Automatically Creating Work Orders

Wheelhouse can create the work orders for the items on an order and choose the labor routing each one should use, so your team does not have to build them by hand. This guide explains when work orders are created (automatically or manually), how the routing is chosen during creation, and what to check when a work order or routing does not appear as expected.

When Work Orders Are Created

Work orders are created in one of two ways, depending on how your system is set up:

• Automatically: When your system is set to create work orders automatically, a background process looks for orders that are ready (released) and creates their jobs and work orders for you. It runs about every five minutes, so work orders normally appear within a few minutes of an order being released. Each work order is assigned its routing at the moment it is created.
• Manually: If automatic creation is not enabled, work orders are created as soon as someone creates them from the Job or Routing Manager, and the routing is assigned at that point.

For an order to be created automatically, every item on it must resolve to a single routing (exactly one eligible routing, or one clearly marked primary, as described below). If any item is ambiguous, that order is skipped until its routings are resolved, and it is then picked up on the next run. Virtual routings are not used for automatic work order creation.

Automatic creation also fills in work orders that are still needed on an existing job. If an order has additional items without a work order (for example, items added later, or items that were skipped earlier), the next run creates those additional work orders, assigns each one its routing, and adds them to the existing job. Work orders that already exist are not duplicated, and a job that was already completed is reopened so the additional work order can be added.

How the Routing Is Chosen

Wheelhouse chooses a routing at the moment a work order is created for an item, and only when the item does not already have a routing selected. If someone has already chosen a routing for that item, Wheelhouse keeps that selection and does not override it.

For an item with no routing yet, Wheelhouse gathers the routings that are eligible for that item and chooses based on what it finds.

Which Routings Are Eligible

A routing is eligible for an item when both of these are true:

• It matches the item: it applies to that item, either because it is a general (shared) routing or because it is set up specifically for that item.
• It is active: today falls within its effective date range.

Routings that are inactive or expired, or that belong to a different item, are not considered.

Generic and Virtual Routings

Two options on a routing affect how and where it can be used:

• Generic: A generic routing is a shared routing that is not tied to one specific item. When an item does not have its own item-specific routing, any active generic routing is eligible for it, so you can define a common set of operations once and reuse it across many items instead of building a separate routing for each. The Generic option is available only while the routing has no specific item assigned; once you assign an item, the routing becomes item-specific and is no longer generic.
• Virtual: A virtual routing is carried out at virtual work centers rather than physical ones. Virtual work centers represent non-shop-floor functions, such as Engineering, Accounting, or other office-based steps, so those stages can be tracked as part of a routing even though they are not performed at a physical production station. This option appears only when the Virtual Facility feature is enabled for your organization.

How Wheelhouse Decides

A routing built for a specific item always takes precedence. A generic routing is used only as a fallback for items that have no routing of their own, so a generic routing never overrides or blocks an item-specific routing.

Within that precedence, the selection works as follows:

• If the item has exactly one routing of its own: Wheelhouse uses it.
• If the item has several routings of its own: Wheelhouse uses the one marked primary. If none is marked primary, no routing is assigned automatically and one is chosen manually.
• If the item has no routing of its own: Wheelhouse falls back to generic routings, using the single generic routing or the one generic routing marked primary.
• If nothing is eligible: No routing is assigned automatically; one must be chosen manually.

Quick Reference

One Primary Routing per Item

To keep automatic assignment predictable, each item can have only one primary routing at a time. When you mark a routing as the primary for an item, Wheelhouse automatically removes the primary designation from any other routing on that same item, so there is never more than one primary to choose from.

When this happens, a brief on-screen message confirms which routing is no longer the primary, so the change is never silent. General (shared) routings are not affected by this rule.

If an item was set up before this rule and currently has more than one routing marked as primary, those existing extras are left in place until a primary is next saved for that item. While an item has more than one primary routing, Wheelhouse treats it as having no clear primary and does not assign a routing automatically, so a routing must be selected manually until the item is cleaned up.

To clean up an affected item, open the routing you want to keep as the primary, make sure its Primary checkbox is selected, and click Save. Saving the routing automatically removes the primary designation from every other routing on that item, leaving just the one you chose.

If a Work Order Does Not Appear

If a work order is not created, or an item is not receiving the routing you expect, the most common reasons are:

• Order not released: automatic creation only processes released orders.
• Active dates: the routing is not currently active, or its effective dates do not include today.
• Item mismatch: the routing is set up for a different item, and no general routing applies.
• No single primary: the item has several of its own routings and there is no single primary among them, so Wheelhouse leaves the routing blank and waits for a manual selection. Mark exactly one of the item routings as primary to have it assigned automatically.
• Existing selection: the item already had a routing selected, so Wheelhouse kept that selection rather than choosing a new one.

Recommended Setup

For predictable results, keep each item to a single active routing, or, when more than one routing is needed, clearly mark one of them as the primary routing. This ensures Wheelhouse always creates work orders with the routing you intend.