release-notes production manufacturing mrp erp inventory

Plenix 2026.10.39 — Manufacturing planning: MRP, multi-level BOMs and shop-floor costing

Production becomes a full manufacturing system. Bills of materials link to stock items, go many levels deep and roll up a standard cost. Material planning turns sales orders and production needs into planned purchases and production orders. Orders issue stock, book operation time, report output with lots and serials, and post work in progress and variances to your accounts. A capacity grid shows how loaded each work centre is, week by week.

The Plenix Team·14 October 2026·4 min read

Release 2026.10.39 carries on from 2026.10.38. The Production module now plans, runs and costs manufacturing from the customer's order through to the finished goods on the shelf. Production is an add-on module (Beta). Stock movements need Inventory, and the journals need Accounting.

New features

Production overview (Production → Dashboard). One screen shows open, late and held orders, material shortages, the value of work in progress, orders waiting to be closed, on-time delivery, yield and cost variance over the last 30 days, and this week's load on each work centre. Every figure opens the orders behind it. Shortages are worked out across all open orders in due-date order, so the order that needs stock first gets it first.
Multi-level bills of materials (Production → Bills of Materials). Link each BOM to the stock item it makes and pick its components from your stock items, with a scrap allowance per component and a yield loss for the whole batch. A component that has its own BOM is a sub-assembly, and the exploded view shows the full structure as many levels deep as it goes, with stock on hand and cost at every level.
Routings. Add the steps that make the product, each at a work centre, with setup time and run time per unit. They are used to cost labour, plan capacity and track progress on the shop floor.
Standard cost roll-up. Each BOM works out what one unit should cost: materials at item cost through every level, plus labour at each work centre's hourly rate. You can see how it compares with the item's current cost, and apply it to the item in one click.
Versions and where-used. Make changes as a new version so orders already running keep the structure they started with. Only one version per item is active. Where-used shows every BOM that uses an item.
Production orders that follow the real work. Releasing an order checks stock and warns you about shortages first. You can then issue all materials or line by line, return what was not used, book time and quantities against each operation, and report good and scrapped output. Components can be backflushed, and lot numbers, serials and expiry dates are recorded on the output. Hold and resume orders, then complete and close them.
Work in progress accounting. Issuing materials, booking labour and receiving finished goods post to work in progress automatically. Closing an order posts the difference between what it cost and the value of what it made as a production variance. Each order shows planned and actual material and labour costs side by side.
Material planning (Production → Planning). One run looks at open sales orders and the materials open production orders still need, then takes into account stock on hand, safety stock, open purchase orders and production already under way. It plans every level in order, so sub-assemblies and their parts are covered too. The result is a list of planned purchases and production orders, sized to reorder quantities and dated from lead times. Each one shows which demand it covers.
Exceptions. Planning flags what needs action: orders that are already too late to arrive on time, purchase orders that should be brought forward, items with no supplier to buy from, and BOMs that contain themselves.
Firming. Select planned orders and firm them in one step. Planned purchases become draft purchase orders, one per supplier. Planned manufacturing becomes draft production orders. You can set a supplier on a planned purchase before firming it, or dismiss lines you don't need. Every run is kept so you can look back at it.
Capacity (Production → Capacity). A week-by-week grid shows the hours of open work booked against each work centre compared with its capacity, coloured when it is close to full or overloaded. Click any cell to see the orders behind it.
Make to order. On a sales order, Make to order creates a production order for each stock line that has an active BOM, linked back to the sales order and its customer. It skips lines that are already covered.

Improvements

Production orders can be filtered by status, lateness, source, item, sales order and work centre, and each one links to its sales order, customer, item, BOM and capacity.
Sales orders link to the production orders made for them.
The Production menu now has Dashboard, Planning and Capacity pages.