PRODUCTION & MANUFACTURING MANAGEMENT

Metal production is a complex and often unpredictable task, which requires careful scheduling and constant monitoring to meet production objectives and save costs. SEMS Production & Manufacturing Management helps you to manage your operation by providing sophisticated tools. The Production & Manufacturing Management module provides the functionality necessary to manage and control every production process.

Features

• Determines feed stock requirements to produce the finished product.
• Determines profit margin between standard cost to make a product, and the price given to a customer.
• Validates order manufacturing feasibility of inquiry given the equipment capabilities and production standards as defined in the production standards module.
• Determines optimal route.
• Confirms production capabilities.
• Forms the basis for standard cost.
• Apply stock to orders using intelligent search methods to ensure that your customer’s requirements are met, and your inventory is being used cost effectively. Support for toll-processing and vendor managed inventories is provided.
• Support is provided for a wide range of standard steel processes, including Slitting, Cut-to-length, Shearing, Galvanizing, Pickling, Straightening and Pipe and Tube Manufacturing. Other processes can be easily added.
• Work orders for production are generated automatically when orders are created.
• A work order can include several work order steps, each describing a single operation at a work center.
• Production orders can include multiple sales orders.
• Standard yield losses, throughput rates, scrap produced and processing transformations are calculated dynamically using user-defined rule-based tables.
• Production results are tracked against the production order for reporting and cost calculations.  Work-In- Process costs are calculated dynamically.
• Record production directly on handheld wireless devices.
• Scrap and return-to-stock quantities are tracked against each production order.
• Develop a realistic production plan for each order that minimizes production inventory costs, and can be quoted to the customer with confidence.
• Notify Production and Sales staff of potential scheduling problems that may affect on-time delivery so that corrective actions can be taken pro-actively.
• Manage and distribute schedules and work orders throughout the plant, with minimal manual effort and paper work.
• Provide timely and accurate production and schedule compliance reports to line and senior management.
• Production schedules are monitored/flagged daily to identify orders that are running ahead or behind schedule, and production schedules are auto-updated.

Benefits

• Determines quantity/dimension required within the customers specified tolerances.
• Reduction in yield losses providing increased profits.
• Eliminates the need to define & maintain fixed routes.
• Improved customer satisfaction and maximum profit per order.

Process Description

• Provides a detailed sequence of steel-making and finishing processes that are required to satisfy the requirements for a given inquiry or product.
• Descriptions are dynamically determined at the time of order entry, based on the proper ties of the inquiry, particularly useful for specialty mills with multiple finishing operations.
• Fixed process descriptions can also be used for standardized products.
• New equipment or processes can be added without changing the software.

Production Standards

• Defines the processing capabilities of every major work-center.
• Defines the preferred work center for any process based on user-defined proper ties, such as shape, size, hardness grade, quality, customer name, etc.
• Allows for alternate work centers defined for different size ranges.
• Defines throughput rates based on the feed stock dimensions and equipment capabilities.
• Specifies valid size ranges for selected work centers to allow for incremental output sizes. This is normally used for bar-mills or cold-drawing operations.
• Defines manufacturing capacity limits for each work center, based on processing time or tonnage.

Provisioning and Routing

Provisioning is used to determine if an inquiry can be made, and if it can, then determine the detailed route for manufacturing.

• Yield losses are calculated and accumulated at each manufacturing step.
• Inquiries with unacceptable yield losses can be flagged for review by Sales.
• The number of pieces (blooms, bars, coils, etc.) and steel weight produced at each work step are calculated, along with any stock generated.
• The final ship weight and piece count is optimized to manufacture the inquiry cost-effectively (minimum stock and scrap), with allowances made for customer defined or industry standard allowable shipping excesses.
• Outside processing can be incorporated for processes or sizes that cannot be handled with in-house equipment.
• Provisioning work instructions of any order item on demand based on user defined rules attached to the processes.
• Used to determine the proper ties and weight of feedstock that must be fed into each processing unit, and validates the manufacturing feasibility of the finished product at the time of inquiry given the current manufacturing facility capabilities.
• Dynamically determines the process routing through the entire production cycle based on the end product parameters and the production standards capabilities.
• Determines the route that will provide the optimal yield for the production, and the technical feasibility of producing an order through the work centers.
• Planning (For Mills Only)
• Book capacity at each work center based on the provisional route for an inquiry.
• Selects alternative routes to avoid capacity restrictions.
• Inquiries can be backward-planned (pull-manufacturing) to meet a customer’s target delivery date, or for ward-planned (push-manufacturing) to find the best available-to-promise date. Selects the best method for the inquiry.
• Minimizes transport by avoiding material movements between facilities.
• Graphs planned work-center loads into the future.
• Load leveling to balance planned work-center loads, which can be affected by equipment failure or maintenance, or poor schedule performance.
• Activity is off-line after business hours to avoid response- time degradation.
• Apportions work-center’s total capacity for selected types of inquiries or products. Reserved capacities can be time- released manually or automatically.
• Work center’s capacity can be selectively over-booked.
• Inquiries that are not confirmed are automatically expired and removed from the plan after a pre-set time period.
• Schedules maintenance or other down-times.

