BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Understanding What Goes On – Out on the Factory Floor
Ok… so you want to know the status of a specific shop order that was released two days ago.
What do you do?
It’s a sure bet that you have a manager, supervisor, or planner who can walk the floor and find the order at whatever work center it happens to be at. He/she can then answer “what operations have been completed and how many were completed?” All this requires leg work, and of course, a fair amount of time.
Now, if you have setup your BPCS master files properly, and you report transaction activity, you should be able to get those shop order statuses much faster using the SFC300 Shop Order Inquiry Screen.
At your fingertips you can see:
- Release date & due date
- How many hours remain in total and at each operation
- The quantity required, what was finished and the remaining quantity
- What components (materials) have been issued
Pretty basic information, right? Are you getting what you need to know? If not, then you may want to reexamine how your BPCS files are setup and what transactions along with their frequency are captured.