Graphical Scheduler

Conflict Management

Resolve machine and labour resource conflicts in real-time to ensure manufacturing processes run smoothly and on time across the entire shop floor.

Conflicts are highlighted to the user for review and the intuitive Graphical Scheduler interface provides the ability to drag and drop operations affected to alternative times or resources, whilst providing on the spot feedback as to whether the results of the user interaction will create further resource conflicts or the works order will become overdue or at risk of doing so.

Furthermore if the changes don’t work, there is the option to undo them, therefore providing ‘What if’ functionality for production planners. 

Resource Utilisation

Review colour-coded utilisation of resources by percentage to get an understanding of overloads for labour and machine resources, factory load imbalances and where they occur.

Resolve overloads and imbalances within the graphical scheduler in advance of these impacting production to maintain an efficient factory.

The setup of resources and their availability is carried out from within the CIM manufacturing solutions. This allows the the resource utilisation view to be based on the individual calendars and resource capacity, with options for the grouping of similar resources able to carry out the same tasks, enabling the scheduler to match the hours different resources work and how the production operations are carried out.

Works Order Planning

Scheduling individual operations from the routings of the outstanding works orders present in the CIM manufacturing solutions, for enhanced visibility the Works Order Planning view provides production planners with a complete overview of all works orders and their operations across the whole business.

Highlighting late and at risk orders, as well as conflicting operations based on their planned start dates, setup times, runtimes, delays and available capacity, ensures scheduling issues can be dealt with as soon as they are identified.

Within the constraints of resource availability and capacities that have been defined in the CIM Manufacturing resources, using drag and drop functionality there is the ability to resolve issues with works orders and operations to meet planning deadlines, before passing back the changes to the CIM Manufacturing and updating works orders.

Dependency Management

To avoid operations being scheduled out of sequence, operation dependency is utilised by the CIM Scheduler. This links operations from the same works order together with arrows directing from one operation to the next.

If an operation is moved to a future date, any operations beyond this date will be automatically re-scheduled to later dates with any resource conflicts or affect to works order end dates highlighted immediately, alerting the production planner to take action.

This is also the case for firm-linked sub-assembly and finished goods works orders. If the last operation of the linked sub-assembly is scheduled beyond the start date of the first operation of the finished item, the finished item works order operations will be re-scheduled, thus not allowing a finished item to be started before a sub-assembly has been completed, keeping production aligned.

Dynamic Colour Coding

In a similar manner to the CIM Manufacturing solutions, across the CIM Graphical Scheduler views, colour coding is employed to highlight late works orders, at-risk works orders, resource conflicts and resource overloads, allowing any issues to be identified and addressed from the scheduler in advance of commencement works.    

Fully Integrated Solution

For a fully joined up manufacturing and scheduling solution, the CIM Graphical Scheduler is fully integrated with the Cim50 Manufacturing and Cim200 Manufacturing solutions.

A click of a button allows the reading of all the required data for scheduling from each solution. No data is held within the CIM Graphical Scheduler itself, therefore providing a single source of data for production planners and other CIM software users to work with.

If any changes are carried out to works order operations from within the scheduler, they can be uploaded back to the CIM Manufacturing solution.

Any changes that have been made to works order dates, operations times and operation resources since download to the scheduler will be reflected in the CIM Manufacturing works order module and captured in each works order’s audit log providing full visibility.

Intuitive User Interface

Inline with our CIM Manufacturing solutions, during the scoping and development of the Graphical Scheduler, careful consideration of the user interface has taken place, putting ease of use and usability at the forefront of its design.

This has resulted in an intuitive and clean user interface, which has a minimalist look and feel, whilst retaining a feature-rich planning and scheduling solution fit for the modern manufacturing business.