(Updated) How to create a Production Run

Overview

1. What are production runs and what are the requirements needed?
2. How to create a production run
3. How to add extra coffee to a production run
4. Batch Task in Production Runs
5. Label Task in Production Runs
6. Roast Task in Production Runs
7. Weigh Task in Production Runs
8. Blend Task in Production Runs
9. Grind Task in Production Runs

What are production runs?

A Production Run is a key feature of RoasterTools.  It automates the tedious part of roasting - that part that involves a spreadsheet or a calculator - by breaking down your roast, packaging, and fulfillment needs into actionable steps.

At RoasterTools, we define a Production Run as a production report based on wholesale and retail orders and a system to track progress throughout the production process.

Prerequisites for a Production Run

You need to have at least one order in the "Ready" status before you can create a Production Run.  You can view the available orders for a Production Run by visiting your Order page and clicking on the "Ready" tab.

If you haven't created an order yet or imported one from an external store like Shopify, you can learn more about how to do that by clicking here.  

How to create a Production Run

Step One - Adding Orders

You have two main ways to create a Production Run.  You can either use the "+ New Production Run" button found on the user dashboard screen or click over to the "Orders" page to run batch actions.  Let's dive into each option one at a time:

Creating a Production Run via "+ New Production Run" button

You'll find this button on the main dashboard.  

After clicking it, you'll automatically see every order that's in the "Ready" status sorted by its "Roast date".  At the top are Future orders in a collapsed section, followed by expanded sections for Today, Yesterday, and Older.

What is the Roast Date?  It's the intended production date for this order.  The default is the same date that the order is created for wholesale orders or the day that the order is imported for imported orders from services like Shopify.

You can customize the Roast Date by customer within the Production Planner if it's a wholesale customer, or for all imported orders inside your account settings.  

You can click the checkbox next to the section header to select all Today orders for example.  You can also add future orders to a Production Run if needed by expanding the Future section to see the available orders.

It is probably easiest to add orders to a Production Run via the "+ New Production Run" button, especially if you have many orders to add.

Creating Production Run via a Batch Action on the Orders page

You can also create a Production Run via the Orders page, by selecting one or more orders and clicking the "Create a Production Run" from the "Batch Action" dropdown:

A couple of caveats on this method:

1. You can easily add orders intended to be roasted in the future to a Production Run by using the Batch Action since your future orders are sorted at the top of the list.
2. You cannot choose more than the 50 orders that can be shown on a page.

Step Two - Production Run Precheck & Carryover

You have taken the first step in creating your first Production Run, congrats!  

You will likely not see this pop up if this is your first Production Run, but will likely be soon so it's worth reviewing now.  You can also learn more about Carryover in its help article.  

Your Production Run Precheck warns you that the Production Run will be consuming a certain amount of existing bulk carryover.  

If you have carryover coffee from a previous Production Run, we want you to use that before asking you to roast more.  

In fact, you can create a Production Run that does not require you to roast at all because 100% of the required coffee is available from Carryover.

If the Carryover that the system projects is not accurate - say someone on your team took an extra couple pounds home last night - then you can edit the Carryover by 

1. Click on the button in the pop up to go to the Carryover page to edit the available amounts
2. Click refresh on the pop up when you're done
3. Verify the amounts are correct, before Approving

Step Three - Approving a Production Run

After confirming any Carryover that may be used in this Production Run (if applicable), it's time to Approve your Production Run and create the tasks needed to manage the production process.

Approving a Production Run changes its status from  Planned to Approved.  

Step Four - Batches, Roasts and Labels - oh my!

You will notice a new bar at the top of your Production Run page after clicking Approve.

You can click on each tab to complete this task, starting with Batch.  

Please note: you may not see all of these tasks on your Production Run.  The system is smart enough to not create a Blend, Grind or Bundle task if you don't have any post-roasted blends, ground coffees or bundled products on this production run.  

Additionally, if you have a Production Run that is completely 100% covered by Carryover, you may not see the Batch, Weigh and Roast tasks.  It's our goal to provide your team with just the information needed to complete this Production Run, and no more.  

TIP!  Tracking Tasks Offline: Printing Tasks & Mark All Tasks as Complete

You may not want to track each task in real time via RoasterTools, and would rather rock pen and paper.  No problem!  

You can print each task using the print button, track the tasks offline with a clipboard, then return to the page to "Mark All Tasks as Complete" when you're done.

How to add extra coffee to a production run

Add your batches by using the edit screen. You can get to the edit screen by:

1. Create a Production Run
2. Click the blue "Edit" button
3. Add green pounds to your main production run as necessary via the Adjustment Screen (step 1 below)
4. Click "Save Adjustment" (Step 2 above)
5. Click "Approve" on the initial Production Run screen
6. You've added roasts to a production run beyond what's ordered!

Batch task in production runs

You're probably going to start with the Batch task, as it's required to populate your Weigh and Roast tasks.  

The Batch task is where you plan your exact batches for this Production Run while ensuring that you produce enough coffee to fulfill all of your orders.  

Let's identify the key headers and what they mean:

1. Roast: Under Roast you will see a list of roasts sorted by green or pre-blended coffee.  
2. Target Green: You must create batches that total at least this amount to ensure having enough roasted coffee to fulfill orders.
3. Roasted Carryover: You may elect to roast more than is required, or a batch minimum may force you to have a projected "Roasted Carryover".  You can use this column to forecast how much roasted carryover you'll have given the batches you've planned, and what is required to fulfill orders on the Production Run.
4. Batches: Total number of planned batches for this particular roast.  
5. Min / Max Amounts:  You set a minimum and a maximum batch size when you created each roast.  One tip is that you can click on these minimum and maximum amounts to prefill the batch box (#6 in the image above).  If you have a constant batch size, your minimum and maximum will be the same amount.
6. Batch Box:  You can enter any amount, even an amount less than or greater than the minimum/maximum for this particular roast, in the Batch box.  Press the "+" button to create a batch of this size.  
7. Planned Batches: If you've planned one or more batches, they will show up to the right of the Batch Box.  Your Planned Batches are what show up as tasks in the Weigh and Roast tab.

