| In version 53.16, as the wiki describes it, anything produced is made at a workshop, a building, nearly always 3×3 tiles, where dwarves process materials into more valuable or useful items. The wiki counts 31 workshops: 14 in its first tier, 11 in the second and 6 in the third. Each needs dwarves with its labors, and more skilled dwarves tend to make better or faster work. | opening paragraphDescriptionDescriptionDescription | Wiki |
| In version 53.16, as the wiki describes it, an order at a workshop becomes a job that waits for a dwarf with the right labor. That dwarf fetches the nearest suitable material, nearest to the dwarf and not the workshop, or only from linked stockpiles if any are set, carries each ingredient to the workshop, makes the item, and leaves it there. Taking it to a stockpile is a separate hauling job, queued later, and items piling up in a workshop slow its work. | OperationOperationOperationOperationOperationOperation | Wiki |
| The wiki, describing version 53.16, ranks workshops by how far they are from raw materials: a tier 1 workshop processes raw materials, tier 2 the output of tier 1, tier 3 the output of tier 2, each possibly with lower-tier inputs as well. In the metal chain a wood furnace (tier 1) burns wood into charcoal, a smelter (tier 2) turns ore, with charcoal or coke for fuel, into metal bars, and a metalsmith's forge (tier 3) turns bars, with fuel, into weapons, armor, furniture and more. | Tier systemTier 1 workshops, Wood furnaceTier 2 workshops, SmelterTier 2 workshops, SmelterTier 3 workshops, Metalsmith's forge | Wiki |
| The wiki, describing version 53.16, says no process can be truly automated, and lists the game's partial tools: standing orders, which queue some single-use refining jobs whenever their inputs exist; jobs set to repeat; and, once a manager is appointed, work orders for an exact number of items, which the manager must approve and which re-queue until their inputs are in place. | ManagementManagement, Standing ordersManagement, ManagerManagement, ManagerManagement, Manager | Wiki |
| In Dwarf Fortress's production chains (version 53.16, as its wiki describes it), where one industry's end products often feed another, fetching the materials and hauling the product away are dwarves' jobs, and the wiki says no process can be truly automated. In Factorio, the Factorio Wiki says, inserters move items between belts and into and out of machines, and an assembling machine set to a recipe "should craft the item" once all its requested ingredients are in its input slots. | OperationOperationManagement | Wiki |