The three ways to run a build

A work order can be built in three ways, and you choose which one every time you start a build run. They share the same setup and the same lifecycle, and differ only in when picking happens, when completion happens, and whether a quality review sits in the middle.

The three are the options the Start build run dialog offers under What should this run do?:

• Pick only — gather the materials now, finish the build later.
• Pick and complete — pick and consume in one go, and produce the finished units immediately.
• Pick, complete and send to QC — pick and consume now, but hold the finished units back until a quality review approves them.

This guide walks all three with the same example so you can compare them directly.

The shared setup

We will use a single example throughout: a work order to build 20 finished units of a “Premium Backpack” product, where the bill of materials calls for 5 raw materials and one pre-built assembly billSub-assemblyA reusable assembly block that composes into bigger bills: define it once, include it in any bill of materials, and Assemblified expands it into its own components at execution time. The app now calls it an assembly bill. Read more → .

1. Create the work order. Open Manufacturing in the app navigation, which lands on Work orders, and click Create work order in the title bar. In the dialog, use Add items to pick the finished goods (or assembly bills) to build and set a quantity for each, choose the Production location, then answer After creating: Leave as a draft, Mark it ready, or Start it right away. See creating a work order.

   Two other creation paths live in the title bar’s More actions: Create from orders (plan against real Shopify order lines) and Create from flow (see the note below).

2. Confirm the plan. Open the new work order and switch to the Materials tab. It lists every component the spreadSpreadThe step that walks each work-order item's bill, assembly bills included, and turns the result into the flat list of materials the work order needs. It runs immediately when you add an item and cannot be skipped; a later quantity edit offers to re-spread. Read more → generated. Adjust effective quantitiesPlanned quantityHow much of a material a work order intends to consume: the bill's quantity, editable per material in the Planned column but never below what has already been consumed. Pick lists and Adjusted cost read it. "Effective quantity" is the older name. Read more → if needed, and set per-row consume-from locations where they differ from the default.

3. Get it out of Draft. A draft cannot be built. The page’s primary action reads Mark ready; click it and the primary becomes Start build run. Starting the first run moves the work order to In progress by itself, so there is no separate “start” step to remember.

From here, the three modes diverge.

Note

Assemble flows no longer run builds. What survives is Create from flow, which uses them as a shopping list for a new work order — as the dialog puts it, “An assemble flow describes what to build. The work order is what builds it.” If you have flows, they are still a quick way to start one. If you do not, start from Create work order and add the items yourself.

Mode A — Pick and complete (no quality review)

Use when: the build is simple, you trust the operator, and you do not need a separate review step. The fastest path through the system.

1. Open the Build runs & QC tab and click Start build run on the Build runs card.
2. Pick the items and quantities for this run. For our example, all 20 units of the Premium Backpack.
3. Choose Pick and complete under What should this run do?, confirm the production location, and submit.
4. What happens. Assemblified picks every required material in one go, decrements the local and Shopify inventory, consumes the materials immediately, and produces 20 finished units into pre-assembled inventoryPre-Assembled InventoryStock of finished goods and assembly bills already built and on the shelf, counted per location. A work order draws assembly bills from the shelf first, building fresh only if it runs short; an order consumes a finished good's shelf before its components. Read more → . The build run goes from Picking straight to Built.
5. Complete the work order. With everything built and nothing waiting for a review, the page’s primary action reads Complete work order. Click it. The work order is now Completed.

What happened:

• One build runBuild RunOne cycle of assembly inside a work order: pick the materials, build the units, then complete (or cancel, or reverse). A work order can have many build runs over its life — each one moves a defined quantity of inventory and writes a row to the audit ledger. Read more → exists, status Built.
• Inventory: 5 raw materials decremented (locally and in Shopify), 1 assembly bill drawn from pre-assembled stock, 20 finished backpacks added to pre-assembled stock.
• No quality review.

Reverse path: if something went wrong, the run’s ⋯ menu on the Build runs card offers Reverse run. It walks the inventory back and drops the produced output.

Mode B — Pick only, complete later

Use when: you want to pick materials on day 1 and physically build over days 2 to 5. This is the common choice for multi-day projects where committed materials need to survive between sessions.

