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Evo-ERP and DBA Classic >> Manufacturing >> Scheduler Procdure
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Message started by shadowcaster on 10/07/04 at 11:46:03

Title: Scheduler Procdure
Post by shadowcaster on 10/07/04 at 11:46:03

Anyone have a procedure for how to use the scheduler ?

Im looking for a workflow so I can use this thing w/o getting crazy dates and blowing up the MRP

last time I used it, it rescheduled all my work orders the MRP went nuts and I had to fix a few hundred dates manually

now that business has picked up I need to be massaging these dates with a little help from the computer

JW

Title: Re: Scheduler Procdure
Post by jwalden on 10/07/04 at 12:00:25

I second this request.

We are currently using MR-F for material requirements, and although we have all our routings set up for finished goods, I have yet to successfully use DBA for capacity planning.

Last time I tried, WOs went haywire and I, too spent long hours rescheduling our jobs.

I'd like to hear how others have successfully implemented it.

Title: Re: Scheduler Procdure
Post by Lynn Pantic on 10/07/04 at 16:52:00

Classic DBA doesn't link MRP and Scheduling so as you have discovered, running anything other than Finite Scheduling gives MRP problems because WO dates change. Either the start date changes which impacts the need date for purchased items and other subassemblies or the Finish Date changes which conflicts with either customer ship dates or higher level assembly start dates. So you end up in a never ending iterative process of running MRP, running Scheduling and manually adjusting Work Order Dates.

I'm all for improving the system although it won't happen overnight. What would you like it to do?

Title: Re: Scheduler Procdure
Post by shadowcaster on 10/07/04 at 20:17:38

Id like it to schedual my production from the dates on my sales orders and fit in the items i'm making for stock.
so my shelves never go bare.

Is that too much to ask ?

so your saying the thing is useless if you use the MRP ?

maybe my mrp settings are wrong for the timeing of my business ? i was thinking I need to slow things down with bigger buffers or something.

JW

Title: Re: Scheduler Procdure
Post by aricon on 10/07/04 at 21:01:05

Actually what Lynn is saying is that DBA offers a reasonable MRP system......NOT an MRP II capability, or a even more advanced ERP system as the nomenclatures have come to be defined in the current lexicon. MRP II offers the integration of the people and other resource scheduling parameters with the materials scheduling of 1st generation MRP. So.....since DBA does not have that integration it makes very good sense that running one will inevitably negatively impact the other.

Title: Re: Scheduler Procdure
Post by shadowcaster on 10/08/04 at 07:39:39

So what do people do to schedule work orders

If you have a bunch of orders for stock goods and you get an order for product X how do you reschedule the work orders for product X to run ahead of the work orders for stock including the ones that were for stock but now you need a few of them for product X also ?

J dub

Title: Re: Scheduler Procdure
Post by sharon krewson on 10/08/04 at 08:34:13

We are highly interested in this topic too! Right now we pull sales order info into a spreadsheet using Crystal and then sit down and hash it out. Our supervisors then plan production in their areas according to what is discussed. I know there is a better way.

I, too, tried using the scheduling feature and had the Materials Manager in my office within the hour asking me what I was up to. Oops.

We would need to use Infinite scheduling because we aim for our customer's dates (we are a sub-contract manufacturer). We allocate resources as necessary to meet these dates (hence - infinite scheduling.... do I have that right?) I would love to hear how other companies are effectively using the schedule feature.

Title: Re: Scheduler Procdure
Post by aricon on 10/08/04 at 15:02:34

I would bet that there isn't ANYONE that can use both systems. As I said they are mutually exclusive in DBA and royally screw each other up. EJ (or now NG) largely deals with this through better integration of resource (people, machines) with material requirements.

But even NG stops short of what JW was talking about which is full demand/supply linking. Other systems that I hve worked with do this - almost all of the mid-range products do.

Essentially what happens in those systems is that you produce items on WO's, whether they are for stock or direct to order is not of consequence at the 1st pass. That is the supply side. You consume those items (or services) on SO's. That is the demand. Up to this conceptual point DBA is basically the same. The real difference happens on the WO side. In the mid-range systems you can use any quantity from any WO (supply) to partially or completely fulfill any requirement from 1 or more SO's (demand) through "linking" one to the other.

