Odoo Manufacturing Basics: Bills of Materials, Work Centers and Work Orders
Illustration: the people shown are AI-generated and fictional.
Most manufacturers come to Odoo with production running on spreadsheets, whiteboards and the memory of a few experienced people. Odoo Manufacturing replaces that with three building blocks: the bill of materials that says what goes into a product, the work centers where the work happens, and the work orders that schedule and record each step.
This guide explains how the three fit together in Odoo 19, the decisions to make before you configure them, and where small manufacturers usually start. Everything here is based on Odoo’s own Manufacturing documentation.
Odoo Manufacturing Basics at a Glance
- The BoM is the blueprint. It lists components and quantities, and can carry the operations and instructions for each step.
- Work centers are where work happens. They hold working hours, capacity and costs, and drive scheduling and OEE.
- Work orders are optional. Turn them on when you need to schedule steps, record time per operation and use the Shop Floor screen.
- Choose one, two or three steps per warehouse. More steps add picking and put-away transfers, and more inventory control.
- Start simple. Clean BoMs and real working hours matter more than every advanced feature on day one.
Bills of Materials: The Recipe for Every Product
A bill of materials (BoM) documents the components, and their quantities, needed to produce a product. You create one in Manufacturing › Products › Bills of Materials, with the type Manufacture this Product. Beyond the component list, a BoM can record:
- Which variant uses a component, so one BoM can cover a product sold in several sizes or finishes.
- Which operation consumes it, which tells Odoo when a step is ready to start.
- Manual consumption, which makes operators confirm what they used instead of trusting the BoM quantity.
- Operations, the production steps, each tied to a work center with its own instructions.
Spend the time on BoM accuracy before go-live. Every manufacturing order, component reservation and product cost is calculated from it, so an error in the BoM repeats in every order.
Work Centers: Where Capacity and Cost Live
Work centers are where work orders are processed. Odoo uses them to track costs, make schedules, plan capacity, organize equipment and measure efficiency. Each one has a name, an optional code and tags, the working hours it can run, and alternative work centers to use when it is busy.
Working hours deserve attention. They drive scheduling and the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) figure, and Odoo’s default is a standard 40-hour week, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM on weekdays. A line that runs two shifts, or stops on Fridays, needs its own schedule, or every plan and OEE number will be wrong.
Work Orders and the Shop Floor
Work orders only appear once the Work Orders setting is turned on in Manufacturing settings. When it is, each operation on a BoM becomes a work order on the manufacturing order, and operators start and finish them while Odoo times each step.
Operators usually work in the Shop Floor app rather than in the manufacturing order itself. It shows cards for each work center and for the active employee’s own work orders, and it can be installed as an app on a workstation’s browser so that terminal only opens Shop Floor.
One, Two or Three Steps: How Much to Track
Each warehouse chooses how many steps manufacturing takes, under Inventory › Configuration › Warehouses:
- One step: Odoo creates the manufacturing order only. Stock still updates, but the movement of components and finished goods isn’t tracked as transfers.
- Two steps: a pick transfer moves components to production first.
- Three steps: a pick-components transfer, the manufacturing order and a store-finished-products transfer, for full control of what moves where.
More steps give tighter inventory control but more transactions for the team. Choose the fewest steps that still answer the questions you actually ask about stock.
Where to Start: A Practical Setup Order
- Clean the product and component list. Units of measure, internal references and which items you buy versus make.
- Build and check the BoMs. Start with your highest-volume products and confirm the quantities with the people who build them.
- Set up work centers with real hours. Then decide whether you need work orders, and which operations matter.
- Pick one, two or three steps per warehouse. Match it to the inventory questions you need answered.
- Run a few test orders end to end. From confirmation to Produce All, before the team relies on it.
Once production runs cleanly, add quality checks and preventive maintenance. Our guide to quality and maintenance in Odoo covers that next step. For the business side of running Odoo in a plant, see our manufacturing industry page.
Odoo Manufacturing Basics: FAQ
What is a bill of materials in Odoo?
A bill of materials (BoM) lists the components and quantities needed to make a product. In Odoo it is the blueprint for a manufacturing order, and it can also hold the operations, or production steps, and the work center each one runs in.
Do I need work orders to use Odoo Manufacturing?
No. A manufacturing order can consume components and produce the finished product without work orders. Turn on the Work Orders setting when you want to schedule operations on work centers, record time per step and use the Shop Floor screen.
What is the difference between one-, two- and three-step manufacturing?
With one step, Odoo creates only the manufacturing order. Two steps add a transfer to pick components, and three steps add a second transfer to store the finished product. The setting is per warehouse, so different sites can work differently.
What is the Shop Floor app?
Shop Floor is the companion screen to Manufacturing for the people doing the work. It shows manufacturing and work orders as cards per work center, lets operators start and finish steps, and records the time spent.
How does Odoo calculate overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)?
OEE is calculated against each work center’s working hours. By default Odoo uses a standard 40-hour week, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM on weekdays, so set real working hours on each work center before relying on the figure.
Setting up Odoo Manufacturing?
Our Odoo implementation team can help you structure BoMs, work centers and routings around how your plant really runs.
Talk to Our Odoo Team