How to Copy a Routing to Another Product in EDGEBIC

To copy a routing to another product in EDGEBIC by User Solutions you give the target product its own routing and rebuild the steps on it, because a routing belongs to one end product. There is no shared routing and no single cross-product clone button. What there is instead is a set of tools that reproduce a routing quickly: an expander that chains a whole routing in one action, and import that handles many products at once.

Understanding why a routing is tied to one product is half the task. For the concept, read the bill of routing explained. This post is the practical rebuild.

Before You Start

• The target product exists. A routing has to attach to a finished product, so create the product first if it is new.
• You know how the two routings differ. Identical is a straight rebuild. Nearly identical is a rebuild plus a couple of edits. Very different is a new routing that happens to share a machine or two.
• The work centers and components the routing uses already exist, so the rebuild references real records rather than creating gaps.

Rebuilding the Routing on the Target

The fastest hand method uses the Advanced BOR Construction expander, which chains a whole routing in one action instead of one row at a time.

1. Open the BOR tab and pick the target product in the selector. If it has no routing, EDGEBIC offers to create one; click Yes.
2. In the Create New BOR dialog, fill BOR Name:, Select End Product: (the target product), and an optional Description:.
3. Expand Advanced BOR Construction. It has Products and Work Centers tabs.
4. On the Work Centers tab, multi-select the same machines the source routing uses from the Available Work Centers: list, and move them across with the >> button. Do the same for any shared components on the Products tab.
5. Check the generated chain in the BOR Sequence Preview before you commit. It shows the steps chained in order, which is the shape you are reproducing.
6. Click Create BOR. The routing is created with the steps in place.
7. Open the grid and adjust anything that differs on the target: change hours, add or remove a step, relink around a difference. See adding a step to an existing routing and changing the hours on a routing step.
8. Click Update Standard BOR to save.

For many products, do not rebuild by hand at all. Routing steps load from Excel or CSV through import masks, which is the same path used to bring routings across from an existing system. One file, keyed by product, chains every variant's steps at once. A short reference routing built by hand is worth keeping as a template to check the import against.

There is a subtlety in the import worth knowing before you run it. When the mask resolves a work center, it matches on the machine's name, and a name that matches nothing is not an error that stops the import. Instead the row is treated as a material step, because a routing step with no work center is exactly how EDGEBIC models a consumed component. So a misspelled or renamed machine on the source file does not fail loudly; it quietly produces a routing that books no time on that operation. The fix is to make the work center names in the file match the plant setup exactly before you import, and to spot-check the first imported routing against a hand-built reference so a silent material step does not slip through.

A note on the word "copy" itself: what you are building is an independent routing that resembles the source, not a live link to it. That is deliberate. Two products that share a routing today usually diverge tomorrow, and independent records let each evolve without disturbing the other. If you truly want a pooled setup where several products draw on the same interchangeable machines, that is a work center modeling question rather than a routing copy, and it belongs on the steps as alternates or a group.

What Changes When You Save

The important point is independence. Editing the source routing later does not touch the target, and vice versa. They are two records, not one shared recipe, which is what you want when the products diverge over time.

How to Check It Worked

Open the target product's routing and read the header totals. Estimated Hour per unit = and Setup Time = should match the source when the routings are identical, and differ by exactly your edits when they are not. A total that is off points straight at the row you got wrong.

Trace the chain, in the grid or in Designer mode. Every step should sit on a path that ends at the target product's own end item node, and no row should carry the ⚠ marker in the WC/Product Name column.

Schedule a test order for the target and compare its Job View Gantt against the source. Identical routings should produce identical bar patterns at the same quantities. A difference you did not intend is the tell that a value did not carry across.

Common Mistakes

Expecting a product clone to bring the routing. Cloning a product copies its attributes, not its routing, so the clone starts with no routing at all. Building the target's routing is a separate, deliberate step.

Treating export as a copy path. The Excel export is a readable snapshot, not the import format, so it is not a round trip. Use import masks to load routings from a spreadsheet, and treat an export only as reference for the numbers.

Referencing machines or parts that do not exist on the target's plant setup. The rebuild has to point at real work centers and components. A name that matches nothing leaves a gap, and on import a mismatched work center name turns the row into a material step by default.

Rebuilding forty variants by hand. Past a few products, import is faster and less error-prone. Reserve the hand rebuild for the first template and the odd one-off.

Assuming the two routings stay in sync. They are independent from the moment you create the target's. A change to one is not a change to the other, which is a feature, not a limitation, once the products diverge.

Next Steps

Once the target routing exists, the ordinary edits apply: reordering steps, adding a material step, and the rest. The full task library is at the EDGEBIC how-to hub, and the platform overview is at EDGEBIC.