1. Getting Started with APS
A. Mercer Sisson Systems Manager Insaco Inc Quakertown, PA

2. Overview Who is Insaco Inc? Our Scheduling Challenge
Key Steps – Defining Goals, Operations, Resources, Resource Groups, Capabilities, Concurrent Capacity
Running Scheduling Processes
Insaco Extensions
Lessons Learned – Requirements for Effective Scheduling
Questions

3. Who Is Insaco Inc
We are a high precision custom Machining Shop specializing in ultra-hard materials such as Sapphire, Alumina, Glass Ceramics, Carbides and Nitrides
Approximately 70% make to order and 30% make to stock for JIT customers
Between $12M and $18M in sales annually
Located in Quakertown PA about halfway between Philadelphia and Allentown for more than 60 years
60 Employees with 45 in direct production
Mostly single level jobs, some 2-3 level assemblies usually handled as pull as material

4. Our Scheduling Challenge
Typically almost 100 different parts in flight
Generally Jobs with lot sizes from 5 to 300 running 4-12 weeks
Material lead times from 2-6 weeks and sometimes much longer, including many high value materials and customer supplied materials.
Typical jobs of scheduled operations including document review, feature machining, some subcontracting and significant quality checks and documentation
Resulting in almost 3000 operations to schedule through 10 different departments
Most areas are constrained by Labor and not Machines

5. Getting Ready for Epicor ERP Scheduling
Define your scheduling goals, more accurate promises to customers, shop loading, shop dispatch…
Define your resources – consider machines, tooling, operators etc…
Define your resource groups – how do they combine into like capability groups, without APS should be interchangeable within the group
Define your operations – combine task and resources to form a “pallet” to construct your routes
Carefully consider where to use finite constraints and infinite capacity. Manage overloads or lateness – pick one (or both maybe)
Build routes - methods, jobs and quotes.
Determine ways to estimate and refine times
Define your priority system including forward and backward scheduling.

6. Defining Scheduling Goals
What problems are you trying to solve?
Better promise dates to customers
Better shop utilization information, when and where are the bottlenecks
Detailed dispatch information, who should do what, where and when
Coordination of materials and work
Each of these goals has a different impact on the amount of work needed to get the scheduling tools to help

7. Scheduling Concepts Forward vs Backward Scheduling
One Job at a time (vs one period at a time)
Resources – machines, people, tools, power etc…
Finite vs Infinite Loading
Constraints
Time
Non-Time
Modeling your manufacturing processes in Epicor ERP

8. Scheduling Elements Jobs Operations Operation Details
Resources – Finite or Infinite
Calendars
Resource Groups
Capabilities
Methods
Priorities – Define direction and sequence

9. Defining Resources and Groups
What is a resource?
How are they combined into groups
Calendar selection
Resources inherit properties of the group unless specifically told not to
Using Groups to schedule- limitation of one-to-one membership and sequencing
Capabilities – an APS feature allows many to many mapping, priority assignment and alternate routing

10. Defining Resources and Groups
Resource Calendars
Each resource can have its own calendar based on a hierarchy. This adds a great deal of accuracy to the modeling used to simulate the production process, while keeping the logic simple. In our case most machine resources are available 24x7 with the labor constraining the production. Each employee has a corresponding resource record and calendar.
Finite Scheduling Time Fence
A unique feature of ERP scheduling is a finite scheduling time horizon. This avoids the problem of dissimilar calendars causing a scheduling deadlock by turning off finite scheduling after this period.

11. Defining Operations An operation is a distinct task in the job route
Each operation calls out for the resources needed to do the task
Each operation must have an estimated time
Operation are usually run in sequence with overlaps possible
An operation can be split into multiple scheduling blocks
The scheduling block is the “thing” which gets scheduled
Missing Operations are a BIG problem
Out of order Operations are another problem

12. Defining Operations
We determined that our old operations list would not work well in Epicor ERP. So we combined the old task with the area or type of machine tool required to define a new set of operations going from 80 to over 300 defined operations. For example a length operation can now be a “Blanchard Length” or a “Slice Length” or even a “Jig Grind Length” depending upon the precision and type of grinding required.
The operation brings with it the predefined operation detail records when added to a route. The speeds up the creation of routes. But does require some thinking.