Stock Application

• Searches WIP and stock inventory at each step of the planning process to find suitable material to satisfy the inquiry. Material on PO can also be applied, even if it has not been received.
• Stock search looks for material that satisfies the metallurgical and physical requirements of the inquiry at that step.
• Rules can be defined to specify circumstances in which stock or certain types of stock should not be applied.
• Reserve material for a specific work order step attached to a given sales order item and production release.
• A configuration option determines whether material can be reserved against inquiry.
• Each reservation indicates the specific inventory control item, tag number, purchase order number or ASN number.
• Reservations may or may not cover the entire quantity of the selected item.
• Per forms multiple functions such as order query, reservation cancellation, new reservation creation, stock search, automatic determination of weights and yields, review reservation versus quantity with appropriate alerts generated.
• Search open inventory, work in progress inventory, outstanding PO’s, or material that has been pre-received by means of an ASN.
• Perform a stock search based on arbitrary criteria, or for a given offering or sales order item. Identify the maximum number of items to return from a search.
• A user configuration variable provides optional restriction of certain users from searching stock that is not owned by the default company.
• The warehouse(s) to search. If no warehouse is specified in the search criteria, then all warehouses will be matched. Multiple possible values can specify.
• The allowable standard(s), grade(s) and disposition(s) and units of weight measure If no value is specified in the search criteria, then any value will be matched. Multiple possible values can be specified.

Sales Order Changes

• Allows for re-use of capacity and any WIP inventory that was booked for the original order.
• Selective re-planning to meet the original promised delivery date.
• Intelligently determines when re-planning is required.
• Maintains original order and the proposed change(s) in the plan until the change is confirmed.

Maintain Work Instructions

Work Instructions describes the standard sequence of work steps that are required to produce a given sales order item. Each work step describes the process (SLIT or PICKLE, for example) to be per formed, the preferred work center to perform the process,  the shape and dimensions of the source material for that step, the standard ield losses  and the standard throughput rate associated  with that process.  Work steps also have proper ties attached to them to provide additional detail or instructions concerning that particular process.

Maintain Production Releases

A Production Release is used to release all or a portion of an order item to the production system. A release describes the quantity of material (weight and/or pieces) to be released into production and when, the customer’s due date, and delivery date promised.

• Create a new release and specify a quantity to be released using the same unit of measure as given on the item, or for the balance of the order item.
• Cancel/hold/confirm a release. All associated work orders, stock reservations and production orders will also be cancelled, held, or confirmed.
• Revise the release quantity and/or dates. If the order item state is CONFIRMED, then the release state will be set to UNDER REVISION or UNCONFIRMED before revisions can be made.
• Issue release to the production system and print a Production Release Summary
• Query the open releases associated with a given order item.

Maintain Work Orders

A Work Order describes the standard sequence of work steps that are required to produce a given Production Release. The work order is similar to the Work Instructions, except for the following differences:

• Work order steps have states similar to releases, and are linked to a single production order for scheduling and production recording.
• Work order steps can be scheduled for a specific date and shift, and have stock reserved against them.
• The weight to be processed is stored in each work order step is based on the material reserved, using the standard weight unit of measure for the company.
• The actual weight processed against the step is stored.
• Populate the work order steps by copying the work instructions.
• Reserve stock against a work step or change an existing reservation.
• Schedule a work step for a specific date and shift.
• Create/confirm a Production Order and assign as a step. Steps can be placed on hold, or cancelled.
• Recalculate the processing parameters based on user- defined rules for a single step or all steps on the work order. Add new work steps at any point.
• Change the work center, or other processing parameters.

Maintain Production Orders

A Production Order describes a discrete production activity to be per formed at a specific work center. One or more work order steps are linked to each production order, which describe the details of the work to the done. All of the work order steps linked to the production order must have the same work center and process code, and have compatible size shape and other proper ties for the process.

