When setting up Routing Operations for a Bill of Material, a great visual method to confirm accuracy is by running a Routing Chart.
The following example comes from the MISys Sample Lighting Company. After the Routing Operations have been loaded with associated Work Centers and time values, click ‘Chart’ at the bottom left corner of the screen.
A Gantt schedule will appear, and if a default Reorder Quantity is loaded in the item master, it will populate as the build quantity, but can be changed if desired.
Some useful features of the Routing Gantt Chart:
1. Displays the overall time to complete all operations without capacity constraints.
2. Shows the impact of Work Center Schedules and if they create any gaps between operations. In this example, there is more than 6hours between KITTING and ASSEMBLY at ‘A’. This is because the stockroom is on a 24-hour shift schedule that starts at midnight, ‘00:00’ and ASSEMBLY is on an 8-hour shift schedule that starts at ‘08:00’.
3. Confirms the impact of Overlap on Operations. In this example, DRILLING has overlap switched on, which means that it can start as soon as the minimum number of units from the previous operation GRINDING are ready, instead of waiting to start until all items have gone through GRINDING.
4. Provides a simple method for conducting ‘what-if’ scheduling simulations with a variety of operational settings and quantities.
Whether your goal is to confirm the accuracy of new or existing Routing Operations, why not give the Bill of Material ‘Routing Chart’ a try...!
Matt