Kitting & Manufacturing
BOMs and manufacturing orders
Define a Bill of Materials, issue a manufacturing order, and track labor + scrap as components are consumed and finished goods are produced.
Creating a Bill of Materials
Open the finished-good product and click Configure as BOM. The editor looks similar to the kit grid: add component SKUs and quantity ratios. Unlike kits, you can also set a standard labor cost (per unit produced) and a standard scrap rate (% of components expected to be lost during production). These are used as defaults when you issue an MO, but can be overridden per run.
Issuing a manufacturing order
Go to Admin → Manufacturing and click New MO. Pick the BOM, the target quantity, and the warehouse where the build will happen. The MO starts in status
planned. When you click Start build it moves to in_progress, which soft-reserves the required component quantities—they're subtracted from sellable stock so you can't oversell them while the build is underway, but they're not yet permanently consumed.Completing the MO
When the build is done, click Complete and confirm the actual quantity produced (which may be lower than the target due to scrap). ShipWave atomically: (1) consumes the component quantities from FIFO layers, (2) creates a new FIFO layer for the finished good whose unit cost =
(sum of component costs + labor cost) / units produced, (3) pushes the new finished-good on-hand to Shopify and other connected marketplaces, and (4) closes the MO. You can also abort an in-progress MO, which releases the soft reservation without consuming anything.Tracking labor cost and scrap
On the completion screen, override the labor cost if it differed from the standard—e.g. overtime or a new builder slowed things down. Scrap is recorded automatically as the difference between expected and actual yield. Both are persisted on the MO and roll into the finished good's FIFO cost layer, so your profitability dashboard reflects the real all-in cost, not just raw materials.
MO yield reports
Go to Admin → Manufacturing → Reports to see yield metrics: average scrap rate per BOM, labor cost variance vs. standard, and units produced per build. Use these to find BOMs where the standard cost is drifting and needs to be updated, or builders/warehouses where scrap is unusually high.
FAQs
Can I issue an MO if I'm short on components?
You can issue it (status: planned) but you can't move it to in_progress until all components are on hand. ShipWave will flag the missing quantities so you can issue POs.
What happens to FBA inventory when an MO completes?
The finished good is pushed to all connected channels including FBA. If you have automation rules to create FBA inbound shipments at certain on-hand thresholds, those fire on the next cron tick.
Can I produce a partial batch?
Yes. On completion, enter the actual quantity produced. Soft-reserved components for the un-built portion are released back to sellable stock.
How does this interact with returns?
See <a href="/help/kit-returns-policy">Kit and BOM returns</a>. Finished goods can come back as a unit and be restocked, or be disassembled and the components restocked individually.
More in Kitting & Manufacturing
- Kits vs. BOMs: which one should you use?
Understand the difference between virtual kits assembled at ship time and pre-manufactured finished goods built from a Bill of Materials.
- Creating a kit
Build a virtual bundle from existing components. Availability and component decrement happen automatically at ship time.
- Substitution groups
Let any of several interchangeable SKUs satisfy a kit or BOM component slot. Track which one actually shipped for accurate cost and warranty data.
- Kit and BOM returns policy
Choose whether returned kits come back as individual components or as a single re-assembled unit. Lot-controlled recalls handled automatically.