Resource Utilisation View

Scheduling Overview

When a Works Order is created in Cim50, the system will schedule the job to ensure that the work is completed by the Safety Due Date defined when the Works Order 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 Cim50 system remains the unchanged.

When you first open the Cim50 Scheduler, it will import the Works Order and resource data from Cim50, displaying the current production schedule based on the dates defined on the Works Orders in Cim50.

You can then begin to adjust the production schedule as required, based on resource availability.

The Scheduling Engine that powers the Cim50 Scheduler utilises the same calendars as Cim50 to determine when a job can be scheduled, so as you adjust the production plan, the Cim50 Scheduler considers the working calendar for each resource/operation, and will help you to schedule the jobs accordingly.

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. An example of this would be where you attempt to schedule a job to start overnight, when you aren’t working, the Scheduler will automatically adjust the start date/time to the following morning (or the next working period for that resource).

The Scheduler will display those resources which you have requested to be scheduled in the Scheduler Settings within Cim50> Settings> Scheduler Settings.

Once you have completed your production schedule, you can upload the new schedule to Cim50, which will update the works order dates accordingly.

Calendars & Non-Working Time

The Scheduler uses the same calendars as the core Cim50 system. Where a resource has an individual working calendar defined against it, and that resource is set as the primary resource on the works order operation, the resources calendar will be used to schedule that operation. Where no resource specific calendar is in place, or where no primary resource is defined against the works order operation, the standard working calendar will be used, as defined in Cim50 > Settings > Planning Settings > Working Week.

Non-Working time is presented to the user by the use of a light grey colour background colour within the main scheduler, and light red highlighting in the date column headers.

For performance reasons, the non-working periods highlighted in the calendar will be dependent on the zoom level in use. If you were to zoom in so that the whole screen covered the period of 1 day, then you would see grey highlighting for each tea break and/or lunchbreak, along with the non-working time from midnight > start of the working day and then the end of the working day through to midnight. However, if you zoomed out to a week view, each individual tea/lunch break would not be relevant to display based on the zoom level, so the Scheduler does not highlight those shorter non-working periods. This does not impact the scheduling at all, with all non-working periods being taken into account regardless of zoom level.

Resource Calendar Considerations: Each resource can have its own calendar.

There may be scenarios where you are scheduling both labour and machine resources with different working periods. Consequently, when scheduling an operation against a resource, you may end up scheduling a job against a non-working period for the corresponding resource. This would be highlighted in red when looking at the resource utilisation grid.

Scheduler Functionality

The Scheduler Resource Utilisation view is a split-screen view, with the top of the screen containing the resource scheduler, and the bottom section displaying the resource utilisation statistics.

Scheduling a job: When the Scheduler loads, all existing works orders will be placed into the scheduler based on the dates set against those works order operations in Cim50. To move an operation, simply click on the job in question, hold the mouse down and drag the job to a different start date/time, or a different resource. As you go to move a job, the scheduler will display the working calendar for that operation/resource in blue, enabling you to easily identify when the operation can be scheduled.

If you were to move an operation to a date in the future, any operations that follow on from the operation you move will be automatically, re-scheduled to start once the operation you moved has finished.

This is also the case for ‘Firm’ linked Works Orders, if the last operation of a sub-assembly Works Order that is ‘Firm’ Linked to a parent Works Order is moved beyond the start date of the first operation of parent Works Order, all parent Works Order operations will be moved automatically, re-scheduled to start once the last operation of the sub-assembly you moved has finished.

There are some circumstances where you will be unable to move an operation.

