> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.alforse.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Work centers

> Where operations run — the stations and machines, their rates, and the processes they perform.

A **work center** is a location-specific station, machine, or cell where operations run. It defines scheduling and cost rates and supports one or more **processes**, such as cutting or welding.

Routing operations are assigned to work centers. The work center's rates price logged labor and machine time, and its calendar constrains scheduling.

## Fields

FieldType

<details>
  <summary>**Name**`text`</summary>

  Unique within its location.
</details>

<details>
  <summary>**Location**`reference`</summary>

  The site it belongs to.
</details>

<details>
  <summary>**Processes**`reference`</summary>

  The processes it performs (see below).
</details>

<details>
  <summary>**Labor Rate**`rate`</summary>

  Cost per labor hour.
</details>

<details>
  <summary>**Machine Rate**`rate`</summary>

  Cost per machine hour.
</details>

<details>
  <summary>**Overhead Rate**`rate`</summary>

  Cost per hour of overhead.
</details>

<details>
  <summary>**Department**`reference`</summary>

  The department the work center rolls up to.
</details>

<details>
  <summary>**Default Unit**`enum`</summary>

  The standard factor time is expressed in (e.g. *Minutes/Piece*).
</details>

<details>
  <summary>**Operating hours**`enum`</summary>

  **All Shifts** (every shift at the location), **Some Shifts** (pick the work center's own **Shifts**), or **Lights Out (24×7)**, which the scheduler treats as continuously open and ignoring shift calendars.
</details>

<details>
  <summary>**Batch Capacity / Minimum Batch Quantity**`number`</summary>

  Pieces per run, and the smallest run worth batching. Leave empty for no limit or none.
</details>

## Processes

A **process** is a capability a work center can perform; work centers and processes are many-to-many. A process is *Inside*, *Outside*, or both. **Outside** processes are subcontracted, and suppliers attach to them for outside-processing purchase orders.

NOTE

A work center is **not** a fixed asset. The machine you schedule production on (a work center) and the machine you depreciate (a fixed asset) are separate records in Alforse.

An asset can name the work center it runs on (the asset's **"Work Center"** field), which is how the work center's **Capital Cost** panel lists the assets behind it with their net book value; straight-line assets also show their monthly depreciation, and disposed assets drop off. Scheduling and depreciation stay independent.

Alforse screenshot**Work center form with the read-only Capital Cost panel listing its assets, net book value and monthly depreciation**

The Capital Cost panel appears once an asset names the work center.

## Rates: estimate vs actual

Rates exist at two layers. When an operation picks a work center, that work center's rates are **copied onto the operation** as a snapshot. That's what drives the cost *estimate*. The **actual** labor and machine cost posted to the ledger reads the work center's *live* rate at the time the production event was logged. The two can diverge if a rate changes after an operation is planned.

## Capacity and operating hours

A work center is a **finite resource**: the [scheduler](/docs/reference/scheduling.md) places one operation on it at a time, inside its real operating hours. Those hours come from a ladder, first rule wins: **Lights Out (24×7)** (continuously open) → the work center's own assigned shifts → the location's shifts → a stock Mon–Fri, 8-hour week.

An open maintenance task that takes the work center offline subtracts its downtime from those hours (lights-out machines included), so the scheduler routes work around a machine that's down rather than booking it.

## Related

**Routings**

The operations that get scheduled onto work centers.

[Open](/docs/reference/routings.md)

**Manufacturing accounting**

How a work center's rates become a job's labor and machine cost.

[Open](/docs/reference/jobs.md)


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