About the Kanban Board
Running a shop means juggling a lot of jobs at once, and it's easy for something to quietly fall behind while you're focused on what's in front of you. The Kanban board is built to make that less likely. Rather than a plain list, it gives you a different view of your jobs, one that's organized like a to-do list, so you can see at a glance what's moving, what's stuck, and what needs attention today.
Keep track of your in-process jobs; that's the whole idea. The board is a visual safety net: it helps you catch a problem while it's still small, instead of after a deadline's already been missed.
PRO TIP: Top performing partners have a system to keep work status visible to their production team. Consider projecting your Kanban on a wall-mounted screen for your team to see!
How the Board Is Structured
Columns & limits — Each column on the board represents a stage your job moves through.
- Backlog
- Preparation (source materials for non-additive processes)
- Production (build started for additive, or production started for other processes)
- Post production (post–process parts, inspection)
- Shipping
- Complete
Each column has a limit of 50, this is to avoid having many jobs sitting there at once. If a column feels overloaded, it might mean work is genuinely piling up at that stage, or it might just mean statuses need updating.
Updating cards — Once you’ve completed a step, you can move a card to a new column to update the job status. This one habit is what makes the board work.
Sorting & filtering — The cards are automatically organized by their current status and sorted by earliest due date. However, you’re able to reorder or narrow the board by things like due date, job type, or priority. This allows focus on a handful of jobs that need your attention instead of scanning everything.
- Source, ship by date, job created, job size, at risk status, VQC required, ITAR, RMA, customer name, jobs I'm following, invoice, material
Reading a Kanban Card
Click into any card and you'll get a detailed view of that job to know what you need to do next without digging through the full job record.
Initial glance - The face of each card has the part thumbnail, Part/Line Item ID, and Job ID to identify the job before you even click on it
Job Specifics - Additional job basics such as quantity, manufacturing process, and material are shown on the card
Deadline — The due date sits right on the card, so you know how much time you have without an extra click
Card Colors — Cards are color-coded so you can spot job status right away.
- Blue: On time
- Yellow: At Risk
- Red: Past Due
- Green: Complete
Current milestone - Shows the status of the job in the process right now, separate from the column it’s in
Subtasks & checklist items — VQC, additional certifications, inspections, and other required sign-offs show up as checklist items directly on the card, so it's clear what's still outstanding before a job can move forward.
Assignees - If you have multiple people working on a job, you can see which users are assigned to which tasks within the line item. If something gets stuck in the process, you know who to check it with
Still have questions after reading through this, or notice something on your board that doesn't match what's described here? Reach out to Partner Support — happy to walk through it with you.