Industrial Equipment Manufacturing
Quote a machine that does not exist yet, buy the long-lead items before the BOM is finished, and ship a serialized as-built record with it.
Engineer-to-order equipment is a project pretending to be a product. The order lands before the design does, the long-lead gearbox has to be bought while the bill of material is still half-drawn, the drawing changes in week nine of a sixteen-week build, and the machine ships with a serial number that has to answer questions about itself for the next twenty years. WorkCell treats the job as the cost object every posting is stamped with, so labor, material, and outside work accumulate against the build as it happens rather than at month end. Bills of material and routings are versioned and effective-dated, so a change mid-build supersedes rather than overwrites and the unit that shipped still shows what it was actually built from. Finite capacity scheduling plans the weld bay, the machine shop, and assembly against the hours they actually have.
Custom machine builders, automation integrators, packaging and process equipment OEMs, panel shops, and capital equipment manufacturers running engineer-to-order and configure-to-order work on project-length lead times.
| Standard | What It Requires |
|---|---|
| ISO 9001 | Document control, design and development control, identification and traceability, and corrective action — the baseline most equipment buyers and their insurers expect. |
| ASME BPVC | Applies when a build includes a pressure vessel or boiler component: qualified procedures and welders, material traceability, and documented examination before stamping. |
| RoHS | Restricted substances in the electrical and electronic content of a machine, declared from the component suppliers up into the as-built record. |
| REACH | Substances of very high concern declared through the supply chain, which on equipment usually lands on coatings, hydraulic fluids, seals, and cabling. |
Each machine carries a serial, and the as-built record under it resolves down through its assemblies to the component lots and serials consumed, the routing revision each operation ran to, the operator who ran it, and the inspection results recorded along the way. Two years later, a spares request or a warranty argument starts from what that unit actually contains rather than from the sales drawing of what it was supposed to contain.
The structure the unit was really built from, including the substitutions and mid-build revisions, kept per serial instead of collapsed back into the current BOM.
Generated from the job record, tying the shipped unit to its completed operations, component lots, and inspection results.
Measured values and sign-offs captured at the operation against the routing revision in effect, which is what a factory acceptance packet is assembled from.
Severity-classified nonconformances with disposition, plus the 8-D that closed a cause worth fixing rather than reworking twice.
A parts list that comes from the unit's own genealogy, so a replacement is quoted against what the customer has, not the current design.
Engineering wants to hold the bill of material until the design settles. Procurement needs the gearbox, the servo drives, and the castings on order now or the build slips before it starts. Without staged releases, the two teams negotiate by email and the long-lead items get ordered late.
Hours sit in a timesheet, material in a receipt, and the plating invoice in accounts payable, with nothing tying them to the build. The real cost of the machine arrives after the final payment, which is exactly too late to price the next one differently.
The drawing is revised, the new print goes to the floor, and half the subassemblies were already made to the old one. If the system overwrites the BOM rather than superseding it, the record of what that unit actually contains is destroyed in the same keystroke.
A customer calls about a machine from four years ago wanting a replacement part. The engineering BOM has moved on three revisions, the purchased components were substituted twice during the build, and the only reliable source is the field technician's photograph of a nameplate.
A sixteen-week machine, three service rebuilds, and a run of spares all want the same weld bay and the same machinist. An infinite-capacity plan says everything fits. Assembly discovers on Monday that the frame it needs is still in the queue behind two other jobs.
Versioned, effective-dated BOMs and routings
Engineering can publish a revision covering the long-lead items and keep drawing the rest. Later revisions supersede rather than overwrite, so a job released in March still resolves to the March structure. This is versioning and effective dating, not a routed change-request approval workflow.
The job as the cost object on every posting
Labor clocked at a terminal, material issued, a subcontract invoice, and a freight charge all carry the job they belong to. The running total against the estimate is readable mid-build, which is the only point in the project where it can still change the outcome.
Serialized as-built genealogy
Completions assign serials and the genealogy beneath them records the component lots, serials, operations, and inspections consumed. The record a service conversation needs twenty years later is produced by building the machine, not by somebody documenting it afterwards.
Purchasing against the build, with lead times that matter
Items carry lead times and purchase orders are raised against the job, with the supplier catalog holding negotiated pricing and foreign currency converted through to the cost. The gearbox ordered in week two shows up on the build's cost the day it is committed.
Finite capacity scheduling with proposal runs
The scheduler plans against real machine and labor capacity instead of assuming infinite capacity, and a planner can test a sequence as a proposal before committing it. When a casting slips four weeks, you see which downstream operations and which promised dates move.
Inspection, nonconformance, and corrective action at the operation
AQL sampling plans and inspection templates define what gets checked on a weldment, a subassembly, and the finished unit. Failures raise severity-classified nonconformances, and systemic causes escalate into an 8-D attached to the build that exposed them.
Versioned, effective-dated bills of material and routings per item revision, released in stages.
PurchasingLong-lead items and outside work bought against the job, with supplier catalog pricing.
ProductionFinite capacity scheduling, serialized completions, and terminals capturing real hours.
AccountingEvery posting stamped with a job, so project cost is a reading rather than a reconstruction.
Quoting, engineering, purchasing, scheduling, shop floor, and project costing on one database.
APSFinite capacity scheduling for long, one-off builds competing with spares and rebuilds.
MESOperator terminals capturing real hours and inspection results across a sixteen-week assembly.
ECCRevision and effective-date control so a mid-build change does not erase the as-built record.
Builders who design and manufacture to a single order with project-length lead times.
OEMOriginal equipment manufacturers running their own product lines and spares.
EngineeringVersioned bills of material, routings, and revisions with effective dating.
Power Generation EquipmentComparable project-length builds under heavier code and documentation requirements.
Can purchasing start ordering long-lead items before engineering finishes the bill of material?
Yes. The bill of material is versioned, so engineering can publish a revision that covers the long-lead gearbox, drives, and castings and keep drawing the rest. Purchase orders go against the job, so the money is already attached to the build when the remaining structure lands weeks later.
What happens when a drawing changes in the middle of a build?
The new revision supersedes the old one with an effective date, and jobs already released keep the revision they were built to. Be clear on what this is not: WorkCell versions and effective-dates the change, it does not run a change-request approval workflow with routed sign-offs. That stays in your process.
Do I need a new part number every time I modify a part, or just a new revision?
WorkCell supports either, because the argument is about your form-fit-function rule, not the software. Revisions are first-class and effective-dated, so a non-interchangeable change can take a new item while an interchangeable one takes a revision, and both resolve correctly on a job built last year.
Can I see what a project has actually cost while it is still running?
Yes. Every posting carries a job as its cost object, so labor clocked at a terminal, material issued, and a plating invoice all land on the build the day they happen. You are reading a running total against the estimate, not waiting for a month-end reconciliation to tell you the margin went.
Can I pull up exactly what a machine shipped with, years after it left?
That is what the as-built record is for. The unit's serial resolves down through its assemblies to the component lots and serials that went into it, the routing revision each operation ran to, and the inspection results recorded along the way. Spares conversations start from that, not the sales drawing.
Does WorkCell handle field service and spare parts?
Spares, yes — the as-built record is the parts list, so a replacement is quoted and sold against the unit it belongs to. Field service dispatch, technician scheduling, and installed-base maintenance are not built. If a service business is half your revenue, say so early and we will tell you straight.
See it run on your parts.
Tell us how a machine moves from order to shipment in your shop today and we will tell you straight whether WorkCell is a fit.