Overview
A Manufacturing Work Center represents a functional area within a department. It may be a machine or group of machines, a physical area, or a specific skill set or grouping where production takes place. Multiple individual machines or skills may reside within a particular Work Center. A Work Center can have labor capacity and/or machine capacity. Capacities defined in a work center are then used in the Capacity Planning Function. A Vendor may also be defined as a Work Center when Outside Operations are included in a Routing.
Application
The Manufacturing Work Center is specified in each Routing Operation. It defines the area of the facility in which the work is to be performed. Work Order Scheduling is done on an operation/work center basis.
Prerequisite
Manufacturing Departments: Manufacturing Departments must first be created
Navigation
Manufacturing Work Center
Header Section
Fields
Division: The Manufacturing Division this Work Center is associated with. When creating a new record this will be the users current division and cannot be changed. To create Work Centers in a different division the user must change their current division.
Work Center Number: A unique, user defined, identifier for this Work Center. It is an alpha-numeric value with a maximum of 10 characters.
Description: The user defined description for this Work Center.
Mfg Department: The Manufacturing Department this Work Center is associated with. The Department must already exist in the users current division.
Responsible Planner: The Manufacturing User designated as the Responsible Planner for this Work Center. This is primarily a reference field for filtering reports and/or queries.
Issue Location ID: The inventory location used for backflushing (auto-issue) when completions are reported at this work center, when operation backflush is configured to do so.
Total Capacity Labor Hrs/Day: The maximum capacity of labor hours (total production day hours) available in this Work Center per day. Calculated as Length of Production Day times the number of operators assigned to the work center. For example, a work center running a single 8 hour shift, with 4 employees would have a total capacity of 4 times 8, or 32 hours. Default value is 8 (hours), 1 worker for 1 single 8 hour shift.
Length of Production Day – Labor Hours: The maximum labor hours available for consumption in a calendar day at this Work Center by one person. Maximum value is 24 (hours).
Example:
Work Center Total Capacity Labor Hrs/Day = 24.0 (ex. 3 - 8 hr. shifts)
Work Center Length of Production Day – Labor Hours = 8.0
We have a Work Order Operation with a move time of 24 hours
For scheduling purposes, the total move duration will span 3 days since we can only spend a maximum of 8 hours (Length of Production Day) per day on this Work Center (even though we have a Work Center capacity of 24 hours).
Total Capacity Machine Hrs/Day: This is the maximum capacity of production day hours available in this Work Center per day, times the number of machines in the work center. Default value is 8 (hours).
Length of Production Day – Machine Hours: Maximum machine hours that a single operation can consume in this Work Center per day. Default value is 8.0 hours. Maximum value is 24 (hours).
Sequence Number: The Sequence Number for this Work Center. This determines the order that work centers appear in the Work Center Capacity Planning Workbench. Optional.
Details Tab
Fields
Scheduling Factor: The time it takes to perform the production (whether machine or labor) for a given process is the operation time, and it is calculated based on the setup, run and machine standards. These times can be ‘factored’ by this entry. If the times set are very precise, for costing purposes and for evaluating efficiency, then it is advisable to set a factor to greater than 1.0 so as to provide flexibility in the scheduling. The default value for this field is 1.0.
Example:
An operation normally requires 10 hours of labor.
Scheduling factor is 1.1. This will add 10% to the total time required.
Operation will be scheduled with 11 hours of labor.
Work Center Concurrent Sequence Option: When Checked, indicates that this Work Center can be a candidate for a Concurrent Operation.
Queue Days: The average number of days that a work order is ‘in queue’ (waiting) for this work center. This amount of time is used to establish the ‘start date’ of an operation. The amount of time spent in queue, plus the move time established to move from the prior operation, is added to the complete date of the prior operation to determine the start date for this work center. For example, if the previous operation has 2 days of ‘Move’ time, and this operation has 1 day of ‘Queue’ time, the actual start date for this operation will be 3 days after the completion of the previous operation. Set manually by the user. Default value is zero.
Calendar Tab
This Shop Calendar is specific to this Work Center and the display provides calendar information about this work center only. It can be used to override the standard manufacturing shop calendar for the division, if this work center differs from the standard working schedule. The Work Center Calendar is copied from the Division Shop Calendar when the Work Center is created, with the values for all days being copied. Each calendar day will have a 'Use Default' checkbox set to True, meaning 'Use the Shop Calendar value. To override the hours for any Work Center Calendar day, uncheck the 'User Default' checkbox and enter the override value, then click the 'Set' button, then click Save on the Work Center, to save the update.
Extracting new work order operations for this work center, or running the WO Scheduling process, will use the Work Center override hours wherever an override is present. Otherwise, both processes will use the Shop Calendar hours.
Fields
Color Coding
- Blank = Dates indicate Non- Work Day
- Yellow = No load (scheduled Routing Operations) in the Work Center
- Green = Partial load (scheduled Routing Operations) in the Work Center, however all available capacity not consumed.
- Blue = Full load (scheduled Routing Operations) in the Work Center where the Work Orders times is equal to available capacity in the Work Center.
- Red = Over Load (scheduled Routing Operations) in the Work Center where the Scheduled Work Order times are greater that the available capacity in the Work Center.
NOTE See System Setup > Shop Calendar for setting up standard calendars.
Notes and Attachments
Notes and attachment can be associated to a record.
SEE ALSO
