Odoo Job Card Automation for Forging Unit

Case Study: Forging Unit Eliminates Manual Job Cards with Custom Odoo Workflow

Many forging plants continue to run critical production processes on paper job cards, handwritten registers, and verbal updates between shifts.

This case study covers how a Pune-based forging unit eliminated manual job cards and transformed shop-floor visibility using a custom Odoo workflow built specifically for forging operations.

Within six months of go-live, the company improved on-time delivery from 78% to 96%, reduced rejection cost by 31%, and completely removed paper job cards from the plant.

At a Glance

• Industry: Open and Closed Die Forging (Automotive and Bearing Components)
• Plant Size: Two production lines, approximately 85 employees, 1,200 MT/year capacity
• Location: Pune, Maharashtra
• Project: Custom Odoo workflow for job card management and shop-floor tracking
• Timeline: 11 weeks from kickoff to go-live
• Outcome: 100% elimination of paper job cards with major operational improvements

The Story Behind the Transformation

This forging unit supplies automotive crankshafts, connecting rods, and bearing rings to OEM tier-1 suppliers.

Production volume was healthy, but management lacked real-time visibility into the shop floor.

Job cards were printed every morning, frequently lost during shifts, and reconstructed manually during month-end reporting.

Customer schedules were slipping, rejection records were disconnected from production data, and management meetings revolved around conflicting numbers instead of operational decisions.

The leadership team had reached a point where paper-based operations were becoming a direct bottleneck to growth and operational control.

The Problem: Paper Was Running the Plant

During the discovery walkthrough, the operational gaps became visible almost immediately.

Every job card was a printed sheet travelling physically with production bins between departments.

If the bin moved but the paper did not, production tracking broke instantly.

Operators often entered quantities manually in pencil and rewrote the same numbers again during shift handovers.

This created several major business problems:

• No real-time production visibility
• Planning based on assumptions instead of live data
• Dispatch delays caused by unclear production status
• Quality rejections recorded separately from production history
• Limited traceability during customer complaints
• Approximate costing with no operational accuracy

The plant head's morning meeting regularly stretched to forty-five minutes because teams spent most of the time debating production numbers.

What the Client Wanted to Achieve

The client approached the project with practical goals instead of attempting a massive transformation overnight.

The management team wanted four specific outcomes:

• Replace paper job cards with a digital workflow operators could use comfortably
• Provide real-time production visibility to planning, sales, and plant management
• Capture rejection and quality data digitally with root-cause traceability
• Improve on-time delivery beyond 95% while reducing rejection costs

Why the Client Chose a Custom Odoo Workflow

Before approaching Sunray Datalinks, the client had evaluated multiple manufacturing ERP platforms.

Most systems forced forging operations into generic machining-style workflows that did not reflect actual production reality.

Critical forging requirements like heat-number traceability, detailed rejection capture, and die-life costing were either limited or unavailable.

Odoo provided the ideal foundation because it offered:

• Integrated manufacturing, inventory, quality, accounting, HR, and sales modules
• Open architecture without vendor lock-in
• Flexible workflow customisation
• Scalability for future operational growth

Instead of forcing the plant to adapt to software limitations, the system was designed around the way the forging unit already operated.

The Solution Sunray Built

1. Digital Job Cards with Shop-Floor Terminals

Printed job cards were replaced with digital workflows generated directly from customer sales orders.

Each digital job card carried:

• Customer details
• Component information
• Heat number
• Target quantity
• Operation routing

Operators interacted with the system through tablets and fixed terminals installed at major production stations.

The workflow was intentionally simplified:

• Scan bin barcode
• Select operation
• Enter good quantity
• Enter rejection quantity and reason

Setup time, breakdowns, and changeovers could be logged within seconds.

This simplicity became critical for operator adoption.

2. End-to-End Heat Number Traceability

The ERP workflow integrated directly with goods receipt and raw material tracking.

Every billet entering the plant was tagged with:

• Heat number
• Mill test certificate
• Supplier batch information

As material moved through cutting, forging, machining, and finishing operations, traceability remained linked automatically.

At dispatch, every component carried full traceability information on packing documents.

Customer traceability requests that previously took days could now be resolved within seconds.

3. Digital Quality and Non-Conformance Management

The system captured first-piece inspection, in-process inspection, and final inspection digitally.

When operators logged rejections, they selected reasons from controlled categories such as:

• Under-fill
• Mismatch
• Crack
• Scale pit
• Dimensional issue
• Hardness issue

Non-conformance reports could be raised instantly and routed to quality management.

Rejection trends and Pareto analysis became live dashboards instead of delayed monthly reviews.

4. Real-Time Dashboards for Management

Custom dashboards were built for different operational teams.

• Plant Head Dashboard: production, downtime, pending dispatch
• Sales Dashboard: customer order status and dispatch readiness
• CFO Dashboard: rejection cost trends, overtime spending, and component margins

These dashboards replaced multiple Excel reports previously maintained manually every evening.

5. Costing Based on Actual Forging Operations

Power meters, die usage, labour data, and overtime information were integrated directly into the ERP.

The system calculated actual component cost using:

• Power consumption
• Die life
• Operator wages
• Overtime cost
• Production yield

The sales team could now quote customers using accurate production costing instead of estimated averages.

How the Rollout Was Executed

The implementation was completed in eleven weeks using a phased rollout approach.

• Discovery and process mapping: 2 weeks
• Configuration and custom development: 4 weeks
• Device and equipment integrations: 2 weeks
• Training and parallel paper run: 2 weeks
• Go-live and stabilisation: 1 week

The biggest challenge was operator adoption rather than technology.

Many supervisors had seen earlier digitisation attempts fail and were initially sceptical.

The project succeeded because the shop-floor interface remained extremely simple and practical.

Within ten days of go-live, the plant had shifted completely to digital workflows.

The Results After Six Months

Operational Improvements

• 100% elimination of paper job cards
• On-time delivery improved from 78% to 96%
• Rejection cost reduced by 31%
• Production meetings reduced from 45 minutes to 12 minutes
• Traceability response time reduced from 2–3 days to under 30 seconds

Management Improvements

• Month-end closing reduced from 9 working days to 3 days
• Production data flowed directly into accounting workflows
• Sales teams gained higher confidence in delivery commitments
• Customer escalations reduced significantly

Cultural Improvements

One of the biggest changes was the shift in management discussions.

Instead of debating whose numbers were correct, every department worked from the same live production data.

In the Client's Words

Key Lessons from the Project

Keep the Shop-Floor Interface Simple

Every additional tap or complicated workflow reduces adoption on the production floor.

Enforce Traceability from Day One

Heat number tracking must begin at the GRN stage. Optional traceability fields quickly create poor-quality data.

Dashboards Drive Adoption

The moment management meetings became faster and more accurate, resistance to the ERP system dropped significantly across departments.

What This Means for Other Forging Units

If your forging plant still relies on paper job cards and manual production tracking, this transformation path is highly repeatable.

A custom Odoo workflow designed specifically around forging operations can improve visibility, traceability, costing accuracy, and delivery performance dramatically.

The key is building the system around the actual realities of the shop floor instead of forcing operations into generic ERP workflows.