How to create a Production Run

Sign up after August 2021 or upgraded to Operations?  This guide references the previous method for planning Production.  Please visit Introduction to Operations to plan production.

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 upon 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 start 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 a 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 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 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 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 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, and it may look something like this:

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.