You can also Auto Batch the entire run by clicking the button in the top right, which will attempt to create the most efficient Production Run with the fewest batches and the smallest amount of Carryover.  

You can delete or add additional batches as needed after using Auto Batch.

Label tasks in production runs

You likely need to apply labels to stock bags to prep for the products sold on a Production Run or pull from backstock of pre-printed bags.  Or you may print those labels using a printer like a Primera.  Or all three. 

The Label tab helps to answer the question of how many labels you'll need for each product by bag size/style.  

In the initial view, it's sorted first by bag size (e.g. "12oz" in the example below) and then by product (e.g. "Guatemala Coop Rio Azul, Ethiopia Natural Galena Abaya...etc.").  

You'll notice that the "Bag" view is highlighted in blue above "12oz" on the page below, indicating that the initial view is the "Bag" view for the Label task.

You'll notice in the image above that in addition to the quantity of bags needed, it also specifies the grind type for that quantity.  It's especially useful if you sell ground coffee as you can label those bags to be ground as they are prepped.  

A small sticker or custom mark on each bag to be ground applied at this stage in the process can help prevent shipping orders out of whole beans that should be ground!

You can also flip the view to sort by Product rather than Bag, which is useful for double-checking your initial preparations before proceeding.  

After switching to the Product view in the Label task, prep the bags by bag size as described above, then physically combine the bags by-product instead of by bag size.  

You'll find this resorting to be useful as production progresses since you will be ready to package a coffee right as it comes off the roaster...since all of our bags for that particular coffee are in one pile.  

It's useful to do a high-level check when you have resorted your bags by-product by double counting the total bags needed for each product, and confirming that these are prepped.  You will save a lot of time later in the process if your bags are ready to be filled as the coffee comes off the cooling tray!

Roast Task in Production Run

The Roast tab is similar to the Weigh-in in that it tracks batches created on the Batch page.  Roast batch values shown reflect green coffee batches before roasting, or what needs to go into the roaster.

Roast has a couple of main differences, though.  A small difference is that Roast is sorted by roast level, from lightest to darkest based upon weight loss, rather than by green used.

A more significant difference is that you can create carryover by marking a roast as complete.  We treat marking a roast as done as meaning it's been roasted, and you can't go turn roasted coffee back into green.  

It's for this reason that if you want to create Carryover, possibly for another Production Run to consume, you'll need to mark all the relevant Roast tasks as complete.  

As an example, marking a 20lb batch with 20% weight loss as done for a production run that fulfills orders for just two 5lb bags of that roast would result in 6lbs of carryover to be immediately available - even if not every task on the production run is not complete.  

Weigh Task in Production Run

The batches created on the Batch task are now represented as tasks to be completed on the Weigh tab.  This tab allows you to track whether each batch was weighed out (in green, unroasted coffee!) before roasting.

Your batches to be weighed are sorted by green coffee or pre-blend so that you can weigh out all of the roasts for a particular green/pre-blend at the same time.  

Pre-blended coffees break down your blend needs by green coffee both as a percentage and per batch so that it's easier to weigh out your batches accurately.

It's common in small to medium-sized roasteries to assign weighing out green for each batch to someone on your team who will not be the person roasting.  A production assistant or assistant roaster.  You can use the Weigh tab to assign these tasks to that person and track what's been done.

If you weigh out just before roasting, mark this task as all done using the button in the upper right.

Blend Task in Production Run

If you post-roast blend, that is blend after a coffee is roasted, then the Blend task will guide you through what to blend to fulfill orders on your production run.  

If you don't post-roast blend, don't worry - this task will never appear!

Please note that you may need to use Carryover when creating post-roast blends.  RoasterTools prefers to 'consume' carryover in blends before single-origin coffees.

Grind Task in Production Run

Use the Grind task to ensure that ground coffees never leave the roastery as a whole bean again!

Don't grind your coffee?  No problem!  You'll never see this task.  You will also not see this task if there are no ground bags on this production run.  Less (mental) clutter!

Use the Grind task whether you grind one bag at a time or you grind bulk coffee before distributing to bags via a weigh and fill.  

One bag at a time

You'll likely have your production set up to flow from the roaster to a blending area (if needed) to a final packaging station.  If you grind your coffee, it's best to wait to seal bags before consulting the Grind task.  

So your production flow would go:

Roast ==> Blend (if necessary) ==> Bag (using bags prepped on the Label task) ==> Grind ==> Seal ==> Fulfill ==> Ship

Pro tip: place a sticker/symbol/something physically on the bag during the label phase to signify that the bag needs to be ground.  Keep it simple, and build in redundancy to prevent those bags from ever shipping the whole bean.  

It costs a lot of money to ship another box to a customer...just because they have whole-bean coffee that they didn't order and can't use.  

Bulk grind

Use the totals at the top of each roast to set aside the coffee needed for each grind type.   You can then efficiently grind before bagging up using a weigh and fill or something similar.

Your production flow for bulk ground coffees would be:

Roast ==> Blend (if necessary) ==> Grind ==> Bag (using bags prepped on the Label task) ==> Seal ==> Fulfill ==> Ship