How AION automates production

Where each piece lives in AION

Function	AION menu	Owner
Define formula	Manufacturing → Formulas	R&D or Production Manager
Approve formula version	Approvals → Formulas	QA + Production
Generate BOM	Manufacturing → BOMs → From Formula	Planning
Plan production	Manufacturing → MRP Run	Production Planner
Create job order	Manufacturing → Job Orders → New	Planning
Release job order	Manufacturing → Job Orders → Release	Planning
Issue materials	Manufacturing → Material Issues	Shop-floor supervisor
Record completion	Manufacturing → Completions	Shop-floor supervisor
Record scrap	Manufacturing → Scrap Entries	QA / Shop-floor
Close job order	Manufacturing → Job Orders → Close	Cost Accountant
Trace lot	Inventory → Lots → Where Used	Any user

Formula versioning and approval

Every formula in AION has versions. When you edit a formula — even just a percentage — AION creates a new version (draft). The old version stays active until the new one is approved.

Approval goes through a workflow: Production Manager → QA → (for cost-sensitive changes) CFO. Once approved, the new version is published; job orders released after that point use the new version. Any in-flight job orders keep their frozen version.

This is critical for food safety: when a regulator asks “what was in batch JO-2026-00123?” you can point to the exact formula version that was locked when the job order released.

MRP — turning demand into job orders

When the production planner clicks MRP Run, AION does the following for every finished good on the master production schedule:

1. Checks how much is needed (from open sales orders + forecast)
2. Checks how much is on hand
3. Calculates the net shortage
4. Explodes the formula/BOM to determine raw material requirements for the shortage
5. Checks raw material on hand vs. needed
6. Creates purchase requisitions for raw material shortages (links back to P2P!)
7. Creates job orders for finished goods shortages

A single MRP run can produce dozens of requisitions and job orders in under a minute. The output is a planned production schedule that the planner can review, adjust, and release.

Material issue — with lot and expiry capture

When a job order is in progress, the shop-floor supervisor issues materials from the warehouse. AION’s material issue screen:

• Pre-populates the required quantities from the BOM
• Suggests lots based on FEFO (First-Expiring-First-Out)
• Captures the actual lot numbers issued
• Updates inventory in real time
• Fires the manufacturing SLA resolver on save

GL impact (per issue):

Account	DR	CR
1210 Work in Process (WIP)	X
1200 Raw Material Inventory		X

The amount is the period average cost of each material × quantity issued.

Completion — finished goods move to stock

When production completes a run, the shop-floor supervisor records completion: “produced 9,850 bottles of FG-001, scrapped 150.”

GL impact (completion):

Account	DR	CR
1220 Finished Goods Inventory	X
1210 Work in Process		X

The amount comes from the job order’s standard cost (planned cost from the BOM roll-up). Any difference from the actual materials issued is handled at job close (variance).

Scrap is a separate entry:

Account	DR	CR
5200 Manufacturing Variance — Scrap	Y
1210 Work in Process		Y

Or, for expected-range scrap, it’s absorbed into the standard cost of the good units.

Job close — the variance truth

After the last material is issued and the last unit produced, the cost accountant runs Job Close. This compares:

• Actual cost — sum of all material issues and labour
• Applied cost — sum of all completions at standard cost

The difference is job variance. Posted to:

Account	DR or CR
5210 Manufacturing Variance — Price	Variance
5220 Manufacturing Variance — Yield
1210 Work in Process (clearing)

A closed job order has zero WIP balance. The variance sits in the P&L and gets analyzed monthly: is yield getting worse? Are material prices up? Is scrap a single-line problem or shop-wide?

Full traceability

From any raw material lot, you can ask: Where was this used? AION walks forward through material issues, to job orders, to completions, to finished good lots, to shipments, to customers.

Reverse: from any customer shipment, you can ask: Where did this come from? Same walk, reverse direction.

This is the recall workflow. In a real food-safety incident (“contamination suspected in mango concentrate lot MAN-2026-0512-EGY”), you open that lot, click Where Used, and in 15 seconds you have:

• The 3 job orders that used it
• The 14,000 finished bottles produced in those job orders
• The 6 customers those bottles shipped to
• Contact info for all 6

From discovery to informed recall decision: minutes. The regulator notices.

Configuration you do once

• Formula + BOM templates — seeded during implementation
• Cost roll-up rules — how ingredient cost + labour + overhead combine into standard cost
• Variance account mappings — price, yield, scrap, labour variance accounts
• Scrap tolerance — what % of scrap is “normal” and absorbed into standard cost
• Cost center structure — production lines, departments, plants

After that, production runs and the cost flows follow.

Next lesson

In Lesson 4 — Lab, you’ll produce a mango juice batch in the demo from formula release to FG in the warehouse — watching WIP grow and shrink and finished goods land at their real cost.