Stock modes and the machine bridge
Hold real stock behind a design module, connect a line that needs preparing to the machine that prepares it, and let a committed order raise the work.
Every design module prices from rates and rules by default, and most organisations leave it that way. An organisation that manufactures the full line can instead put the stock it actually holds behind a module, and connect the lines that have to be prepared to the machine that prepares them. A designed product order then raises the cut, erode and machining orders that make it, queued ready to go.
There is no separate on or off setting. A module is in stock mode exactly when one of its stock rows is counted or connected, and rates and rules is what a module with neither of those IS. A parallel setting could disagree with the rows, and then somebody would have to decide which one was lying.
Counted stock
Open the module's settings and each stock row gains three controls: counted stock with a held quantity, a warn below threshold, and whether the row is prepped or requires preparation. A counted row shows a Low stock chip once the quantity is at or under the threshold.
Counted design stock is a reference count you maintain. Nothing decrements it when an order is placed and nothing is reserved against it. The count that moves on its own is the one at the machine, when a run completes.
Prepped, or requiring preparation
- Prepped, ready to use: the blank arrives finished and goes straight onto the product. There is nothing to make first, so there is no machine to connect.
- Requires preparation: the blank has to be cut, eroded or machined before it can be used. This is the state a machine connection can be made on.
Connecting a machine module
A line requiring preparation offers the machine modules that can actually make it. Two things gate the list. The design category's own take-off has to declare a production job of that kind, and the machine module has to be switched on for this workspace. Both are checked again on the server, so a stale tab cannot queue work into a workbench nobody can open.
| Design category | Can connect to | What it raises |
|---|---|---|
| PCD saw blades | Arcline | The blade body blank: its thickness, cut length and pierce count |
| PCD saw blades | Wire EDM | The PCD tip blanks: wire path, diamond layer and blank size |
| PCD profile cutters | Wire EDM | The PCD knife blanks, with the form edge in the wire path |
| PCD profile cutters | CNC Milling | The machined cutter body: ISO group, removed volume and billet |
Soft jaws, gaskets, plastics cut to size and balustrades and handrails declare no production job, so they offer no connection. That is deliberate: an offer nothing could fulfil would promise a cutting rate on a module whose formulas never read one.
What a connection does to the price
An Arcline connection also asks for the material, the thickness and the machine's hourly rate. It reads your own cut chart row for that material and thickness, takes the feed it publishes and works out the cost per millimetre of cut, then writes it into the module's body cutting rate with the working shown before anything prices from it.
Arcline cut chart: Mild steel at 3mm feeds 4200mm/min;
at £65.00/h that is £0.0003/mm of cut.Only a coefficient the module's formula set already declares can move, so an override can never invent a price input. The merge happens when the module is loaded, so the live preview, the server recompute and the exports all price from the same figure.
A wire EDM or CNC milling connection raises the work and does not move the price. Neither writes a rate today, and a completed run's measured time is never written back into a price on any module.
What happens when the order lands
- An order is committed: from an accepted quote (including one accepted on the public portal with no login), from a purchase order, from an order raised by hand or from a Kabaido Commerce website.
- For each designed line, the module you actually operate is resolved and its connected stock lines are read.
- The take-off runs and declares the production jobs for that design. Each job goes to the module that makes it: a sheet profile to Arcline, EDM blanks to Wire EDM, a machined body to CNC Milling.
- Pieces are the job's per unit count times the ordered quantity. The machinist part is created, or refreshed to the geometry just computed so a revised design never cuts the superseded shape.
- The machinist order lands already queued, with a reference carrying its module prefix (CUT, EDM or CNC) and a note naming the platform order it came from.
It is idempotent per order line, per module, per job, so a retried webhook or a re-entered order never queues the same work twice. It is also best effort: a bridge failure is logged and never sinks the order it was decorating.
Three stock counts, three owners
| Stock | What moves it |
|---|---|
| Design stock, in the design module | You. Nothing decrements it at order time and nothing is reserved against it. |
| Sheet stock, in Arcline | Completing a cut: the sheet is consumed and an offcut of 150mm or more in both directions is banked back in with its true outline. |
| Disc, blank and billet stock, in the shop modules | Completing a run: the stock the run named is booked out, a shortfall is written into the shop's activity rather than clamped away, and crossing a threshold raises a low stock line. |
Keeping them apart is the point. The design module's figure is what the seller maintains and prices against; the machine's figure is what the operator will find on the shelf. See also Stock pools and matching, which answers the different question of which stock item a configuration prices against.