Raw Material Assignment/Tracking

The manual scheduler has been designed exclusively for the accurate tracking of heat/lot material through out the entire manufacturing processes.  The goal of the manual schedule is allowing the scheduling position the ability to modify any automated scheduling or to schedule all processes entirely using the manual scheduler program itself.

Scheduling has always been one of the most difficult tasks undertaken by any process manufacturing facility.  The advancement of computer technology has allowed Praetor to be designed with a visual scheduler.  Any one with access to the program may view the available manufacturing time by machine, by date, and by shift, as well as the used capacity.

Due to the nature of the beast, subsequent processes for any one order can not be scheduled before the primary or first process has been scheduled.  This is because in order to properly track and allocate raw material by heat/lot number for each process, the first process where material will be used is the critical point of material assignment.

Once material has been assigned to the first process, each subsequent process must be able to be scheduled, including the heat/lot number which has been assigned.  This is basically very simple, until it is necessary to fulfill the order with more than one heat/lot because not enough material is available using one heat/lot alone.

 To add another trial and tribulation, say that the order has been split into multiple heats, but one of the heats has been placed on hold by Quality Assurance.  It now is necessary to un-schedule that part of the order which has been scheduled with that heat and to re select another in its place.  The manual scheduler allows you to un-schedule the items with ease, but all subsequent processes must be unscheduled leaving the first process to be unscheduled last.  The program tracks the number of subsequent processes to be scheduled and scheduled and if you inadvertently attempt to un-schedule the first process before all others have been unscheduled, it will provide a warning of the number of processes which exist with an assigned heat/lot.  It even tracks those not scheduled, which must be removed from the "to be scheduled" listing of orders as well.

Machine Capacity

The visual scheduler uses the equipment standards to calculate the time required to complete each operation.  When the order is entered into the system using the order entry module, the system uses the customer product specification with the attached routers to determine the equipment needed to produce the order. 

The visual scheduler depends on the process router and the equipment standards in order to provide the time calculations.  Each operation scheduled will be calculated base on the machines capacity (standards) and the calculated time to be allotted will be displayed in the visual scheduler gridF1ProjectGlossary9.

Calculation Discussion

The basis for calculation is pounds per hour.  In order to achieve the pounds per hour calculation, Praetor matches the parameters found on the product router and material router assignments.  This is used to match the parameters of the actual order which was scheduled during order entry.  When all items match the program will calculate the time required to produce the material on the equipment being scheduled and display the calculation as a graphic on the visual scheduler.

Order Process Scheduling for New Products/New Customers

One more twist and turn which will occur is the entry of a new product for a customer or
a new customer order.  If this occurs, the order will be allowed to be processed and the sales person will create a product specification shell with some customer specifications and will make the product specification status as review.  This allows the Quality Assurance department to easily find these new specifications and create the necessary router information.  Quality Assurance may then elect to apply the router to the schedule in the same way in which a repeat order would apply the router to the manual schedule.  In the event that the new router is not applied, the manual scheduler can find the router and allow it to be applied using the same method.  This allows scheduling to be performed as if the order was a normal repeat order.