The UI calls this section Production lines, not “plate lines,” because it
contains Plate, Mounting carrier, and Design work. A production
line can represent several identical units of work or physical items through
Quantity.
Production lines sit on the job below the Prepress handoff and keep work specifications separate from the job itself.
Decide what belongs on one line
Use one line for items that can be treated as one repeatable batch. Put the number of identical items in Quantity. For example,4 × Plate · 200 × 300 mm · DuPont Cyrel belongs on one Plate
line when all four plates will use the same buffer and can be completed with
the same CDI orientation and equipment.
Split the work into separate lines when any of these details differ:
- production-line kind;
- Width, Height, or dimension unit;
- Plate material;
- Base film or Cushion mount;
- Design level;
- Plate Buffer;
- expected CDI orientation, equipment, or completion time.
Add each kind with the right fields
Open an active job in Intake or Prepress, find Production lines, and use the empty row at the bottom. Choose the kind, enter its fields, and select Add.
A new Plate line records its quantity, physical size, and material; orientation and equipment are intentionally left for Imaging.
For a line added directly on the job, the physical dimension unit appears
beside Width and Height and follows the organization’s configured
dimension unit. Positive dimensions and the required material fields must be
present before Add is enabled. A converted line can retain a dimension unit
explicitly supplied by the order.
Complete dimensions brought in from an order
An order can be converted when a Plate or Mounting carrier size is not yet known. The resulting job shows No plate dimensions for that line. This is a deliberate unknown value, not a zero-size plate. During Intake or Prepress, use Edit to enter Width and Height. If an uploaded PDF exposes its page size, its file card can also offer Update production line from PDF. Check that the PDF size is the actual production size before applying it. Missing details appear as warnings in the Prepress handoff. They do not block a submission for manager review, but the team should resolve them before approval: a Plate without dimensions or material cannot be completed by an operator.Understand Plate buffer
Buffer adds an allowance to every side of a Plate. It affects billed dimensions and area, but it does not change the raw Width and Height. For a 200 × 300 mm Plate with a 10 mm Buffer:billed size = (200 + 2 × 10) × (300 + 2 × 10) = 220 × 320 mm
The billed area is then multiplied by Quantity. The buffer applies only to
Plate lines, not Mounting carrier or Design lines.
After a line is saved, select Edit to set a line-specific Buffer. Leave
it inherited to use the selected Billing company setting. When there is no
separate billing company, Flexoworks uses the customer company setting, then
falls back to the organization setting. The saved line shows the effective
value and its source—line override, company settings, or organization
settings—as well as the billed size and area.
Edit, duplicate, or remove a line
Every saved line has three early-stage actions:- Edit corrects that line in place.
- Duplicate starts a copy, which is useful when most fields are the same but one meaningful detail differs.
- Remove deletes the line from the job.
Use Edit for corrections, Duplicate to split similar work efficiently, and Remove only when the work is no longer part of the job.
In Imaging, the production specification is locked while Plate completion controls become available to operators.
Complete Plate work without changing the job stage
In Imaging, an operator chooses the CDI orientation and Equipment for a Plate line and selects Complete. Flexoworks records the entire line’s Quantity together with the operator, orientation, equipment, and completion time. There is no partial-quantity completion. Mounting carrier and Design lines do not have operator-completion controls.Completing a Plate line does not advance the job. The job stays in
Imaging until someone uses the separate Advance to Washout stage
action. Production-line completion and job stage
transitions answer different questions:
“Is this batch complete?” and “Where is the whole job now?”
Keep production lines and billing lines distinct
The job deliberately shows two separate sections:
A Plate line normally generates a material-area row. A Mounting carrier can
generate one row for Base film and another for Cushion mount. A Design
line generates a row from its Design level. Configured service rates can
add further rows.
“Frozen” means the billing rows are stored rather than being an invisible live
formula. Line changes during Intake or Prepress regenerate the relevant rows;
Recalculate refreshes them from the current pricing configuration. If the
work specification is correct but the commercial amount needs an exception,
use a billing-row override instead of falsifying the production line.
Billing preview turns production facts into explicit priced rows while remaining a separate part of the job.
Check the lines before handoff
Before marking Prepress ready for review, confirm that:- Quantity groups only identical work;
- work that will be completed separately is split into separate Plate lines;
- every physical line has the correct Width, Height, and materials;
- every Design line has the correct Design level;
- each Plate uses the intended effective Buffer;
- Billing preview reflects the work the customer should be charged for.
Orders and jobs
See how converting an incoming order creates production jobs.
Job stages and transitions
Follow the job from Intake through Shipped.
Prepress review
Submit the checked production snapshot for manager approval.
Production-floor terminal
Complete whole Plate lines from the CDI queue.
Plate inventory
Track the physical material required by Plate production lines.