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Primary and Alternate Routings

A primary routing is the list of operations most frequently performed to build a product. You can define one primary routing and many alternate routings an item. When you define a new primary routing, you specify only the item (no alternate name) and you can assign a routing revision. For example, you can define a routing for an item that includes two operations--an assembly and a testing operation. You typically build your product with these operations, so you define this routing as the primary routing for the item.


You can define an alternate routing to describe a different manufacturing process used to produce the same product. Unlike a new primary routing, specify the item and alternate name to define an alternate routing. You must define a primary routing before you can define alternate routings, and you can define any number of alternate routings for an item. For example, you have three test machines, one new machine capable of performing both tests A and B and two older machines that can only perform test A or test B. Ideally you would like to use the new machine that can perform both tests, but if it is unavailable, you use the other machines to complete the job.


Bills and routings can share alternate labels. If you create an alternate bill with the same label as an alternate routing, components are assigned to operations on the alternate routing. If there is no routing with the same alternate label, components are assigned to operations on the primary routing.

Engineering Routings

You can define an engineering routing as an alternate for a manufacturing routing. This would typically be used to prototype a variation from the primary routing that produces the same assembly.

Both engineering and manufacturing routings share the same resource, department, and standard operation information.

See Also

Creating Alternates

Primary and Alternate Bills of Material

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