A work center calendar specifies the working days and hours, shifts, holidays, and absences that determine the work center’s gross available capacity, measured in time, according to its defined efficiency and capacity values. Creating and enabling a work center calendar involves several preparatory tasks.

As a foundation for calculating a specific work center calendar, you must first set up one or more general shop calendars. A shop calendar defines a standard work week according to start and end times of each working day and the work shift relation. In addition, the shop calendar defines the fixed holidays during a year.

Prerequisite

Gather all data about work times on your shop floor.

To create work shifts

  1. In the Search box, enter Work Shifts, and then choose the related link.

  2. On a blank line, enter a number in the Code field to identify the work shift, for example, 1.

  3. Describe the work shift in the Description field, for example, 1st shift.

  4. Optionally, fill in lines for a second or third work shift.

Even if your work centers do not work in different work shifts, enter at least one work shift code.

To set up a shop calendar

  1. In the Search box, enter Shop Calendars, and then choose the related link.

  2. On a blank line, enter a number in the Code field to identify the shop calendar.

  3. Describe the shop calendar in the Description field.

    The initial naming of the new shop calendar is complete. Now, you can proceed to define its contents.

  4. Select the shop calendar. On the Navigate tab, in the Shop Cal. group, choose Working Days. The Shop Calendar Working Days window opens with the name of the shop calendar.

  5. Define a complete work week, with the start and end times for each day.

    In the Work Shift Code field, select one of the shifts that you previously defined. Add a line for every working day and every shift. For example:

    Monday 07:00 15:00 1
    Tuesday 07:00 15:00 1

    If you need a shop calendar with two work shifts, you must fill it in in this manner:

    Monday 07:00 15:00 1
    Monday 15:00 23:00 2
    Tuesday 07:00 15:00 1
    Tuesday 15:00 23:00 2

    Any week days that you do not define in the shop calendar, such as Saturday and Sunday, are considered non-working days and will have zero available capacity in a work center calendar.

    When all the working days of a week are defined, you can close the Shop Calendar Working Days window and proceed to enter holidays.

  6. In the Shop Calendars window, select the shop calendar. On the Navigate tab, in the Shop Cal. group, choose Holidays. The Shop Calendar Holidays window opens.

  7. Define the holidays of the year by entering the start date and time, the end time, and description of each holiday on individual lines. For example:

    04/07/14 0:00:00 23:59:00 Summer Holiday
    05/07/14 0:00:00 23:59:00 Summer Holiday
    06/07/14 0:00:00 23:59:00 Summer Holiday

The defined holidays will have zero available capacity in a work center calendar.

The shop calendar can now be assigned to a work center to calculate the work shop calendar that will govern all operation scheduling at that work center.

To calculate a work center calendar

  1. In the Search box, enter Work Centers, and then choose the related link. Open the work center that you want to update.

  2. On the Scheduling FastTab, in the Shop Calendar Code field, select which shop calendar to use as the foundation for a work center calendar.

  3. On the Navigate tab, in the Planning group, choose Calendar.

  4. In the Work Center Calendar window, on the Actions tab, in the General group, choose Show Matrix.

    The left side of the matrix window lists the work centers that are set up. The right side shows a calendar displaying the available capacity values for each working day in the defined unit of measure, for example, 480 minutes. Each line represents the calendar of one work center.

    Note
    You can also select to view the capacity values for each week or month by changing the selection in the View By field on the Matrix Options FastTab in the Work Center Calendar window.

    To reflect the new shop calendar as a line on the selected work center, it must first be calculated.

  5. On the Actions tab, in the Functions group, choose Calculate.

  6. On the Work Center FastTab, you can set a filter to only calculate for one work center. If you do not set a filter, all existing work center calendars will be calculated.

  7. Define the starting and ending dates of the calendar period that should be calculated, for example, one year from 01/01/14 to 31/12/14. Choose the OK button to calculate capacity.

Calendar entries are now created or updated displaying the available capacity for each period according to the following three sets of master data:

  • The working days and shift defined in the assigned shop calendar.
  • The value in the Capacity field on the work center card.
  • The value in the Efficiency field on the work center card.

The calculated work center calendar will now define when and how much capacity is available at this work center. This controls the detailed scheduling of operations performed at the work center.

To record work center absence

  1. In the Work Center Calendar window, on the Actions tab, in the General group, choose Show Matrix. The Work Center Calendar Matrix window opens.

  2. Select the work center and calendar day when the absence time should be recorded. On the Navigate tab, in the Planning group, choose Absence.

  3. In the Absence window, define the starting time, ending time, and description of that day’s absence. For example:

    25/01/01 08:00 10:00 Maintenance

  4. On the Navigate tab, in the Absence group, choose Update, and then close the Absence window.

The capacity of the selected day has now decreased by the recorded absence time.

Quick guides for manufacturing are available in a document that you can edit and print in Microsoft Office Word. The file, which is named “Quick Guides - Manufacturing Foundation.doc”, is installed in the documentation folder of your client installation.

Tip

See Also