Routing
A routing describes how a product is manufactured: it defines the individual operations in sequence and assigns each step the required resources, standard times and inspection specifications. Together with the bill of materials, which describes the "what", the routing defines the "how" of production.
A routing describes step by step how a product is manufactured. It breaks production down into individual operations – such as cutting, drilling, assembly and inspection – arranges them in the technologically correct sequence and assigns each operation the required resources, standard times and quality-assurance specifications. The routing is thus the central manufacturing instruction for an item: it documents the production know-how and makes it plannable, calculable and repeatable.
While the bill of materials describes which materials and assemblies go into a product (the "what"), the routing describes in which steps and at which work centres the finished product is created from them (the "how"). Together they form the basis of every production order. In ERP and production-planning systems, the routing is a master data record in its own right, maintained once and reused for every run of an item.
At a glance
- Manufacturing instruction: defines operations, sequence and resources
- Describes the "how" of production – complements the bill of materials (the "what")
- Contains standard times (setup, processing, queue and transport time)
- Basis for scheduling, capacity planning and costing in the ERP
- Own master data record, maintained once per item and reusable
What a routing consists of
A routing is structured as a sequence of numbered operations (also called tasks or steps). Each operation describes a self-contained activity at a specific work centre or machine group. The numbering – often in increments of ten such as 10, 20, 30 – defines the sequence and leaves room to insert steps later without renumbering everything. Alongside a short text and detailed work instruction, each operation references the associated work centre and the qualification required there.
At the heart of every operation are the standard times. The main distinctions are the setup time (one-off machine setup per lot), the processing or unit time (time per unit produced) and transition times such as queue and transport time between steps. From these times the system calculates the lead time and capacity requirement. In addition, tools, fixtures, inspection characteristics and – where needed – outsourced processing by a subcontractor can be defined for each operation.
Operation, work centre and standard time
An operation is the smallest plannable unit of the routing and is always assigned to a work centre – a machine, a plant or a manual assembly station. The work centre in turn carries master data such as capacity per shift, cost rate and availability. The standard time links the two: it states how long the operation occupies the work centre. Only this link turns a pure activity description into a schedulable and calculable value.
How a routing is used in production
The routing is a master data record that only triggers actual production through the production order. When a production order is created, the system copies the item's routing into the order and scales the standard times up to the lot size to be produced. The order paperwork is derived from the result: job tickets, travellers and work instructions accompany the lot through production, or completion is confirmed digitally via shop-floor data collection (SFDC) and a connected MES.
Based on the times and work centres, the system schedules the order – forward from the start date or backward from the delivery date – and determines when each work centre is occupied. The routing is therefore also the basis of capacity planning: only the sum of the standard times of all scheduled orders shows whether a machine is over- or underloaded. After production, actual times are reported against the targets; deviations feed into post-calculation and back into maintaining the times.
Why the routing matters
The routing bundles a company's manufacturing know-how in one defined place and makes it independent of individual employees. Without it, every run of a product would be manual work and a matter of experience; with it, production becomes reproducible, plannable and calculable. The stored standard times are the data basis for three central tasks: scheduling orders, calculating the load on capacities and pre-costing the manufacturing costs.
Costing in particular depends directly on the routing. Multiplying the standard times by the cost rates of the work centres yields the production costs – which, alongside the material costs from the bill of materials, feed into the manufacturing costs and thus into prices and quotations. Unmaintained or estimated times therefore lead directly to wrong costs and dates. A current routing reconciled with actual data is thus not bureaucratic decoration but a business control variable.
Not least, the routing safeguards the quality and traceability of production. Because every operation is stored with instructions, inspection characteristics and the required qualification, a binding, documented manufacturing path emerges. This makes onboarding new employees easier, makes processes auditable and creates the basis for targeting improvements at individual operations instead of reorganising the entire workflow.
The routing in ERP and production-planning systems
In ERP systems with a production module, the routing is a master data area of its own, alongside the item and material master and the manufacturing bill of materials. Maintained there are the operations, their assignment to work centres and the standard times; the system links them with the capacity and cost master data of the work centres. Through production planning and control (PPC) and material requirements planning (MRP/MRP II), the routing feeds into scheduling, capacity balancing and order release. More sophisticated systems allow alternative routings, variant- or quantity-dependent operations and parallel production.
The practical benefit arises from the interplay: the routing supplies the times, shop-floor data collection reports the actual values back, an MES controls the shop floor in real time, and post-calculation closes the loop. In this way, the routing connects the technical manufacturing instruction with the commercial order and cost view in a continuous data flow.
Distinction: routing vs. bill of materials and recipe
Routing and bill of materials are often mentioned in the same breath but describe different things: the bill of materials lists the components of a product (the "what"), the routing the steps of their processing (the "how"). In the process industry – e.g. chemicals, food, cosmetics – the classic operation-oriented routing is often replaced by the recipe or process instruction, which links ingredients and process steps. Functionally it fulfils the same role but is more strongly geared to continuous and batch-based processes.
Example
Example: a mid-sized furniture manufacturer
A mid-sized manufacturer produces solid-wood shelves in series. For the "Shelf 80" model, a routing with five operations is stored in the ERP: 10 cutting (panel saw, setup time 15 min, unit time 4 min), 20 edge processing, 30 drilling the connection holes (CNC), 40 pre-assembly and 50 final inspection. Each operation references its work centre with capacity and cost rate.
When an order for 120 shelves comes in, the company creates a production order. The system copies the routing, scales the unit times up to 120 units, schedules backward from the delivery date and checks whether the CNC machine still has capacity in the planned week. The calculated manufacturing costs result from standard times multiplied by cost rates plus the material value from the bill of materials. After production, the shop floor reports the actual times back via SFDC – if drilling consistently takes longer than planned, the standard time in the routing is corrected so the next calculation is accurate.
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