For manufacturing and operations teams, traditional NetSuite Work Order management often lacks the real-time clarity needed to run a smooth production floor. Records are buried in lists. Status updates are manual. Priorities change but aren’t always communicated quickly. That’s why we’ve brought Work Orders to the Smartes NetSuite Kanban Board—giving your production team a visual, drag-and-drop interface built specifically for NetSuite manufacturing workflows. This new functionality transforms how your team manages planning, scheduling, and execution.
Now, you can track every Work Order as it moves through custom stages—from Planned to In Production to Complete. Instantly see bottlenecks. Re-prioritize builds on the fly. Align operations and production with one shared, visual source of truth. Whether you’re assembling custom jobs or managing volume-based manufacturing, this solution empowers your team with better visibility, faster decisions, and real operational flow—all inside your NetSuite environment.
Why Traditional Work Order Tracking Falls Short in NetSuite
NetSuite offers powerful tools for creating and managing Work Orders, but once those records are generated, the day-to-day management of production can be clunky. Work Orders live in list views and reports, requiring users to click into individual records to understand what’s happening. This creates several challenges for manufacturers:
- Limited real-time visibility into production queues and WIP
- Manual updates that delay decision-making and create room for error
- No visual prioritization or drag-and-drop flexibility
- Disjointed communication between departments managing planning, production, and fulfillment
Many teams resort to spreadsheets or whiteboards to track what’s being built, when it’s needed, and where each order stands. But those solutions aren’t scalable, and they’re certainly not integrated with your ERP.
What’s New: Work Orders on the NetSuite Kanban Board
The Smartes NetSuite Kanban board already streamlines fulfillment, purchasing, and returns. Now, it’s ready to transform manufacturing workflows with native Work Order support. Here’s what you can now do:
- Display Work Orders as cards on the Kanban board, each representing a build
- Move cards between production stages with simple drag-and-drop
- Customize stages to reflect your unique workflow
- Filter boards by location, customer, priority, or production team
- See key order data at a glance—such as item name, quantity, expected completion date, and customer/job
- Auto-sync with NetSuite so status updates and field changes flow back into your ERP in real time
This means no more jumping between screens to see what’s delayed, who’s working on what, or where things are stuck. The board gives your entire team a shared, visual understanding of production—no spreadsheets required.
Customize Production Stages to Match Your Workflow
Every manufacturer’s process is different. That’s why the Kanban Board doesn’t lock you into a rigid status structure. Instead, you can define your own columns to match how work actually moves through your shop floor. Examples include:
- Planned – Orders approved but not yet scheduled
- Released to Floor – Orders ready for production to begin
- In Production – Builds actively being worked on
- Waiting on Parts – Builds paused due to material shortages
- QA Check – Completed builds awaiting quality inspection
- Complete – Work Orders that are fully built and ready for fulfillment
You can also configure conditional coloring, so high-priority or overdue Work Orders stand out visually. Whether your process is make-to-order, make-to-stock, or hybrid—you get full control over how production is visualized and managed.
Key Benefits and What’s Coming Next
Adding Work Orders to your NetSuite Kanban board isn’t just about making things look nicer. It delivers measurable improvements to your operations:
Immediate Benefits
- Real-time production tracking across teams
- Faster decision-making with drag-and-drop prioritization
- Less time updating records manually in NetSuite
- Improved cross-department communication through a shared visual tool
- Bottleneck identification at a glance
- Better on-time delivery performance through improved coordination
The board is also role-aware. That means your shop floor team can see just what they need—without being overwhelmed by unrelated data or menus. Managers, meanwhile, get a complete view of capacity and throughput.
What’s Next on the Roadmap
We’re just getting started. Here’s a peek at features we’re working on to make the Kanban Board even more powerful for production:
- Time tracking per Work Order, so you can measure actual vs. estimated effort
- Work center scheduling, integrating capacity planning directly into the board
- Mobile-friendly UI, enabling on-the-floor updates from tablets or scanners
- Analytics dashboards, giving insight into throughput, delays, and resource utilization
If you’re already using the board for fulfillment or purchasing, enabling Work Order support takes minutes—not days.
Upgrade Your Floor Visibility with the NetSuite Kanban Board
Production is more than just process—it’s momentum. And when you can see every build, delay, and milestone in real time, your team moves together with purpose.
With the new Work Order support on the Smartes NetSuite Kanban board, you don’t have to settle for disconnected spreadsheets or slow manual updates. You get a modern, visual command center for your entire manufacturing pipeline.
As we continue to enhance this solution, upcoming features like time tracking and work center scheduling will give production managers even deeper control over how work flows from planning to completion. Contact us to learn how you can install this solution in your NetSuite environment.