assignment step) changes nothing.

Switching between the two placement modes recalculates this impact preview, so it's worth checking both before you commit, especially for a job with a tight delivery date, where smart sequencing may bump several other jobs.

What Changes on the Production Board

A few board behaviors are a direct result of how release sequencing works, and are worth knowing about:

Card order is the dispatch order. The order operations sit in inside a machine column is the order they'll actually be launched in, and the scheduler plans every date around it. Dragging a card to a new position in its queue genuinely changes the schedule: it isn't just a display reorder.
"Waiting on OP-n." A card can show this marker when it's held back by its own routing predecessor rather than by the machine. That's why you may see it sitting above a card whose own start date is earlier: it isn't a mistake, it just can't start until the operation before it in the same part's routing finishes.
The Unassigned column. An internal operation with no machine assigned appears in an "Unassigned" column. It isn't in any queue, and its dates assume the machine it eventually lands on has unlimited free capacity, so treat those dates as provisional until you assign equipment.

Jobs Overview: job statuses and the Open → In Production transition
Production Board: reading and reordering machine queues day to day
Work Orders: operations, routing order, and dependencies between them
Production ETA: how a release's schedule changes show up in a job's delivery projection