This requires a LOT of sophisticated coding folks. Particularly when you consider the added complexities of scrap quanties and DMR's and QA inspections and multiple revisions that may be being produced at the same time, etc. This is one of the areas where mid-range systems can somewhat justify the price that is charged for the software. The development time, effort and expertise is pretty significant.

Title: Re: Scheduler Procdure
Post by rlevasseur on 10/08/04 at 16:57:24

I am glad that JW started this thread. I thought that I was nuts for running an old database that I started 14 years ago, but it still works and does a decent job. I have tried many times to have scheduler work for me and determine what sequence should be run next in each department, but.... to no avail I have failed. We use DBA expressly for WO routings, inventory, A/P an d payroll. For what it does it works great, however, it would be nice if it could do scheduling.

Title: Re: Scheduler Procdure
Post by aricon on 10/08/04 at 21:05:03

Well....it CAN do scheduling. It just can't take into account materials availability. OR it can take into account materials requirements and not schedule.

Lynn can talk to her developers and comment based upon their input, but becuase of the base structure of DBA's logic and tables, I do not believe this can be truly fixed. Possibly patched somewhat, but not fixed.

Title: Re: Scheduler Procdure
Post by Karen Mason on 10/11/04 at 10:57:08

Good thread! The main reason I bought DBA instead of something else was the fact it had both MRP and scheduling (well-it was affordable too). I too use work orders, routings, bom, and mrp. But when it comes to the scheduling part it has been extremely difficult to use.

Right now we print workcenter schedules and then manually schedule from the list. Some of the problems occur when small quantities are left over that will never be run. We try to adjust those out to get them off of the report. Also, since the report does NOT list the due date of the workorder (which is our customers due date) we have been manually altering the description when setting up the workorder. The description now has our heat code, cust.due date, and Steel due date or "IN" if it is received. ie: A-5 D:11/15/04 S:10/05/04.

We also use the class code in the workorder to indicate various things since that shows up on the reports. In our case we put a "T" in the class code to indicate if tooling needs reworked before the job can be done.

PS: rlevasseur: I'd love to see what you created-any chance?

Title: Re: Scheduler Procdure
Post by shadowcaster on 10/13/04 at 09:14:33

This seems like a fatal limitation of DBA
when things get busy and you need to reorder scheduals to get something out ahead of something else what do you do ?

I dont have time to have meetings I just want to set/adjust dates on sales orders and have the system adjust the machine and process schedual for me. Maybe this will never happen. Its making me nuts thinking about it though. There must be a way to do this kind of thing.

What programs will do this for you is there something that can read DBA data and generate a schedual from that ?

Jw

Title: Re: Scheduler Procdure
Post by aricon on 10/13/04 at 10:43:36

JW,

EJ (or now NG) can do this. What it will NOT do (as I stated before) is full demand/supply linking. But it WILL do what you just asked.

If you do not want to move to NG, then there are scheduler programs out there that you can link to DBA through ODBC, but it will then only give you the information in the scheduler program. If you want it to write back the changes to DBA, you would be looking at SIGNIFICANT dev cost to write the code to do so. Quite frankly, after you would get through paying for the scheduling software, AND the dev time to link all the information through ODBC just to get the required data into the schedluer software, you might be rather disheartened to then fork out AT LEAST that much again to be able to write the changes back to DBA.

Plus.....it's gonna run slow! :P (a LOT of data that has to go back and forth to make something like that work).

Title: Re: Scheduler Procdure
Post by shadowcaster on 10/13/04 at 11:23:42

I believe we are waiting to go to NG but we need routings and a few other things that NG isnt ready to do

plus we need to wait until NG is proven somewhere !!

its always something isnt it

JW

Title: Re: Scheduler Procdure
Post by Philam on 03/23/05 at 14:59:30

Has there been any new advancements on linking MRP to the scheduling module?