Odoo Work Order & Production Planning Problems
A production plan is only as real as three inputs: work center capacity, honest operation durations, and operators actually marking start/finish. Miss any one and Odoo's schedule becomes decoration — everything "late", nothing meaningful.
First, confirm the symptom
- Every work order shows late, always — so nobody looks anymore
- The Gantt/planning view promises dates the floor laughs at
- Two jobs scheduled on the same machine at the same time
- Actual production times are nowhere in the system
1. Work centers with infinite capacity
A work center without capacity limits and working hours schedules unlimited parallel jobs — the plan looks beautiful and means nothing.
- Configuration → Work Centers: set real capacity (1 machine = 1), efficiency %, and a working schedule matching your shifts.
- Group identical machines as one center with capacity N — simpler than N centers.
2. Operation durations are guesses
Durations copied as "60 minutes" everywhere make every schedule wrong in both directions. Odoo can compute real averages from tracked time — if you let it.
- Time three real runs per operation, set those durations, then switch to "Compute based on tracked time" once history builds.
- Review the Expected vs Real duration report monthly — drift means the process changed.
3. Operators never mark start/pause/finish
Work orders finished physically but open in Odoo cascade: the next operation can't start on paper, the MO can't close, finished stock (see BOM guide) never books.
- Put a tablet at each work center (Odoo's shop floor UI is built for this) — start/finish becomes a tap.
- Make WO closure part of the supervisor's shift-end routine until it is habit.
4. Planning blind to material availability
Scheduling jobs whose components haven't arrived guarantees false starts. Planning must read the same component status the MO list shows.
- Sequence by Component Status: green "Available" MOs first; red "Expected" wait for their receipt dates.
- Feed purchase lead times honestly (see reordering guide) so expected dates are real.
5. Breakdowns and maintenance invisible
If machine downtime lives in a notebook, Odoo schedules onto machines that are open on the floor for repair.
- Log breakdowns as work center productivity losses (or run the Maintenance app) so capacity reflects reality.
- Block planned maintenance windows in the work center calendar.
We set up capacity, honest durations, tablet-based tracking and material-aware planning — then run two weeks alongside your supervisors until it sticks. Written plan first.
Frequently asked questions
Is the planning/Gantt view Enterprise-only?
The Gantt planning views are Enterprise. Community still runs work orders and scheduling logic — we build practical boards for Community floors too.
Everything shows late — where do we start?
Reset expectations: fix durations (cause #2) and close stale WOs, then late means late. A red report nobody believes is worse than no report.