Question

Labor Time does not cosider in Shop Order Scheduler

  • 25 June 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 258 views
ProThushA
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I have a customer who use labor oriented operations. However, when I use Labor time only my operation start and end dates were the same even though I have Remaining Labor Hours. Hence, for a full Labor oriented operations shop order scheduler does not respond.

However, we consider it in Lead Time calculation.

I know documentation also says, Infinite scheduler only considers remaining manufacturing time when the operation is scheduled. If the operation is planned with only labor time, the operation will be scheduled with the same start and finish time.

This is an serious issue. Is there any alternate way to accomplish this requirement.

 

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3 replies

AanHGTS
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A workaround could be use workcenter with matching labor time and zero cost. Not the ideal solution, but could be a workaround since SO scheduler only consider workcenter.

Cheers, Aan de Silva - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aandesilva/
Björn Hultgren
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Hi Thushan,

This is an almost "classic" limitation in IFS Manufacturing. As mentioned lead times can be calculated based on labor which is inconsistent with the factor that labor cannot be used for regular shop order or CRP scheduling.

It had been in the backlog "forever" to allow labor scheduling, but due to the very limited resources for development it just never makes it to the top of the list. 

Practically however my experience is that it is not the much of a problem if you follow below best practices when setting up your routings :

- The work center reflects the physical location where the operation is performed. It can be a machine/set of machines, but also an assembly area or table. As mentioned by Aan, cost might be zero for the later. 

-all operations should have machine time reflecting the duration it takes to perform the operation. The time the work center resource will be utilized and the base for scheduling. If only part of the work center resource will be utilized during this duration. Resource Share can be set less than 1.

-if operation also requires labor, labor time is added always with the same time as the machine time. If one operator only will work part time with the operation during its duration, crew size is set less than 1. If several operators are required crew size is set higher than 1.

If you have requirement where above mentioned best practices cannot be applied it would be interesting to have them further explained. 

ProThushA
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Hi Aan/Bjorn,

Thanks for your valuable response. I have tried and mapped the above suggested scenarios. However, those are not good work arounds for some of the customers.

Practically, my customer have fully labor oriented operations such as assembly. cleaning, inspection etc. which usually not connected to any work center as such and they only use tools. 

My customer use Mnafacturing Visualizer extensively and rely on those data. They put extra effort to streamline their basic data correct and realistic. When I propose dummy work center it also showing up in MV. Further, this customer process many shop orders per day with many operations. When I ask duplicate labor time as machine time and to hide dummy work centers in manufacturing visualizer, customer was bit worried and questioning, why we pay for IFS if you don’t have such premitive functionalities.

However, we have a argument and proposal. 

At least, If system can consider Lead time calculation basis we use in Lead Time Calculation, why can’t we implement same option in each operation and to consider the same for Shop order scheduling.

  1. Machine Time only - This is the current and the default behaviour
  2. Labor Time only - When this set, Labor setup and run will be copied to Machine setup and run in background and execute the shop order scheduler. (If we can consider this seperately without coping would be nice)
  3. Maximum Time of Machine or Labor -  When this set, depending on the maximum setup and run above combination logic will consider and execute the shop order scheduler.

 

 

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