OEMs
You own the design, so you own the forecast, the option list, the spares demand, and the question of what every machine in the field was built from.
You own the design and the forecast, so planning, service parts and aftermarket demand are yours too.
Nobody sends an OEM a release schedule. Demand is your own forecast plus whatever the dealer channel commits to plus the spares orders that arrive the week a machine goes down, and all three compete for the same parts and the same cells. WorkCell gives you the two things that make those trades decidable: cost posted against the Job as the work happens, so the real cost of making a part can be compared with a quoted price to buy it, and finite capacity scheduling with proposal runs, so a spares order jumping the queue is a visible trade rather than a quiet delay on next month's build. Serial traceability keeps the installed base honest, so a field question resolves to the revision and the lots that shipped in that unit.
There is no customer release to plan against, so the build plan comes from a sales forecast, a dealer commitment of uncertain firmness, and a seasonal pattern somebody remembers. Long-lead purchased content has to be committed before any of it is confirmed, which means every planning cycle is a bet placed with the company's cash. Buy early and the yard fills with castings for a configuration that stopped selling; buy late and the build line waits.
A bracket is made in-house because it always has been, and a weldment is bought because the cell was busy the month it was sourced. Neither decision gets revisited, because nobody can say what the in-house part actually costs once setup, scrap, and the machine it displaces are counted. The option list quietly becomes a cost structure nobody chose.
Three engine choices, two control packages, four hydraulic variants and a paint code produce more sellable configurations than anybody can maintain as separate part numbers. The ones that get built regularly have a clean bill of material; the rest get assembled from a base structure and a sales note, and the cost of the odd configuration is never really known. The order gets priced off the base machine plus a markup on the options, which is right on average and wrong on every individual unit.
A machine is down in the field and a dealer needs a pump today. The pump on the shelf was allocated to a build starting Monday. Whoever asks loudest wins, the build line finds out when the kit is short, and the only visible consequence is a late shipment two weeks later that gets blamed on something else entirely.
Which revision shipped in serial 412, who it shipped to, what has been replaced in it since, and whether the new pump supersedes the old one are questions answered by whoever has been there longest. When that person is out, a service call ships the wrong part, and a warranty argument turns on a record nobody can produce. The machine is in the field for twenty years; the spreadsheet rarely survives five.
Real make cost against a quoted buy price
Labor clocked at a terminal, material issued, scrap recorded, and purchased receipts are all stamped with the Job, so the cost of making a part is measured rather than estimated. The supplier catalog holds the buy side, which turns make-or-buy into a comparison of two numbers you can defend instead of a habit nobody revisits.
Multi-level bills of material per configuration
Configurations are maintained as multi-level bills of material with revisions and effective dates, so the structure a unit was built to stays recoverable. WorkCell has no rules-based product configurator today, so option combinations are managed as items and bills rather than generated from a rule set at order entry.
Finite scheduling that makes the spares trade visible
The scheduler plans against real machine and labor capacity, and a proposal run lets a planner see what moves before a spares order is pushed ahead of a build. The decision to serve the field first still gets made, but it gets made knowing which shipment it costs rather than discovering it later.
Serial traceability across the installed base
Completions assign serials and keep them linked to the lots issued, the operations run, and the inspection results recorded. A unit in the field resolves backward to the revision it was built to and the material in it, which is what a service question, a supersession decision, or a warranty dispute actually turns on.
Shop floor terminals that capture the build
Operators clock on to an operation and record quantities, scrap, and time at the machine, so the cost record and the as-built record come from the same entry. On a mixed line running new builds and spares through the same cells, that is the only way the two stop being indistinguishable in the numbers. Spares work that looks cheap because its labor was absorbed into a build is a margin problem hiding in plain sight.
Spares revenue and the ledger, connected
Shopify and QuickBooks Online are live integrations, so parts sold online and the financial record do not need a third system or a monthly export. A REST API and webhooks are available for the rest. Dealer portals, warranty claim management, and field service dispatch are not built, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Multi-level bills of material per configuration, revisioned and effective dated.
ProductionFinite scheduling, proposal runs, and terminals capturing time and scrap.
InventoryOn-hand across build and spares, with lot and serial traceability.
SalesQuotes and orders for new units and aftermarket parts in one place.
Sales, engineering, inventory, scheduling, shop floor, and job costing on one database.
APSFinite capacity scheduling when spares orders interrupt a planned build sequence.
MRPThe category that nets forecast and spares demand against on-hand; WorkCell's material planning is still in progress.
CPQConfigure-price-quote for option-heavy products; WorkCell has no rules-based configurator today.
When the order arrives before the design does.
Industrial EquipmentCapital machinery with options, spares, and a serialized installed base.
InventoryOn-hand across build and spares, with lot and serial traceability.
OwnerWhat the make-or-buy and spares trade looks like from the top.
How do we decide whether to make a part or buy it?
Compare a measured make cost with a quoted buy price. WorkCell posts labor, material, setup, and scrap against the Job, so the in-house number comes from real runs rather than a standard nobody has revisited. The supplier catalog holds the buy side, including currency and unit conversion on the way in.
Can WorkCell configure a machine from an option list at order entry?
No. There is no rules-based product configurator in WorkCell today, so configurations are maintained as items and multi-level bills of material rather than generated from rules. If option combinations run into the thousands, that is a real gap and worth raising before you evaluate anything else.
How do we stop spares orders from eating the parts the build line needs?
Make the trade visible before you take it. Finite capacity scheduling with proposal runs shows which builds move when a spares order jumps ahead. WorkCell does not yet run live material planning, so netting forecast and spares demand against on-hand remains a planner's call rather than an automatic one.
Which revision went into the machine with serial number 412?
The serial resolves backward to it. Completions assign serials linked to the lots issued, the operations run, the operators who ran them, and the inspection results, with the bill of material revision in effect at the time. A field service or supersession question becomes a query instead of a conversation with whoever remembers.
Does WorkCell handle warranty claims and field service dispatch?
No. Warranty claim management, field service dispatch, and technician scheduling are not built, and neither are dealer portals. What WorkCell gives a service organization is the build record behind each serial, which is the input those processes need. The processes themselves live in another system today.
Can we sell spares online and keep the financial record straight?
Yes. Shopify and QuickBooks Online are the two live integrations, so online parts orders and the ledger connect without a manual export. Everything else, including dealer-facing portals and EDI, is roadmap, with a REST API and webhooks available if you want to build the link yourself.
See where WorkCell fits your shop.
Tell us how you plan builds against spares demand today and we will tell you straight whether WorkCell is a fit.