Introduction to Operations
Operations helps your roastery roast, package, and ultimately ship out coffee each day. Its goal is to simplify the daily process of getting more coffee out the door.
Overview of Operations
Operations encompasses that (daily) sprint from the moment that orders arrive until they are ready to be delivered. It is everything that is needed to help your team successfully Roast, Package, and Ship out hundreds of orders.
Operations involves keeping accurate Inventory, calculating Demand from orders (and other internal needs), and planning Tasks to fulfill that Demand. You can check out individual articles on each of these areas (linked at the bottom of this page), but we recommend you continue reading to get the 10,000 ft view of Operations and how to use it.
Inventory
Inventory is how much is currently available of everything from packaged coffee to its in-process ingredients to non-coffee items like merchandise or paper goods that you may sell.
In previous versions of RoasterTools, the app only tracked in-process inventory like bulk roasted coffee or blended coffee. In Operations, you can track everything from green coffee through packaged 5 lb bags of a particular blend.
Demand
Demand is the total amount that you need to produce at every stage of the process, and has two key inputs. Demand is what’s needed from orders that are due by the end of today, and also what’s needed by extra planned tasks later in the production process (aka Internal Demand).
Tasks
Tasks are planned to help you roast, package and fulfill everything that is due today. Completing a task uses a recipe to transform ingredients into something new (e.g. green coffee into roasted coffee, or multiple roasts into a blend). You can create a single task at any time, or you can Auto Plan to let the system automatically create all of your tasks for you to fulfill outstanding Demand.
Using the Today's Checklist
You can use the Today's Checklist, found on the Operations Dashboard, to walk through what needs to happen each day. Your goal is to ensure that you produce enough - or have enough inventory - to fulfill orders that are due today. Using the Today's Checklist makes this simple.
Import Orders
If you have
ShipStation connected, then you can click this button to import orders from services like Shopify or BigCommerce.
Schedule Orders
Demand is calculated based on orders that are due today and prior. You can use Operations: Schedule to drag and drop orders from today to another day in the week or to schedule out further. You can also view the Demand Calculator from this page which give you a preview of the raw demand needed to fill your selected orders.
Learn more about Schedule Orders here.
Count Inventory
Because Demand is calculated based upon your current Inventory, it's crucial that your inventory balances are correct. Having to restart the roaster because you found out that someone took 5 lb of a coffee that you thought was there is a bummer. Accurate inventory at the beginning of the day will help prevent those kind of issues.
Learn more about Count Inventory here.
Plan Tasks and AutoPlan
Planning Tasks manually is a great way to adjust your tasks throughout the day to fit specific needs that AutoPlan may not cover. For example, if you decide you want a little extra CarryOver just in case, Planning Tasks will allow you to make that happen.
Learn more about Planning Tasks here.
Clicking Auto Plan Demand will create just enough tasks to fulfill any outstanding Demand, using the batch minimums and maximums associated with things like Roasts. It may lead to carryover if a batch minimum is higher than is in demand.
View Bag Labels
Once you've planned tasks, you'll be able to see the Labels that are needed for the day. Completing a task here marks the associated subtask in the Packaging step as complete.
Complete Tasks
Completing tasks is where you'll spend most of your time as a team. You'll be able to see when tasks are completed as they happen, track who completed a task and easily see what remains to complete the day. Clicking this button starts at the first step in your production cycle.
Learn more about Completing Tasks here.
Fulfill Items
Create Shipping Labels
If you have shippable orders created in RoasterTools, use this area to push those orders to ShipStation in order to create Shipping Labels.
Ship Orders
Your last step in the daily flow is to mark an order as shipped. Orders will appear here when all items on the order are marked as fulfilled. Learn more about Shipping Orders here.
Navigating Operations
After selecting one of the options from Today's Checklist, you will have the option to navigate through Operations from the drop down menu at the top of the page.