• You will not be able to move an operation to start before the previous operation has completed. Attempting to do so will result in the operation bouncing back to its original position in the schedule. Should you wish to move a job back, you need to start with the earliest operation and adjust each in sequence until you have everything scheduled as desired.
• You will not be able to move an operation that has been locked. Operations that have been locked are identified via a ‘Padlock’ icon. Further information on the icons you may see throughout the scheduler are detailed below.
• You will not be able to move a sub-contract operation once a purchase order has been raised for that operation. Should you need to adjust a sub-contract operation once a purchase order has been raised, you will need to communicate with your sub-contract supplier to ensure they can accommodate the change of schedule. You will then need to adjust the purchase order dates and operation dates within the Sage 50/Cim50 UI.
• You will not be able to move an operation between resource groups. For example, you couldn’t move an operation scheduled against a labour resource to a machine resource instead. Similarly, if you utilise capacity planning resource groups, setup within Cim50 > Settings > Works Order Settings > Capacity Planner, you cannot move an operation to a resource outside of that group. If you attempt to do so, a tooltip will be displayed, advising you that the resource you’re trying to schedule the operation to is the ‘Wrong Resource Type’

Columns: To the left hand side of the screen you can define the relevant columns you wish to display relevant to the resources in question. The resources are grouped by default based on their type and any capacity planning groups defined in Cim50.

By default the following columns are displayed:

• Reference: The resource reference as defined in Cim50 is displayed. Beneath the resource reference, you can see how many operations have been scheduled against that resource, indicated by the number of events. To the left of the resource reference is an icon, which indicates the resource type.
• Name: The resource name or description.
• Type: The resource type. Which will be one of Labour, Machine or Subcontract.
• Resource Quantity: The number of resources available against that reference.
  For example, you may have multiple lathes, or multiple people available against a single resource reference. This is relevant to the scheduler as it will not highlight a conflict until the number of operations scheduled to run simultaneously exceeds the resource quantity defined on the resource.
• Schedule Status: This column is a quick indicator as to whether there are any scheduling conflicts for that particular resource. A green tick indicates there are no conflicts, a red triangle indicates there is an issue which requires resolution, and a blue circle indicates a subcontract resource, which the system is unable to determine conflicts as it depends on supplier capacity.

You can right click on any column header to apply a filter, sort the list view, hide a column or select other columns. You can also group and ungroup the resources as needed.

The columns you select are unique to you and the browser you use to access the Scheduler. They are retained until such time as you clear your browsers history/cache, at which point the scheduler will revert back to the standard layout.

Scheduler Start/Finish Date: The Scheduler will by default start from “today” and finish 90 days from now, however, it also remembers where you last were when using the Scheduler, and next time it loads, will open at the same date you were last browsing. To adjust the dates available, right click on any of the main scheduler date headers and adjust the ‘Date Range’ accordingly.

Zoom: You can zoom the scheduler in to the point where it displays 10 minute increments, or out to show quarters. You can zoom in or out by pressing the Ctrl key and scrolling your mouse wheel, or alternatively, right clicking on the date headers in the main scheduler view and adjust the zoom level from the menu.

Undo/Redo: As you make adjustments to the production plan, you may find you wish to un-do a change, or re-do a change that was previously undone.  You can do this using the undo and re-do buttons at the top left of the scheduler. The buttons indicate the number of adjustments that can be un-done/re-done at any time.

Today: You can get the scheduler to focus on today by using the ‘Jump to Today’ button.

Current Day Timeline: By default, the Scheduler will display a vertical line on the main scheduler view, enabling you to quickly see the current date as you scroll across the timeline. You can remove the current date line (or re-add it) by right clicking on the date headers and selecting the ‘Show Current Timeline’ option.

Filtering: You can filter the visible jobs via two methods:

• Utilising the ‘Find Works Order’ box at the top of the screen, you can enter a works order number (or part of the number as needed) to filter the list of jobs displayed.
• You can also filter by right clicking on the date header columns in the main scheduler view and following the ‘Filter Tasks’ option.

Locking/Unlocking Jobs: When a job is locked it means that the schedule for that operation or works order cannot be changed. If you attempt to move an operation which is locked, you will be unable to do so.

