Every job has a manufacturing site, a delivery destination, and a schedule — and when you run more than one shop, the "which site" question is really a freight-and-capacity question in disguise. This module scores each candidate site against the job's destination and every shop's current load, so the site that wins is the one that's actually cheapest and fastest to ship from and has room on the floor — not just whichever one is closest to headquarters.
Every shop, every open job, and every lane between them lives in one model, so "which site should build this" and "who has room this week" are answered from the same live data instead of a phone call to each shop.
Illustrative network — every site, hub, and job on this map is a real row in the database, scored and re-ranked as jobs, freight rates, and shop schedules change.
These aren't three separate spreadsheets. Picking a site changes the freight estimate, which changes the job cost, which changes whether that site's schedule can absorb the job.
For a given job destination, every eligible manufacturing site is scored on freight distance and cost, current capacity, crew skill match, and material availability — ranked, not guessed at.
Distance-based freight and delivery-mode estimates (LTL, FTL, company truck, or crew-carried) per lane, so the "cheapest site to build at" and "cheapest site to ship from" get reconciled before you commit.
One production calendar across every shop — see what percentage of each site's near-term capacity is already booked before assigning a new job there, not after.
Recurring routes between a shop and a job cluster (a metro area, a GC's regional footprint) can be saved as a lane with a known rate, so repeat business skips the estimate step entirely.
Whichever site and freight lane get selected for a job, the actual freight and site-labor cost post straight to that job's cost record in FinanceCenter — no separate reconciliation later.
A shop goes over capacity, a freight rate changes, or a job's destination moves — re-run the fit score and see whether a different site now wins, before material gets cut at the wrong one.
Delivery address, target install date, and any crew/skill or material requirements attach to the job as soon as it's won — the same job record FinanceCenter and the material requisition workflow already use.
Freight distance and mode, current booked capacity for the target week, and material/crew fit are weighed together into one fit score per site — ties broken in favor of the site with more open capacity.
The recommendation shows its reasoning — freight estimate, capacity load, and score breakdown — so a scheduler can accept it or override it with a documented reason.
Assigning the job books capacity at the chosen site immediately, so the next job's fit score sees the updated load — no two jobs get double-booked into the same week by two different estimators.
The freight estimate — and the actual carrier cost once shipped — write straight to the job's cost record, so the delivered job cost reflects exactly which shop built it and how it got there.
| Capability | Gut-feel / "whoever has room" | Separate spreadsheet per shop | Logistics & Multi-Site Planner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Site choice weighs freight cost, not just proximity to HQ | ✕ | ~ | ✓ |
| Site choice weighs real-time capacity at each shop | ✕ | ~ | ✓ |
| One production calendar across every site | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
| Freight cost flows into job costing automatically | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
| Standing lanes with known rates for repeat routes | ✕ | ~ | ✓ |
| Decision reasoning documented, not just remembered | ✕ | ~ | ✓ |
✓ present · ~ partial / depends on discipline · ✕ not covered
Every freight estimate and actual carrier cost this module produces posts to the job's cost record, alongside material and labor — so a job built at the wrong site shows up in the numbers immediately, not at closeout. See the FinanceCenter module, including material requisition, PO & receiving.
A site's real machine uptime and crew availability feed its capacity score here — a shop with a saw down for repair scores lower for new work until that's resolved. See the Maintenance & Asset Manager module.