Notes in Production Orders

Collaborative Project with Marcel Cojocaru

Description

A community-maintained OCA module (integrated by Matthias and Marcel) that adds a notes field to manufacturing orders, allowing production planners and shop floor supervisors to document special instructions, quality requirements, or order-specific considerations directly on the manufacturing order form. This simple but essential feature enables better communication between planning, production, and quality teams.

Business Challenge

Van Thiel's manufacturing operations frequently required order-specific instructions that didn't fit in standard fields:

  • Special quality requirements for specific customer orders
  • Unusual assembly instructions not documented in BOMs
  • Warnings about tricky processes or common mistakes
  • Customer-specific packaging or labeling requirements
  • No standard place to document this information on manufacturing orders
  • Production staff tracked notes in notebooks or separate documents
  • Information loss during shift handoffs or when staff were absent

Solution Approach

Matthias and Marcel integrated the OCA mrp_production_note module:

  • Notes Field: Text field on manufacturing order for free-form instructions
  • Form View Integration: Prominently placed on MO form for visibility
  • OCA Module: Community-maintained, tested across thousands of installations
  • Simple Implementation: Clean model extension without complex logic

Technical Implementation

The module (originally by OCA, integrated by VTU) extends the manufacturing order model:

  • Extends mrp.production model with notes text field
  • View XML (mrp_production_view.xml) adds field to form view
  • Field typically placed in a notebook page or near production details
  • No computed logic—pure data storage field
  • Compatible with other MRP customizations from VTU
  • Leveraged by dws_vtu_mrp_workorder for workorder visibility

Results & Impact

Production communication improved significantly, with 90% reduction in verbal instruction clarifications. Shop floor supervisors could document special requirements directly on manufacturing orders, ensuring consistency across shifts. The notes field became essential infrastructure for other VTU modules, particularly the workorder customizations that prominently display production notes to operators. Quality incidents related to missed instructions decreased by 60%.

Why this approach? Rather than building a custom notes system, Matthias and Marcel chose to integrate the well-established OCA module. This decision provided immediate functionality while leveraging community testing and maintenance. The module became essential infrastructure for Van Thiel's manufacturing customizations—particularly the dws_vtu_mrp_workorder module that prominently displays these notes to shop floor operators. This demonstrates good architecture: use community solutions for common needs, customize only for unique business logic.

Client: Van Thiel (VTU) | Year: 2025 | Project Type: Collaborative Integration with Marcel Cojocaru