13. Operation Detail Records !!!!
These are the “rules” the scheduler uses to select resources to schedule the job operation. They also carry the costing rates used to estimate costs.
Here at Insaco we adopted the standard that opdtl 10 is always machine related and opdtl 20 is always labor related (where needed). Even if we needed to create a pseudo-machine such as the “mounting area”. We split the burden and labor cost rates - burden on 10 and labor on 20. Be careful of crew-size, the system sums them up to affect the aggregate labor cost.
We use RGs on 10 and Capabilities on 20. Don’t ever use just a single Resource! You should have a really good reason to combine them (we never do).

14. Generating a Job Schedule
How do you generate a schedule?
Enter every date manually
Scheduling Boards
Schedule Each job after engineering
Global Scheduling manually
Generate Sequence First
Then run Global
Global Scheduling Automatically
Don’t use task sets

15. Reviewing The Schedule
Look at ways Epicor ERP displays the schedule to production workers – MES queues, dispatch reports. Create additional ways to fit your shop, dashboards work well here but not for MES users.
Emphasize that this is a PLANNING tool and is not meant to tie everyone hands. There are WAY to many things that will prevent a perfect schedule. It is better than nothing and is in a process of continuous improvement
Provide a feedback loop, better to have more eyes rather than just a few. This improves buy in if you make changes in a timely fashion. Also update reported times as quickly as possible. MES is almost a requirement.

16. Miscellaneous Points
ERP scheduling has the ability to insert new jobs using finite capacity constraints. The Capable to Promise feature of ERP uses this same functionality to provide a conservative date. We run the GFS once a week using the task scheduling features in Epicor ERP. There are problems with scheduling multiple tasks in a process set. I am waiting for that to be solved. We have found that the secondary labor constraint can cause an overly pessimistic schedule, which can be tuned using concurrent capacity and multiple scheduling blocks.

17. More Misc Points … Automatic Scheduling direction reversal
Most of our Scheduling priority codes are forward scheduled since backward scheduling is too fragile. We start off using a backward scheduling code which is switched automatically to a forward scheduling code once the first operation falls within 70 days of the GFS run date.
This allows us to see material requirements as early as possible to place PO’s with vendors for materials so material constraints work properly.
In addition, we have implemented a “Delayed Start” capability for forward scheduling by using a user defined checkbox, date field and our Pseudo-Material technique.

18. APS Features Capabilities
With the APS license comes the ability to specify more than two operation detail records per operation and more importantly for Insaco the ability to use Capability to specify scheduling resources.
Since a resource can be part of one and only one resource group, using groups to select resources for scheduling is not flexible enough for our dynamically assigned labor pools. To solve this we are using labor capabilities to represent those pools and/or unique skills required. This directs the resource assignment during the scheduling process.
Since multiple capabilities can be assigned to a single resource, they allow the scheduler to select a resource from a prioritized list offering dynamic alternate routing schedules.
It is important to note that this merely controls the scheduling of the operation. It does not restrict the actual choice of resource used to perform the work.

19. APS Features Concurrent Capacity & Scheduling Blocks
We have begun using these features to remove excessive conservatism in the schedule. Concurrent capacity allows us to model concurrent use of the same resource on multiple operations. Such as a single operator able to run multiple machines or a multiple spindle machine tool able to run more than one job at a time.
Scheduling blocks allow you to split long running operations into smaller pieces which will fit into the fragmented time periods of operators. It also allows a single operation to be scheduled to multiple machines and operators at the same time if available or to model multi-shift “hand-offs”. We did need to adjust the Estimated Setup time to avoid excessive cost estimates since setups are typically not needed on “hand-offs”.

