Parts
Intermediate items you manufacture or assemble from materials during production.
A part is an intermediate item you manufacture from materials and/or other parts during production. Parts are not sold to customers: they feed into the next stage of manufacturing, eventually becoming finished products.
What a part is
Parts use the same base item fields as materials and products (SKU, description, category, units, cost), but they have no additional fields beyond those. Parts are the simplest item type: their role is defined by their position in the production workflow, not by extra data.
How parts differ from materials and products
| Aspect | Material | Part | Product |
|---|---|---|---|
| Source | Purchased from vendors | Manufactured in production | Manufactured or purchased |
| Destination | Consumed in production | Consumed in further production | Sold to customers |
| Category type | Material categories | Product categories | Product categories |
| Unit cost | Manually set | Calculated from production | Calculated from production |
| Supplier links | Yes | No | No |
| Sell price | N/A | N/A | Yes (unit value) |
Cost buildup
Unlike materials (which have a flat unit cost), parts accumulate cost through the production process:
- Material cost: from the consumptions at the production step that creates the part
- Labor cost: from the labor rate and time defined on the production step
- Overhead cost: from the overhead rate on the production step
Unit cost is computed, not manually entered. When production steps change, costs recalculate automatically. The COGS banner on a part's card shows the labor, overhead, and materials breakdown.
As parts move through multiple production steps, costs accumulate. This gives you a real-time view of the cost of goods sold at every stage of manufacturing.
How parts are used
- Production steps: parts are both consumed (as inputs) and produced (as outputs). A step might consume materials to produce a part, and a later step consumes that part to produce a product.
- Batches: parts are tracked through production with quantity, quality grade, and location at each stage.
- Inventory: full tracking just like materials and products: receipts, issues, allocations, and available-to-promise.
- Production flows: parts appear in bill-of-materials as intermediate outputs between materials and finished products.
Creating a part
- Navigate to Parts → Create Part
- Enter SKU (required)
- Select category (required): uses product categories (shared with products, separate from material categories)
- Optionally set: description
- Click Create
Unit cost is not set during creation: it's calculated from the production steps that produce the part.
Bulk create: upload an Excel file to create multiple parts at once. The system creates new parts, updates existing ones (matched by SKU), and reports skipped rows with reasons.
Managing parts
- Card-based grid like materials and products
- COGS breakdown banner showing labor, overhead, and materials cost (instead of manual cost entry)
- Inline editing for SKU, description, category, and attributes
- Search by SKU or description
- Filter by category, date range, and attributes
- Export to Excel
- QR code generation per part
- Discontinue (soft delete): the part remains in historical records but is no longer active
Related
- Production steps: where parts are consumed and produced
- Consumptions & productions : the input/output definitions that reference parts
- Production flows - bill-of-materials showing how parts fit into the production chain
- Costing: how part costs are calculated and roll up
- Inventory: tracking part stock levels
- Materials: the raw inputs that parts are made from
- Products: the finished goods that parts eventually become
Next: Products