RE: Scheduling Mixed Rates

I think you will be asking more of capacity planning in BPCS than what it is
able to deliver without some type of work-arounds.  You are probably getting
into the advanced planning and scheduling area as well as the advanced
execution.

We do not do much production reporting in the classic sense for the very
reasons you are describing.  I understand your production is "job oriented"
and this type of reporting is probably very important.

We looked at production reporting a few years ago and basically found out no
one was using the information for much of anything.  We no longer have
"pure" industrial engineers.  Scrap is reported outside of BPCS.  Production
movement (shop order A is now at work center 1) is reported outside of BPCS.
Work-in-process costing (for month end) is an in-house written program.

Doubt this has been much help but two opinions are better than none and I am
always interested in hearing other ideas.

Regards,

Dwight Slessman



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bpcs-l@midrange.com [mailto:owner-bpcs-l@midrange.com]On
Behalf Of MacWheel99@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 1999 10:56 AM
To: BPCS Users Discussion Group; Jerry Cooper; Kevin Martin
Subject: Scheduling Mixed Rates


Al Macintyre 405 CD AS/400 Mixed Mode v4r3

We generate custom turn-around job tickets to track raw material & direct
labor consumption but do not yet factor in setup time or indirect labor.  In
some departments we have machines to handle most of the work very
efficiently, with the excess done by hand which is very slow.  The
supervisor
keeps the machines busy with whatever they can accept out of our highest
priority work, then keeps direct labor busy with the excess work that is not
right now on any machine, then when the supervisor has time also pitches in
with indirect labor.

This was clarified for me because periodically they want me to adjust the
job
printing program which predicts volume of job tickets appropriate to print
based on standard time to product the order quantity, crew size, and some
supervisor estimated needs by work center, a formula which needs tuning.
However, there is a larger issue of scheduling work efficiently through our
factory & capturing correct costs,

The operations are routed a particular way, but sometimes the work occurs on
the fast machines, sometimes on the slow by hand direct labor, sometimes via
indirect supervisor, with the selection which made after the shop order
paperwork hits the shop floor.  If the costs were correctly captured on any
given part, the variances would not make any sense to anyone after the fact.
We also have a work force that is cross-trained to the point that when there
is underload in one work center, some of the workers can be moved to another
work center.

It seems to me that I have described a level of work center rates depth that
is beyond BPCS comprehension.  Ideally capacity planning should know that we
have a cluster of high rate machines that can handle work volume up to some
load within first shift, and a mobile work force that can perform in any
number of work centers on machines that are not automatic unmanned (actually
we have some humans who service several machines concurrently) once setup
completed, and give a fair estimate of how long some work volume should take
to get through the mixed rate operations and when impending volume dictates
advance warning reccommendation of overtime or 2nd shift work force on the
higher speed machines,

Am I expecting too much of BPCS planning, or should we be able to hold CAP
to
the same standards of accuracy & precision & ability to back track to which
we hold INV?

Al
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