Operations/Works Orders can be locked in Cim50, or directly in the Scheduler. To Lock a job in the Scheduler, right click on the operation you wish to lock and select the ‘Lock’ option. The operation will then be disabled and a padlock icon will be present.

To unlock an operation, right click on the operation you wish to unlock and select the ‘Unlock’ option.

Download: The ‘Download’ button will refresh the Scheduler data based on the current data available from Cim50. This happens by default when the Scheduler first loads, but you may wish to re-download the data at a later time.

Upload: The ‘Upload’ button will upload any changed data in the production plan to Cim50 works orders updating start & end dates of works orders and operation resources & start dates. These changes will be recorded in the works order audit log.

Switch View: The ‘Switch View’ button will switch the scheduler view to the ‘Works Order Operation Scheduler View’.

Dark/Light Modes: The Scheduler defaults to a light theme/mode. You can switch to a dark theme by using the Sun/Moon buttons in the top right corner of the Scheduler view.

Colour Coding

There are various places within the Scheduler where colour coding is used to highlight/identify any issues.

Works Order Operations: The works order operations within the main Scheduler view will be displayed in one of the following colours. The colours will change as the production schedule changes, based on the current circumstances. The significance of each colour and the recommended actions are outlined below.

• Red: Operations highlighted in red indicate there is a resource clash. It means there are more operations scheduled to run simultaneously than there are available resources.The recommended course of action would be to move one of the conflicts to start at a later time, or moving it to an alternate resource to resolve the conflict.
• Orange: Operations highlighted in orange indicate that the works order the operation belongs to will not be completed before its due date.The recommended course of action would be to adjust the operations on that works order to ensure the last operation completes before the due date.
• Yellow: Operations highlighted in yellow indicate that the works order the operation belongs to will not be completed before its safety due date.You may be comfortable with this, as it is still due to be completed before the due date, or, you may wish to to adjust the operations on that works order to ensure the last operation completes before the due date.
• Green: Operations highlighted in green indicate there are no scheduling issues with that operation.
• Blue: Operations highlighted in blue identify sub-contract operations. These subcontract operations only show in blue where there are no scheduling issues with the works order. If the works order was not due to be completed on time, then the subcontract operation would be displayed in orange/yellow accordingly.

Percentage Complete: The Scheduler will give you an indication of the progress of operations that are currently being undertaken. This is in the form of a percentage bar, which highlights the operation with a darker shade of its base colour to indicate the percentage complete.

Icons

The Scheduler utilises various icons to help you identify what you are interacting with when scheduling. The icons you may see, and what they signify, are detailed below:

Column Icons:

Relates to a machine resource.

Relates to a labour resource.

Relates to subcontract operations.

No scheduling conflicts are present for this resource.

A scheduling conflict exists against this resource.

Relates to subcontract operations.

Scheduler Icons:

Signifies the operation relates to a works order for a finished goods item.

Signifies the operation relates to a works order for a sub-assembly item.

Signifies the operation is a subcontract operation which has not been ordered at this point.

Signifies the operation is a subcontract operation which has been ordered and consequently cannot be rescheduled.

Signifies the operation has been locked.

Resource Utilisation

At the bottom of the screen is the resource utilisation area of the Scheduler. This section of the screen displays the resource utilisation as a percentage of the total available time for each period visible in the schedule.

If you click on a resource in the top section of the Scheduler, the Resource Utilisation section will automatically jump to the selected resource.

You can then quickly see your utilised capacity, along with further colour coding to highlight any issues.

Resource Utilisation Colour Coding:

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, indicated where the utilisation percentage shows higher than 100%, or that there are conflicts for the resource during that period, indicated where the utilisation percentage is less than 100%.

Should you wish to see the breakdown of the resource utilisation, you can either hover your mouse over the relevant cell for the period you’re interested in, or expand the tree by clicking on the > button next to the resource description on the left hand side of the screen. This then displays a list of all works order operations which are assigned to that resource, and allows you to view the breakdown of time for each one.