Our company is setup in the following way for Jobs:
100% Parts-on-the-fly
No Multi-Job use
MRP is not run
With this noted, I am looking to experiment with Multi-Job creation to help us improve scheduling flexibility. I believe there is a clear path for implementing this for new jobs. For existing Jobs, I was thinking of trying to create a few DMT templates to revise Job Header, Job Material, Job Assembly, etc. to create a new multi-job hierarchy, but I was not sure if there might be an easier way… which leads to my question:
Does anyone know if there is a native way to convert Sub-Assemblies into separate Make-to-job Jobs? I cannot seem to find anything on the Method of Manufacturing page to quickly convert the subassemblies.
We want to experiment with Multi-Job to be better help us with scheduling. Right now, our large flat BOMs lead to scheduling being a difficult task. We are testing out the multi-Job dimension to review if it will aid in making scheduling less manual.
Are you running Global Scheduling? You don’t need to run MRP to use Global Scheduling. As long as your Jobs are set up with accurate times, it should work for you.
We are not, and that decision was made based on our flat BoMs with large timelines — they don’t lock well for Global Scheduling, since freezing a job freezes the entire timeline instead of just the portion we need locked.
We are hoping Multi-job creation can help us with this issue-- meaning we can freeze these smaller jobs out a certain frozen period instead of locking the whole timespan of a large job.
Why are you locking your jobs? The scheduling engine will move operations around based on capacity and the dates, which will give you what you are looking for with multi-job.
I believe that still moves the operations within the two weeks if the whole operations’ job expands beyond the timeframe, since the whole job is being Rescheduled via Global Scheduling.
If you have Reschedule Started Operations off it will ignore those. I guess it would depend on how long your operations are, I was assuming they were lengthy.
Are your resources set up as Finite or Infinite?
You are trying to break up your jobs by assembly so you can schedule them separately. Would you be running Global Scheduling if you could? Or would you be manually scheduling?
Our operations can be anywhere from 15 minutes to 5 weeks long-- it just depends on the Resource.
We are mostly finite. Some workcenters with the smaller operation runs we can schedule infinitely and manage overages.
We are trying to break up jobs to better run Global Scheduling. The hope is that we can run Global Scheduling on a regular cadence and have as little backend schedule revisions as possible.
Current state, we are constantly wrestling the Scheduling engine, and we believe it has something to do with our Flat BoMs, Parts-On-the-fly for all components and material, and not capturing our labor flexibility with capabilities.
No worries! You have an interesting problem you are trying to solve.
I’m afraid you are going to end up with the same problems with Global Scheduling regardless of if they are flat or broken out. I think that Calculate Global Scheduling Order will return the same results regardless of how the jobs are set up.
There is no native way to convert a subassembly to a separate make-to-job job. That would be a manual process, and will also involve making changes to the Revision settings in Engineering Workbench (unselecting the Pull As Assembly checkbox) to make future jobs see this as just a material; and to the Part (selecting NonStock which tells Epicor to create the Job-to-Job relationship).
I’m afraid I will disappoint here… since Global Scheduling isn’t just a rabbit hole, but more of an interconnected intercontinental set of rabbit warrens. The only way to discover just what settings will make it work for you is to dive in and swim. Can it work for you? Probably. Will it work for you exactly the way you think it should? Probably not. The goal is to find the acceptable middle ground.
Correct. Right now, I am not saying it will be the easy button… because there never really is one.
I see it more as something to use in tandem with other improvements and help us shift our focus from wrestling the output of the scheduling engine to make it “look good”, to problem solving the inputs that feed the engine.
Right now, no one likes the way it runs, and I am more or less looking into why that’s the case.
MRP only schedules two very limited kinds of jobs… firmed but unscheduled (meaning jobs someone firmed up after the last MRP run but didn’t release or schedule), and UNFIRM job suggestions it creates. MRP does not touch any job that is already scheduled.
Therefore MRP alone is not going to solve any problems with your EXISTING jobs.
It sounds like your routings, production standards, resource groups, and the rest of the foundational stuff is pretty accurate, which is the first biggest headache. You’re already using Finite Scheduling, so you have a pretty good idea of the ride you’ve signed up for.
I heartily recommend checking out this post Global Scheduling by @jtownsend where he describes VERY SUCCINTLY the steps he takes and why he takes them. And then there is the sheer indescribable joy of the Scheduling Technical Reference Manual.
I’ll even upgrade my previous “Can it work for you? Probably”. to Almost Certainly. You have a great beginning, and we’re all here to help!