so i might be dreaming a bit but i am trying to figure out a way to create material queue request for the job materials when a picker starts the picking operation, ideally it would auto assign the queue transactions to the picker.
a bit of context, the majority of our jobs are assembly jobs that take on average 20 minutes each (some more some less), and up to 40 different job mtl parts that need to be picked. all jobs have 2 operations, one for picking and one for assembly. right now our scheduling team prints the job traveler that is then used to pick the items needed. on the production floor, the picker clocks into the picking operation, physically picks parts using the paper job traveler, clocks out of the operation. when we implemented epicor, an automation was created to automatically issue material from its primary bin.
we are now wanting to implement lot tracking, which means our automation that issues the material will not work on lot tracked parts. i want to streamline the process as much as possible, and potentially reduce the amount of paper needed to print out all the job travelers.
So far right now i have found i can create the picking requests using the fulfillment workbench, and with the get request application in MES.
My ideal process is that the picker would clock into the picking operation, and material queue records would be created and assigned to the employee that clocked in. He would then have these on his material queue on his handheld to process.
my problem with the fulfillment workbench, (I might be wrong) but from what i can tell when you release job material for picking on the workbench, it creates a allocation. the problem with this, is that we might release one job for a large qty to be picked in 4 weeks that uses up all our on hand qty, and then we won’t be able to fulfill jobs that are released to be worked on next week. and we are able to get more parts in by the time the larger job needs them.
so this comes to my question, has anyone successfully automated the get request process?
Thinking outside the box, since your jobs are quite short, I wonder if you could take advantage of Kanban Jobs? It’s a completely different mindset from what you are currently doing. In essence, you don’t create the job ahead of time. You build the product and then report what you’ve used - including the lots used. There are no Job Travelers, so that would have to be managed in a different way. KB jobs are done in one fell swoop: create a job for the quantity produced, issue material for that quantity, received to stock, and then close the job.
It would take some reimagining, but it might work for you.
We are familiar with kanban jobs on some items. but my question is how will kanban jobs react to using lot tracked parts? and also our operations are normally time and qty recording, and we use FIFO inventory.
You’re presented with a screen of materials, and you choose the location/lot used.
Right. As a company, does it make sense to report time if the job only takes 20 minutes? Like I said, this would be a major culture change and not “doing it the way we’ve always done it.” Are we getting value from the time reporting for jobs that run that quickly?
Preallocating materials is causing a lot of hurt at the moment, so I thought why not look at a different approach?
Interesting. the decision to move to just doing kanban jobs is something that is not my responsibility. If i suggest this as a potential solution i know i will get a lot of questions. One of thing that comes to mind right now is would would be used for a picklist if we didn’t have a specific job to start with. we do a mix of standard units and custom units so i would need to make sure we have a way to get that.
I will try to describe the order process as simply as possible. Just to start, we have a few different order types with different lead times, this process applies to all order types, but with different timing. We are a mostly assemble to order business, there are a few items we make to stock but we use MRP jobs to fill stock.
All parts that are on released SO have approved revisions with a BOM and a MOM.
-SO entered and released
-MRP runs and engineered jobs are created using the revisions BOM/MOM
-planner schedules the SO using a custom dashboard that releases all the jobs related to a specific SO (this dashboard firms the jobs, forward schedules these jobs from a date the planner inputs, and marks the jobs as ready for mass print and does a few other things in the background)
-planner prints the job travelers and sorts then into the different days of the week when they are planned for and get distributed to the floor by the work day.
-then what i described in my original post happens, picker logs into picking, physically picks, when he logs out of the picking op all the material related to that op gets automatically issued.
No, i don’t think so. most of the time they would likely just delete it and wait for MRP to recreate it or recreate it manually.
now this is a bit more of a complicated question. it is a mix of both MTO demand type and MTS demand type. we use sales kits, but we “make them to order”. there is a thing that runs and creates the jobs for the sales kit items that are set up as manufactured and non-stock. the nomenclature of the “sales kit jobs” is the same as the MTO jobs, and are treated in the same manner as the MTO jobs.
I went to the Ranger Design site, and it looks like you have a highly configured product. Do you use the Product Configurator or CPQ/KBMax? Do you engineer on Quotes?
no we don’t use any of that yet, that is a topic for another day . like i said, everything on a SO has an approved revision set up. it is it something custom that we are selling it gets set up by engineering before the order is entered.
The only reason I brought up engineering in the quote is then I can see a path to a pick list. You have all the same engineering capabilities in a quote that you do in Engineering Work Bench.
If you still want to create a method for a part, you can easily do a Get Details from the Quote Line into the Part Revision.
If you peg the demand when running MRP, you may be able to create a Pick List for the suggested jobs linked to the quote. Again, just a different way to look at it.
It’s a completely different mindset from what you are currently doing. In essence, you don’t create the job ahead of time. You build the product and then report what you’ve used - including the lots used. There are no Job Travelers, so that would have to be managed in a different way. KB jobs are done in one fell swoop: create a job for the quantity produced, issue material for that quantity, received to stock, and then close the job.
. like i said, everything on a SO has an approved revision set up. it is it something custom that we are selling it gets set up by engineering before the order is entered.
