Manufacturing · Odoo glossary
Work Centers
Learn what a work center represents, how Odoo assigns manufacturing operations to resources, and how working hours, capacity and costs affect planning.
Definition
In general ERP practice
A work center is a production resource or group of resources at which an operation is performed. It may represent a machine, assembly station or production area with a defined availability and capacity.
The work center describes where work can happen. The operation describes what needs to happen. A work order records an execution of that operation for a particular manufacturing requirement.
In Odoo
Odoo work centers support scheduling, capacity planning, cost tracking and performance analysis. With Work Orders enabled, an operation on a BoM specifies its work center.
Configuration includes working hours, alternative work centers, time efficiency, setup and cleanup time, and cost per hour. Scheduled work orders can be reviewed in Planning by Workcenter. These settings define the planning assumptions for the resource; recording actual work provides evidence for performance review.
Resource, operation and execution
Work center
The assembly station where work is carried out.
Operation
Assemble the finished product.
Work order
Perform that operation for a particular production order.
Capacity is more than a machine count
A resource may be installed but unavailable outside its working calendar. Setup time, downtime and alternative resources also affect scheduling. Describe the real production arrangement before entering capacity assumptions; a resource name alone does not represent its availability.
Official Odoo documentation
The Odoo-specific explanation above is based on the documentation for Odoo 19. Features and workflows can differ in other versions.
Related glossary terms
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