1. Start build run and choose Pick only. Pick the items and quantities — say, all 20 backpacks.
2. Submit. Assemblified picks every required material. The run sits at Picking. The materials are committed and decremented from Shopify, but they have not been consumed yet.
3. Walk away. The materials are physically gathered at your bench and nobody else can pick them, because they are committed. The work order stays In progress.
4. Days later, complete the run. The run’s row carries a Complete button (the same action is in its ⋯ menu as Complete run). Assemblified moves the materials from committed to consumed and produces 20 finished backpacks into pre-assembled stock.
5. Optionally record a quality review. Once the run is Built, its row offers Add QC. Use it if you want a sign-off; skip it entirely if you do not.
6. Complete the work order.

What happened:

• One build run, in two sessions. The pick happened on day 1; the completion on day N.
• Committed materials persist across sessions. Cancel the run mid-way and they go back to available stock.
• A quality review is optional on this mode — nothing forces one.

Cancel path: if you decide not to build, choose Cancel run on the picking run. The committed materials go back to available, no consumption is recorded, and the Shopify decrement is reversed.

Mode C — Pick, complete and send to QC (output held back)

Use when: the build is regulated or high-stakes and stock must not be released before a sign-off. Pharmaceuticals, food production, custom manufacturing — anything where wrong units should not leave the bench.

1. Start build run and choose Pick, complete and send to QC. Pick the items and quantities.
2. Submit. Assemblified picks the materials and consumes them in one shot. The run goes to Built — but the produced output is held back. Pre-assembled inventory does not increase, and the work order moves to Quality control.
3. Record the review. The run’s row carries an Add QC button; the same review can be reached from the Quality control card on the Build runs & QC tab. The Quality review dialog lists each item with its Built quantity and asks for Approved and Failed quantities. If anything failed, it asks for a failure category and one or more defect reasons, and you can note who reviewed it. Click Record review.
4. Approved units produce at that moment — not at build-run completion. Failed units become entries under Items pending rework.
5. For each rework item, choose from its ⋯ menu:
   • Start rework run — rebuild the failed units without consuming new materials. Pick a mode again; when that run’s review approves, the units finally produce.
   • Scrap — the unit is a terminal loss and no rework happens. This cannot be undone.
6. Move the work order to QC approved. Once every built unit has a disposition and no rework item is open, select the work order on the Work orders list and use the bulk bar’s Change status → Move to QC approved. The detail page’s primary action stays Review quality while the work order is in Quality control, and its ⋯ menu offers Move back to In progress rather than a step forward — so the list is where you make this move.
7. Complete the work order. Back on the detail page, the primary action now reads Complete work order.

What happened:

• The run was started in Pick, complete and send to QC mode, which is what held the output back.
• Approved units produced at review time; failed units never produced.
• Scrapped units are a terminal loss; rework runs reuse the already-consumed materials and produce on their own approval.
• The lifecycle visibly went In progress → Quality control → QC approved → Completed, and every stop is in the Activity tab.

Caution

A run’s mode is fixed once it starts. There is no way to turn a started run into a different mode. If you picked the wrong one, cancel it (while picking) or reverse it (once built) and start a new run.

Choosing a mode

If you…	Choose
Trust the build, need no separate review, want speed	Pick and complete
Need to pick today and build over days	Pick only
Need a sign-off before stock is released	Pick, complete and send to QC

You do not have to commit to one mode per work order. Each build run picks its own mode, so you can run most of a work order as Pick and complete and put the last, trickier batch through QC.

What stays the same

Across all three modes:

• The lifecycle is the same: Draft → Ready → In progress → … → Completed. Only the trip through Quality control differs.
• Editing items and materials is the same. The Materials tab is editable in any non-terminal status, whichever mode the runs used.
• Material planning is the same. The spread, the cost views, the pre-assembled splits and Reset materials work identically.
• Shopify sync fires at pick time and completion time the same way, and a run that failed to sync offers Retry Shopify sync in its ⋯ menu. See Shopify sync.
• PDFs are the same. The build overview, pick list and shortage report do not care which mode you used.

Reversing a build

Any run can be reversed. Reverse run on a Built run rolls the inventory back whatever mode it used. If you need to undo a whole work order, the title bar’s ⋯ menu carries Reverse all builds.

If a build run failed its Shopify sync along the way, the work order shows a warning banner with the retry — see Shopify sync.

Related

• Build runs — the mode reference.
• Quality control — dispositions, rework and scrap in detail.
• Lifecycle — every status and transition.
• Glossary.