WIP Aging Tracker

What this tool does

CM8-08 tracks work-in-process jobs and — more importantly — how long each job has been sitting in its current stage. Total job age tells you a job is old; days-in-stage tells you where it is stuck right now. That is the number that finds the bottleneck.

Everything runs inside this single HTML file. No installation, no account, no network requests — your customers, values and schedules never leave your computer.

Daily workflow

1. Add jobs as work orders are released: WO number, value, current stage, due date.
2. Move jobs with the “Move to…” selector on the WIP board whenever a job changes stage. The stage clock restarts and the movement is written to the log with the days it spent.
3. Walk the board each morning sorted by Days in stage (the default). The jobs at the top are the ones nobody is talking about.
4. Check the Aging Summary weekly: bucket drift to the right and value piling into one stage are your early warnings.
5. Print the report for the production meeting — it contains the buckets, the stage summary and the late-jobs list.

How aging is computed

• All three are whole calendar days, relative to the as-of date in the toolbar (defaults to today).
• A job entered into a stage today shows 0d — it has not aged yet.
• Days-in-stage over 7 is shown amber, over 14 red. Late jobs carry a LATE n d pill and a tinted row — lateness is always shown as text, never colour alone.

Reading the aging buckets

• Bucket — Typical meaning in a job shop
• 0–3 d — Normal flow. Most WIP should live here.
• 4–7 d — Acceptable for long operations; worth a glance.
• 8–14 d — Stalled. Someone should be able to say why.
• 15–30 d — Stuck. Usually waiting on material, a decision or a customer.
• 30+ d — Dead inventory wearing a WIP badge. Escalate or close it out.

Stage discipline

• Move jobs when they move. The tracker is only as honest as the last stage change. A 30-second update at shift end keeps the clocks true.
• Keep waiting states separate. “Await Material” and “Await Decision” exist so that idle time is charged to the real cause, not to Machining.
• Hoarding flag: a stage holding % or more of total WIP value is flagged with a warning in the stage summary — that is where your cash is parked.
• Editing the list: rename stages freely (existing jobs follow the rename), reorder with the arrows, and remove a stage once no jobs remain in it.

The “as of” date

All aging is computed relative to the as-of date in the toolbar. Leave it on today for live use. Set it backwards to reconstruct last Friday's picture for a report, or forwards to see what will breach its due date by the end of next week. Stage moves restamp the job with the as-of date, so keep it on today when doing normal updates.

Saving your work

• Autosave: the full board, stage list and movement log are kept in this browser's local storage automatically (see the timestamp in the toolbar) and restored when you reopen the file.
• Save: the Save button in the top toolbar writes to this browser's local storage straight away and flashes Saved ✓ HH:MM — use it before closing the tab if you want to be certain. It is local only; it does not produce a file.
• Report header: the title, company, prepared-by and closing-notes fields under the WIP board print onto the report header and footer, and are saved with the project.
• Save project (.json): a complete portable snapshot — jobs, stages, log, filters and the as-of date. Load it on any machine with this file.
• Export CSV: the job list with all aging columns, honouring the current filter and sort — ready for a spreadsheet or ERP import.
• Print: a one-page aging report (buckets, stage summary, late jobs). The browser's “save as PDF” works too.
• Reset all data clears everything after a confirmation.