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Who makes what

4 min read · #production · #crafts · #hr

Categories and families

An artefact is one thing the factory makes. A category, a department on screen, is a shelf of them: bath bombs, soap, essential oils, a brand range. Every artefact belongs to at most one department. Inside a department, families are a finer grouping, the same as the product families in the catalogue: the lavender bath bombs, the citrus ones. Families are optional and only help you find things; nothing is planned by family.

  • Factory → Crafts → Artefacts has three tabs: Departments, Families and All artefacts. Open a department or a family to see its artefacts, and use the new button on either tab to create one.
  • To move artefacts, tick them on any artefact list and use Move to department or Move to family.
  • Deleting a family leaves its artefacts in place, without a family.
  • A whole catalogue of artefacts, or of raw materials, can be loaded at once with the upload button on the list.

Departments drive two things: the By category view of the To produce list, and the fallback for artisans, explained next.

Artisans

On every department page and every artefact page there is a row under the title: Usually made by. Families do not have one.

  • Pick a name from Add artisan… to attach someone. Only working employees of your organisation are offered.
  • Attach as many people as you like. The first one is highlighted; that is the default owner.
  • Click the small cross on a chip to detach. Order matters: the first person attached stays first until removed.

aiku reads it like this. For a line in To produce it looks at the artefact first. If the artefact has artisans, the first one owns the line. If not, it looks at the artefact's department and takes the first artisan there. If neither has anyone, the line sits under Unassigned, and on the Board the Who makes it? question comes with no name proposed.

So the cheap way to set up a factory is: attach artisans to departments, and only touch individual artefacts for the exceptions. One person makes all the soap except the one loaf that needs the other pair of hands.

Sharing one job between artisans

A big line can be shared. On the job order, next to the quantity of a line, click Split / Assign multiple artisans. Pick an artisan for each row and the units they make; Add artisan adds a row. The rows must add up to the line total exactly, the box turns green when they do. Save assignments.

  • Each row becomes a sub-job, named after the job order with a letter: JOaroma-0101-A, -B, -C. All of them carry the same batch code, so the stock lands as one batch.
  • On the floor each artisan sees only their own part as theirs. Time, units and pay are credited to whoever logs the session, as always.
  • The line shows the total progress of all its parts, and a table of sub-jobs with each artisan's target, units done, status, time and reward.
  • Open the same button again to move units or change names. A part someone already started cannot be removed or set below what is already made. The first row always stays.
  • Once anything from the line has been received into stock, it can no longer be split.

What it is not

  • Not a guard. Job orders and task sessions do not check it. Anyone can make anything, and the planner can pick any name when a card is dropped in Assigned.
  • Not a skills record. It says who usually does it, which is a fair hint of who is good at it, but nobody is scored on it.
  • Not history. Who actually made what is under Factory → Artisans → Performance, built from closed task sessions.
  • Not the roster. Who counts as an artisan at all is the Open job orders per artisan strip on To produce, where a cross hides someone who does not make things.

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