Get More Out of NetSuite: Manufacturing Mobile

Capturing real shop-floor time, operation by operation, with badge check-ins, pause reasons and a work order completion record behind every action.

Presented by Rob Jurcec, OneKloudX | NetSuite 2026.1

Manufacturing Mobile turns the shop floor into a live source of truth. Instead of estimating labour and machine time after the fact, operators badge in at a work centre and record time against each operation as it happens: setup, run, pause and completion. Every one of those actions writes a work order completion record, so the time you report on is the time that was actually worked.

This session, run by Rob Jurcec of OneKloudX, walks through the solution end to end on the NetSuite 2026.1 release, from the setup that makes it work through to the reporting it produces. What follows is a written companion to the recording above.

What Manufacturing Mobile Does

The solution captures time at the level of the individual routing operation. As an operator moves through a work order, Manufacturing Mobile records:

• Setup, machine and run time against each operation on the routing.
• Downtime and pauses, each tagged with a reason code, which you can choose to charge to the work order or exclude.
• Consumption, production and scrap, which can be reported on while the run is still in progress.

Costs flow from the routing record tied to the manufacturing cost template. In the demo, machine time is set at $120 per hour and labour at a fixed $180, so any GL impact for time spent is derived from those rates against the minutes captured.

The core principle: every single action, whether a setup, a run, a pause or a completion, creates a work order completion record.
When you report, you are reporting on those records.

What You Need in Place First

This is the part that catches people out. Manufacturing Mobile depends on other modules and on strict release alignment, so getting the setup right up front saves a lot of back-and-forth with support later.

• Modules: The solution needs the WIP and Routing module. Work orders and assemblies on their own are not enough; without WIP and Routing, the operation-level time capture has nothing to attach to.
• Matching releases: Both the SCM bundle and the Manufacturing Mobile bundle must be installed on the same release, in this case 2026.1. If the two bundles sit on different releases, you will run into issues that send you back and forth between them.
• Licensing: You do not need a full general user for shop-floor staff. A more cost-effective Manufacturing Execution user licence covers the badge-in, time capture and completion actions.

Preferences and Work Centre Setup

Configuration happens at two levels: global preferences for the solution, and specific preferences for each work centre.

Solution preferences: Once the feature is turned on, the preferences screen controls which capabilities are live. Key options include auto-fill quantity buttons and real-time builds for work orders; the start and stop feature, which enables time capture against badges, so it needs to be on; and GS1 barcodes, auto lot numbering and back-flushing for lot numbers.

Work centre preferences: Each work centre is then configured individually. This is where you connect the work centre to a location and inventory status, and decide how time is captured. In the demo, the work centre is set to require actual badging on every operation and to capture actual machine time and actual labour time. A useful option here is auto badge-out: if an operator badges in and then leaves that work order, the system badges them out automatically. Without it, the clock keeps running against their record until they close the activity themselves.

Watch out: if a work centre is not set up with its preference and location mapping, login to Manufacturing Mobile will fail with a “static employee group not set up” error. Configure each work centre before going live.

How Operations Behave

A few behavioural rules are worth knowing before operators start using it:

• One work order at a time per work centre. Only a single work order progresses at a given work centre at any moment.
• Setup cannot be redone. Once setup time is ended on an operation, you cannot go back and re-run the setup for it.
• Runs are flexible. Within an operation you can start, pause, restart and even jump out, and you can run operations concurrently.
• Reason codes drive costing. Pause duration is charged or excluded based on its reason code. Setup durations post on end of setup; run durations post on each run.

Working a Job, Start to Finish

The heart of the session is a real work order run on the mobile device. Here is how it plays out.

Badging in: The operator starts a session and logs in with a badge number (for example, RJ001), either by typing it or scanning it. Badges are their own record type, separate from the employee record. Shifts can be defined too, so an operator selects the relevant shift, morning for instance, before picking up work.

Working an operation: Once into a work order, the routing operations appear. Opening an operation reveals the setup and run controls.

1. Setup. Start the setup and the clock runs while the operator prepares the work centre. Setup can be paused with a reason (a lunch break, say), restarted, then ended, which returns to the operation screen.
2. Run. Start the run. It can be paused and resumed with reason codes, and consumption and production are recorded during the run: scan a component and lot, add a quantity, move to the next. Exceeding the quantity balance prompts a confirmation before continuing.
3. Complete. Confirm what was produced for the operation, using auto-fill quantity if enabled, then end the run. The next operation is worked the same way.

What gets created: Back in the work order, a Manufacturing Mobile sub-tab lists everything that happened. Each action produced a work order completion record showing start and end times, reason codes, durations in minutes and labour run time. From there you can drill into the operation and its manufacturing detail, and the associated GL impacts are visible for every slice of setup and run time.

Reporting: Because every action is a work order completion record, standard saved searches and reports do the rest. You can group and analyse time by resource, by work order, or by day, week and month, capturing exactly what was spent where, tied back to individual operators.

Looking Ahead: Capacity Planning

Rob flagged an update landing in a later 2026 release that brings capacity planning into the core WIP and Routing solution. It takes the planned start and end times from the operation records and combines them with each person’s capacity at a work centre to work out how many people an operation needs. Rather than naming specific individuals, it identifies the type of resource required based on skill codes. Rob’s advice: if you manufacture and want the benefits of advanced Manufacturing Mobile, watch the 2026.2 release notes for this one.

In short: get the release alignment and WIP and Routing prerequisites right, configure each work centre before go-live, and Manufacturing Mobile gives you accurate, operation-level time capture with a complete audit trail and reporting to match, all off the shop floor, in real time.

Questions & Answers

What’s coming next?

A later 2026 release brings capacity planning into the core WIP and Routing solution. It uses the planned start and end times on operation records, plus each person’s capacity at a work centre, to work out how many people an operation needs, identifying the resource type by skill code rather than naming individuals. Watch the 2026.2 release notes.

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