Understanding: How many hours remain in total and at each operation?

Now let’s look at what information is being supplied from the shop floor.

It’s not uncommon for transaction reporting to be captured manually on the shop packet that was issued to the factory floor when the SO was released.

The big question is, is anything done with the data? Is it collected and keyed to a  spreadsheet and not shared, or is the transaction data keyed to SFC600? If it is being keyed, ask how often and by whom? Some companies use alternative methods to capture transaction data that do not require batch keying via a keyboard.

Not a lot of data is required to be keyed to SFC600 in order for the SO Inquiry to be useful. The data that should be reported for the transaction process is as follows:

• The type of hours being reported – machine, run labor, setup labor
• If reporting setup and run labor you want an employee clock number
• The shop order and the operation that is being reported
• Is the operation complete
• How many good were produced at this operation
• How many hours – the numbers of hours are critical. Do the employees estimate how many hours they worked, or do they track actual time started and stopped in order to calculate the actual number of hours.

Based on what is captured and how often will have an impact on the SO inquiry screen. Understanding the batch times as to when the transactions are keyed will provide you with the window as to the SO status at that point in time. Or, are they keyed as they happen in a near real time fashion so that you can have a more current view of the factory floor.

Understanding: How many hours remain in total and at each operation?

First let’s look at some key BPCS Master File data starting with the routing file.

How many routing steps (operations) are set up that reflect how the product is produced in the factory? If you take a short cut and set up only one operation for the entire process, then you will limit the information seen on the SO inquiry program. Set up the operation steps to reflect what you want to report back to from the factory floor.

Will each of the routing steps run in one work center, or in different work centers? To keep it simple you may want to set up work centers as departments. For example:

• Assembly
• Machine
• Paint
• Etc.

For each operation setup consider how you have set up the following:

• Load Codes – for example a code 5 is used if reporting both setup time and run labor time. These codes are maintained in the work center file
• Basis Code – typical codes are P for pieces per hour,  3 is used for hours per 1,000 pieces
• Setup hours – if you set them up, you also want to report them
• Run hours – Direct Labor
• Machine hours

How you set up th

A serialized item is a physical occurrence of a standard item that is given a unique lifetime serial number. This enables tracking of the individual item throughout its lifetime, for example, through the design, production, testing, installation, and maintenance phases. A serialized item can consist of other serialized components.

In Service, a serialized item can be a customer-specific or owner-specific installation. Installation groups are a group of installations/serialized items such as photocopiers, computers, air conditioners, forklifts, lathe machines, and even aircraft.

A serialized item is identified by both the item code and serial number. You can set up the mask used to generate the serial numbers so the serial number includes some fields of the item data, such as the item group and the manufacturer.

In a multi-company structure, the companies can share the serialized item data. All the service departments in the various companies can refer to the same serialized items.

The serialized item can originate from a sales order or a project. The details of a serialized item indicate their origin, for example, by using specific sets of serial numbers for items that originate from sales orders and from projects. Serialized items can also originate from an as-built structure or directly from the production bill of material in Manufacturing.

In Service...

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