How to Create a Manufacturing Routing in EDGEBIC, Step by Step

To create a manufacturing routing in EDGEBIC by User Solutions you add one grid row per operation, type the hours one unit needs on that work center, link each row to the row that follows it, and save. Everything else on the routing is optional refinement. This walkthrough covers the grid, field by field, in the order you actually fill it.

The same routing can be built visually by dragging boxes on a canvas, covered in how to build a routing as a flow chart. The grid is faster once you know the fields, and it is the surface most planners live in. For what each field means before you start typing, read the bill of routing explained.

Before You Start

Three things need to exist first, and skipping any of them creates work later.

A work center with no shift has no capacity windows, so any step routed to it has nowhere to land. That is the single most common reason a new routing produces nothing on the Gantt. Work center configuration is covered in work centers explained, and calendars in shifts and calendars.

Step 1: Create the Routing

Open the BOR tab and pick the product in the selector at the top. If the product has no routing yet, EDGEBIC offers to create one. Say yes and fill three fields:

Give the routing a descriptive name. The name is what every other planner sees in the selector, and BOR 1 tells them nothing.

The create dialog also has an Advanced BOR Construction expander with Products and Work Centers tabs. Multi-select the machines and components you know the routing needs, move them across, and check the generated chain in the sequence preview before creating. For a long routing that is a fast way to rough out the skeleton and then correct the details in the grid.

Step 2: Add the Work-Center Steps

Click Add Step. A new row appears. In the new row, open the item picker in the WC/Product Id column, leave the selector on Workcenter, highlight the machine and confirm.

Then fill the timing columns straight in the row:

Number your sequences in tens. Inserting an operation between 10 and 20 later then costs you one row instead of a renumbering exercise.

Two entry shortcuts save real time. If you know a rate as pieces per hour rather than hours per piece, click the small converter button beside the hours cell: enter the piece count and the period, and it computes the decimal for you. You can also type a plain expression such as 1/4 or 30/60 directly into the cell.

Right-clicking an existing row gives you Add Step Above and Add Step Below, which is how you insert in place rather than adding at the bottom and re-sorting.

Step 3: Link the Chain

This is the step people skip, and it is the step that decides execution order. The sequence number sorts the grid. The link decides what runs when.

1. On the first step's row, open the picker in the Next In Sequence column. The multi-select popup lists the other steps.
2. Tick the step that follows and confirm.
3. Repeat down the routing.
4. On the last production step, open the same popup and click End Item. That links the final step to the product itself and closes the chain.

A step whose link is empty or points at a deleted step shows a warning marker next to its name. Fix those before scheduling. An unterminated chain, where no step points at the end product, is the most common cause of "the steps scheduled in a strange order" and it is invisible if you only read sequence numbers.

Branching is allowed. Tick more than one successor when the process fans out, and point several steps at the same successor where legs converge at an assembly bench.

Step 4: Add Component Steps

A component row says "at this point, this part is consumed." It books no machine time.

1. Click Add Step, then open the row's item picker.
2. Switch the selector from Workcenter to Product, highlight the component and confirm.
3. Fill the two fields that apply: Quantity (how many per unit of the end product) and Lead Time (days).
4. Link the row to the step that uses the component.

The timing cells on that row read N/A, because hours do not apply to a component. If the component has a routing of its own, the row is a sub-assembly and gets a star marker plus a View Subs button that previews its routing. The scheduler expands sub-assemblies at scheduling time, described in sub-assemblies on the design canvas.

Step 5: Read the Header Totals Before You Save

Three totals sit above the grid and update live as you type:

Use these as your unit check. A part you know takes about a minute per piece should read roughly 0.02 per unit, not 1.2. A per-unit figure that looks like a batch total almost always means a batch total got typed into an hours cell.

Two notes on the arithmetic. Component rows contribute no hours, so the per-unit total is always work-center rows only. And when the site-wide primary-hours-only setting is on, parallel child rows are excluded because they mirror the primary's window and would double count. Total Cost always reflects full effort regardless, because two machines committed for the same hour cost two machine-hours.

Step 6: Save with Update Standard BOR

Click Update Standard BOR. If EDGEBIC finds problems it lists them in a validation dialog and asks whether to save anyway. Prefer no. The validator flags exactly the broken links, self-references and missing values that turn into scheduling surprises a week later.

On success the routing becomes the product's standard recipe. What that does:

• New orders for this product schedule with it on the next scheduling run.
• Quote simulations use it immediately.
• Header totals and cost estimates recalculate on the spot.
• Jobs already on the schedule are untouched. Each carries its own frozen routing copy, so shop-floor paperwork stays valid.

Nothing on the Gantt moves until you run the scheduler. Imports and edits change data; only a scheduling run changes the plan.

Verify the Routing Actually Schedules

Building the routing is half the job. Prove it before you build the next fifty.

1. Create one order for a realistic quantity, say 100 units.
2. Run the scheduler and open the job on the Gantt.
3. Check the first step's booked hours against the arithmetic: setup plus hours per unit times quantity. For Widget-A's saw at 100 units that is 0.50 + 0.20 x 100 = 20.5 hours.
4. Check that the steps appear in the order you intended, not the order the grid sorts.
5. Open the Scheduler Anomalies report and confirm nothing fires for the job. How to run and read that report walks through it.

If the numbers match and the order is right, the routing is sound. If the hours are wildly large, you almost certainly have a batch total in a per-unit field, which is the first entry in routing setup mistakes.

When to Import Instead

Typing is right for the first few routings and wrong for sixty. A routing import maps your existing columns once, chains steps automatically in sequence order, creates missing work centers and products as it goes, and converts units on the way in. That path is covered in import masks explained, and the mechanics of the two-pass routing import in how EDGEBIC imports routings. If your data lives in an ERP export, ERP integration shows what the file looks like.

For the mechanism behind the fields you just filled, including how start times resolve and the order the timing fields compose in, read how EDGEBIC reads a routing. For the full pipeline, the complete EDGEBIC guide is the map, and EDGEBIC is the product hub.

Bring one routing and one order to a demo and watch it schedule against your calendars. Contact US.