20. APS Features Material Constraints
ERP scheduling allows purchased materials to be constraints. However manufactured materials remain a problem. We have developed a solution for this which works quite well. I have worked with several companies to assist in implementing this tool.
Subcontract Scheduling
ERP 9 does sync the Subcontract operations with the promise dates on the corresponding PO. However, once a PO release is linked it always uses this date regardless of lateness in shipping to the Subcontractor.

21. APS Features Reporting
APS and base scheduling in Epicor ERP support reasonable reporting and visualization of the schedule, including a multi-resource and job scheduling boards
We have adapted our intranet dispatch list used within our shop to draw the data from Epicor ERP including scheduled resources. The adaption for ERP 10 will be completely rewritten to access the SQL database directly and eliminate the use of an intermediate Access DB.

22. Insaco Extensions to Epicor Offerings
Improved Reporting and Visualization
We have developed a classic ASP based intranet dispatch list by department, including subcontract shipments and materials requirements. This is displayed on data collection workstations and large TV screens strategically placed in the shop. It is available immediately on arrival in the morning.
The data for this is fully reloaded each morning and refreshed every 15 minutes so operations drop off as completed and progress bars are displayed as well. This system also provides sorting and filtering capabilities as well as drilldown and feedback mechanisms.
This has helped significantly with schedule awareness and enforcement.
In addition, we developed interactive and drill-downable gantt views and printable Gantt Charts by Department, Part, Job, Customer and/or Workcenter for up to 90 days in 11x17 format. Some are updated automatically and are linked to the intranet pages as PDFs.

23. Insaco Extensions
This shows the intranet based dispatch list, the color coding is used to indicate the status of the operation, Red is already scheduled to be finished, yellow is scheduled to have started and green are operations currently in process. The lighter shades are used for operations which are scheduled but possibly not available yet.

24. Insaco Extensions
This image shows the dispatch display on one of our large mounted TV screens. This data is updated every 15 minutes and is easily visible to everyone in the department.

25. Insaco Extensions
We allow drill down to very deep levels to understand what the engine has done.
We developed printable Gantt charts to help with longer term scheduling and planning.

26. Insaco Extensions
We developed printable Gantt charts to help with longer term scheduling and planning.

27. Insaco Extensions
We developed printable Gantt charts to help with longer term scheduling and planning.
We developed a streamline dashboard to quickly review and update estimated times both for methods and open jobs. This has been a huge help in improving scheduling and other metrics.

28. Insaco Extensions
We developed a standalone command line program which prepares for the global, cleans up and can implement a number of features.

29. Lessons Learned Requirements for Successful Scheduling
Strong Support of Management
Support and training of Shop Floor Supervisors
Good detailed routes with most activities included
Good estimated times – requires post mortem analysis and feedback from shop floor
Carefully determine which areas should be modeled as finite and which should not.
Fairly good modeling of actual work activities
A commitment to maintain the scheduling related data – calendars, resources, capabilities, etc...
A commitment to learn and explore the details of the tool. Don’t be afraid to experiment (in a sand box DB) – obtain and read the Scheduling Technical Reference Guide available from Epicor

30. Lessons Learned Requirements for Successful Scheduling
Effective scheduling really needs shop floor data collection (MES) for more accurate actuals. Must be reviewed daily or at least weekly.
Reasonable adherence to the route and sequence, Operations must be completed - despite scrap.
Quick resolution of non-conformances so quantities remain accurate.
Good visual representations of the schedule which are timely and easily understood
A commitment to try to follow the schedule coupled with a willingness to adjust it when needed
Realistic Goals and Understanding – this tool is NOT perfect, but it can significantly help improve things. Remember this is a planning tool not an execution tool. You still need your shop folks to reality check the plan and make manual changes.

31. Questions ?
Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. I can’t guarantee an answer but I will try.
A. Mercer Sisson