Efficient planning is key to successful manufacturing. Proper planning ensures that products are available when customers need them. By effectively allocating resources, businesses can reduce waste and cost, improve their output, and maintain a smooth workflow. But, what is the best way to create and manage this plan? Different manufacturing businesses will use different systems and tools. Here at CIM, we’ve just released Cim200’s Manufacturing Scheduler. This is a tool integrated within the wider ERP system, that allows businesses to visually see and control their production plan(s).
How does the Cim200 Manufacturing Scheduler work?
The Cim200 Scheduler is fully configured from within Cim200, utilising resources (labour and machine), resource groups and calendars. All data is held in Cim200 and driven by SQL views.
When a Works Order (WO) is created in Cim200, the system will schedule the job to ensure that the work is completed by the Safety Due Date defined when the WO is created. The system utilises the times defined in the Works Order Routing, along with the production and resource calendars to determine when each operation should start and finish. This initial scheduling by the Cim200 system remains unchanged.
Resource calendars:
When you first open the Cim200 Scheduler, it will import the WO and resource data from Cim200, displaying the current production schedule based on the dates defined on the WO in Cim200. The Scheduling Engine that powers the Cim200 Scheduler utilises the same calendars as Cim200 to determine when a job can be scheduled. It will not let you schedule operations out-of-sequence. Similarly, it won’t let you schedule a job during a period when you aren’t working.
Modifying the Schedule:
To move an operation, users simply need to click on the job in question, hold the mouse down and drag the job to a different start date/time, or a different resource. If an operation is moved to a date in the future, any operations that follow on from that operation will be automatically, re-scheduled to start once the operation you moved has finished.
Colour coding within the Scheduler:
The WO operations within the main Scheduler view are colour-coded.
- Red: Indicates there is a resource clash. This means there are more operations scheduled to run simultaneously than there are available resources.
- Orange: Indicates that the works order the operation belongs to will not be completed before its due date.
- Yellow: Indicates that the works order the operation belongs to will not be completed before its safety due date.
- Green: Indicates there are no scheduling issues with that operation.
- Blue: Identifies sub-contract operations. These subcontract operations only show in blue where there are no scheduling issues with the works order.
Actioning the updated Schedule:
Once the production schedule is complete, it’s uploaded to Cim200 which updates the WO dates accordingly. If two people are working on the same schedule at the same time, the last save wins.
Resource Utilisation:
The Scheduler also displays the resource utilisation as a percentage of the total available time for each period visible in the schedule. Resource utilisation is also colour-coded allowing users to easily see where resources are overloaded:
- Green: Indicates that the resource is either fully utilised or has time available during the period.
- Red: Indicates either that the operations scheduled during the period use more time than is available or that there are conflicts for the resource during that period.
The Cim200 Scheduler allows businesses to quickly grasp the manufacturing schedule and understand the sequence of operations, production durations and resource allocations. Production managers can easily drag-and-drop operations to utilise the business’ resources effectively and ensure products are sent out on time.
Want to see a demo or find out more about the Cim200 Scheduler for manufacturers? Enter your details below and we’ll be in touch.