• A production order can be created for internal use, which does not reference any sales orders.
• Add work order steps to a production order. The system will validate that the work steps being added are compatible with other work order steps linked to the production order.
• Remove work order steps from a production order, or create, confirm, place on hold, close, cancel, schedule, set under revision, and change parameters.
• Query the open production orders and their associated work order steps assigned to a given process and work center; next and related steps, production results and stocks reserved.
• Print a Production Order Report for any given production order.
• Whenever a work order step is added / removed to/from a production order, the system will determine whether any other work order steps will be added / removed because of shared stock reservations.
• Whenever work order steps are added / removed from a production order, or any of the associated work order steps is changed, the system will recalculate the production order quantity, throughput rate and expected run time, and update the previous and next production order steps as necessary.
• Whenever a user changes a production orders schedule day or shift, the system will automatically reschedule all subsequent related production orders and their associated work order steps,  except those whose state is cancelled or closed.
• Whenever a production order is closed, the system will return any remaining reserved material to stock.

Schedule Shifts

The system will be capable of maintaining a schedule of shifts for each work center. Each shift in the schedule will be assigned a specific date, star t time and duration.

• Assigns a maximum capacity in terms of total volume (weight) and/or production time per shift.
• Keeps track of capacity (volume and time) assigned to each shift.
• Each shift will have a state: open, finished, maintenance or closed.
• Creates a shift for a work center. The system will prevent shifts from overlapping.
• Creates a schedule of shifts for a work center given a star ting date, ending date and a shift pattern for the work center.
• Deletes a shift for a work center, unless that shift has production scheduled.
• Changes the maximum capacity for a shift.
• Changes the state of a shift, except for shifts that have been finished.
• Queries the schedule of shifts and their maximum, booked and available capacity for a given work center.
• Automatically finishes a shift once its end time has passed. Incomplete production orders that are scheduled for a shift that has not been finished will be marked as late. A system configuration variable will determine if late items are to be automatically rescheduled or not.

Production Scheduling

The user is able to schedule production orders for a given work center on a given date shift. When a production order is scheduled, any related “downstream” production orders will be automatically scheduled based on their estimated processing time and standard lead times.

• Sequencing of orders within a shift will be done via the Production Line-up.
• Tools for sequencing the production orders that have been scheduled for a given shift, or to change the scheduled shift for a production order. The sequence will determine the preferred sequence in which the production orders are to be executed for that work center.
• Prevents the user from scheduling production orders in finished shifts.
• Queries the lineup for any given work center and shift that has not been finished.

Record Production

The system will provide the user with the ability to record actual production results against any scheduled, production orders. via the java web screen, or via the handheld device if the RF-Warehouse Management option has been installed.

Production Transactions

The user is able to create production transactions for each inventory item (tag) that is reserved against a production order. Each transaction will record the actual star t and end time for processing the selected tag, and calculate the actual run time and delay time.

• Automatically calculates the resulting theoretical weight, shape and dimensions of the output piece(s) based on production order data.
• The user will be able to override the calculated values if there is a discrepancy, or if measured values are not available.
• Tag numbers for any resulting child items will be created automatically.
• Multiple production orders can be in progress simultaneously at the same work center, and production orders will be allowed to remain open indefinitely.
• Provides a “Finalize Production Run” function for the user to summarize the production results for all production orders in progress.
• Automatically distributes cost of production upon finalizing a production run, or upon closing the only open production order.
• Calculates the total input weight and cost (including production costs) during the production run.
• Calculates the output weight(s) for all open production orders (including scrap) during the run.
• For any produced material with a fixed cost (such as scrap), assign the fixed cost. Fixed cost categories will be defined in user-defined tables.
• For any remaining produced material, distribute the input cost less the fixed costs (as described above) by weight.
• Reserves the resulting pieces against the appropriate downstream work order step.
• User-override any of the calculated data or allocations based on actual results, create additional resulting pieces, delete selected pieces and assign any leftover weight to scrap or stock.
• Allocates scrap to one or more scrap classification codes.
• User assigned disposition to any of the resulting pieces.
• The default disposition and grade will match the disposition and grade of the input item.
• Once the user has reviewed the resulting pieces and their allocations,  the transaction can be posted to inventory.
• Allows for any number of digital photographs to be attached to a production order either during or after processing.

Work Center Transactions

• The user will have the ability to enter transactions that describe non-production order related activities that occur at the work center, such as delays. The types of work center transactions will be system configurable.
• Each work center transaction will include the transaction type, the reason and the star t and end time.
• When work center transactions overlap production transactions, the overlapping time will be deducted from the calculated run-time of the production transaction, and reported as delay time.

Miscellaneous Queries

The system will provide the user with the capability to perform miscellaneous queries on reservations against inventory tags, reservations against PO’s, reservations against ASN’s, unreleased orders, unapplied releases, unscheduled releases, late releases, releases on hold, and production on hold.

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