Thank you Lars.
Your comment: "A third option should be to create a server action on the manufacturing order, that fill in the lot number and qty reserved on the components lines." Sounds exactly what we are looking for except filling in the done quantities instead of lots/serial numbers - which we don't care about. How can we find out more about how to do this?

NOTES:
The first paragraph would be more labour intensive using barcodes.
We are not using lots or serial numbers at all. Traceability is not a concern.

Further: I've been looking at that "Manual Consumption" which seems rather redundant. I suppose it will override the "flexible consumption" option on the BoM but I do struggle to see the purpose of it.
I expect that those who track every detail would be more likely to turn off flexible consumption altogether.

I believe a better approach is to have automatic consumption - if there were such a thing - turned on and then use this "Manual Consumption" to override where required such as in the case of individual S/N or lots. I feel the current arrangement is a little backward.

If you do not use lotnr / serial number, you should not need to confirm any consumption at all. Tested in V16.0 EE.
Only: You can flag Manual consumption in the BOM on components, or you change qty on components directly in the manufacturing order.
Here is a link to video of my test:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/140RBAUTEKRypjohlS08HsAZvg5M2rDWf/view?usp=sharing

Thank you but, as I stated in the OP, tablet view is unworkable when you have to click through hundreds of components. You vid uses tablet view. We need to be able to set the done quantities directly from the MO.

As shown in my video, there is not any "click through components" in the tablet view. Perhaps you use another version?