Production Units

A Production Unit is a place where an operation runs. A stitching line. A cutting table. A washing machine. A subcontract supplier. Every Production Batch step lands at a Unit; without Units, work has nowhere to go.

The Production Unit master is the configuration layer. It defines the unit, its capacity, and (for outsourced units) the supplier and default cost source.

Getting there

Awesome bar: Cmd/Ctrl + K → type production unit → pick Production Unit List.

Click path: Desk → GarmentFlow → Production → Setup card → Production Unit.

The two unit types

Every Unit is one of two types:

• Internal — work happens in-house. The Unit links to a Shop Floor (where on the factory map it sits) and uses your factory's own labor rate.
• External — work is outsourced. The Unit links to a Supplier, a Default Service Item (the item code that represents this service in purchasing), a Default Cost Source (Blanket Order / PO / PI), and optionally a Default Blanket Order if you've pre-negotiated rates.

The distinction matters because cost lands differently:

• Internal Units charge cost from labor (Cost Per Minute × minutes).
• External Units charge cost from procurement documents (the Blanket Order rate, the PO rate, or the PI).

Pick the wrong type and the Batch's cost rollup is wrong from day one.

The tabs

Configuration tab. Unit name, operation it runs, unit type (Internal / External), default warehouse, plus the type-specific fields. For External, this is also where Supplier and the procurement defaults live.

Capacity tab. Two pieces:

• Capacity section: employee count, shift minutes, efficiency %, and the calculated daily capacity.
• Capacity Method section: how capacity is measured — SMV (default; capacity = minutes ÷ SMV per operation), Cycle Time (batch-based; requires max quantity per batch), or Units/Hour (hourly rate).

The capacity numbers here are what the simulator and the unit-load dashboard work against. Wrong numbers here mean wrong simulator output and wrong load reporting.

Contact tab. For External units, contact details for the supplier. Optional but useful — a supervisor who needs to chase a delay can open the Unit and find a phone number.

How many Units to create

A common question: do you create one Unit per operation, or one Unit per physical place?

The answer is one Unit per physical place that runs an operation independently. Two stitching lines that can be loaded independently are two Units. One wash drum that can run one cycle at a time is one Unit. Three subcontract suppliers running the same wash service are three Units.

The simulator, the load dashboard, and the cost rollup all reason about Units as the atomic capacity allocation. Lump two things into one Unit and they'll share capacity that shouldn't be shared.

Image: Production Unit list showing a mix of Internal stitching lines and External subcontract suppliers, with capacity and unit type visible.

What to do next

Move on to Assembly Operations and skills for the operations that run on these Units.