Maintenance Jobs Via Plans & MRP

Kinetic ERP
1

Morning All,
Im on a new tangent today Maintenance Jobs

Im trying to put in a daily 1hr maintenance check on a machine, in testing, to see if i can get the plans to generate out to the same horizon as the schedules

Im using things below in the method below, so id appreciate an opinion on what i am doing that maybe incorrect, Im trying to in essence make sure the schedules are blocked out so we can get the TPM done, againts our plans, and handle breakdowns as the abornmality.

Equipment - Ive created my equipment, and linked to the resource.
Meter UOM - Ive created a class for “days” and ive set my daily usage as 1

Maintenance Planning:
Created Plan,
Frequency 1,
Time UOM = Days,
Next Execute Date = Today
Buffer Days = 30 (my understanding here is next 30 days of requirements to be considered?
Template Job = I have 1 job in 1 operation, 1 hour, as per normal stuff
Recurring = True (my understanding is then 1 plan line can repeat itself)

Processing The Plan
Run Update Recycle thresholds for MRP jobs
Run Maintenance Plan Process
Run MRP in Net Change with cut off in 30 days

I get 1 Maintenance job, not the 20 or so, for the months daily checks.

Im getting alot of bugs in Pilot on our demo account, wondered if the way i set it up was at fault or the environment, getting errors when entering meter readings so presumed id speak to the community before even trying explain myself to Epicare.

Any guidance on how people have set this up or are using it would be handy, I want as the scheduller to consider the mainteneance and checks so that we can make sure there is an accurate plan to work to, and the maintenance team as limited in resource as it is can be utilised across the plant. nothing worse as a scheduler than failing machinery, TPM TPM TPM!

Thanks
Mitch

2

The next job won’t generate until the first one is done.

2 Likes
3

Morning, Thank you for getting back to me,

So how does the maintenance schedule get considered by the manufacturing jobs in the system? is there some logic that considers it, but then doesnt generate the job?

we do daily crane checks, say every friday morning as thats the easiest cycle for our business, how do I ensure that this is considered when planning and releasing jobs via MRP?

4

Our business decided that daily checks are handled as part of the shift start-up/shut-down process and aren’t managed through PMs generated through Epicor. That cut down on the overhead of someone needing to release the PM jobs, clock into them, and close the jobs when they finished.

Our resource calendars have an hour of time removed from each shift to account for start-up and shut-down tasks and breaks throughout the shift.

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5

If I am remembering correctly, it does not affect the schedule until the maintenance employee logs into the maintenance job.

6

If you assign the production resource as a scheduled resource on the Maintenance Job, add estimated hours to the operation, and release and schedule the job, it should consume time on the resource like any other job. But it will not move existing production jobs unless you do a load level or reschedule the other jobs in RSB.

2 Likes
7

Hey, Thanks for that explanation, im struggling to replicate that in our demo environment,

however, im trying to think of the considerations for the maintenance and get it into the schedules so that i avoid planning work on them, when they need to be offline and maintained,

this is without getting into the world of breakdowns,

so im right in thinking from the suggestions you have both made that i cant “load in my annual maintenance, and consider this in all our scheduled production jobs for the horizon”?

Thanks as always

8

If you’re finite scheduling, a released M-job will block out time on a resource the same as any other job. Clocking into a job doesn’t make it any more or less scheduled. If you’re infinite, it’s just going to backwards schedule from the required date and let you double book, again like any other job.

Maintenance jobs, behind the scenes, operate almost exactly like normal jobs. They use the same method calls. Global Scheduling treats them like any other job, though I can’t say I’ve looked whether or not it treats it as higher priority than production. They just have a couple of quirks in regards to some header fields (equipment instead of parts) and add the Issue/Resolution requirements to the closing process.

1 Like
9

Hi, Question is will it do it “reccuring” on all the plans you ahve to ensure the plans are blocked out for all “MRP” generated demands?

10

It will generate recurring jobs when you run the Maintenance Plan Processor, though it will only add the next job due. If you have a machine booked months or years in advance that needs monthly maintenance, you might need to add 12 plans that execute once a year.

MRP doesn’t really factor into maint plans. That’s a separate thing.

2 Likes
11

Hi John,
Understand your experience and dont doubt that, Reason im logically thinking the way i am is that in the technical ref guides its stating that if i put in recurring it will “repeat” that plan at the set intervals

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Im doing this process, however its not seeming to replicate the plan, across the linked resource, for the frequency defined.

weird little module this

12

I think it’s being fuzzy with the word “repeat”. Like, yes, it’s going to create a job dated (per the ref’s example) 180 days after the last completed maintenance and will keep doing so until the plan is inactivated. It simply will not actually create that 2nd job until the first one is closed out. Once the first job is closed, the Maint Plan Proc will kick out the next one.

This methodology makes sense if you think in terms of “no maintenance interval should be more than N days” which means if you complete the job early, the next one will be N days from that early date. Which means it actually needs to know when that last job is completed so it can set the next one N days after it. It doesn’t exactly work this way out of the box (I don’t believe the next execute date updates itself on job completion), but it would also be trivial to make it work that way. Easier than changing engineered jobs at least (though even that wouldn’t be too bad).

It breaks down a bit if you have, again, long backlogs and slotting a job 30 days from now means bumping stuff down.

2 Likes
13

I get that logic now its explained in a non-epicor tech ref doc context :smiley:

Im wondering if you can help explain template jobs in there, so my understanding is that i can have template jobs associated to plans, that same template can be applied across all standard plans, however there is a template job in the equipment entry screen

whats the difference between that and the plans, whats the heirachy?

any idea on this would help me out no end!

thank you all

14

A “template job” is a job whose details are available to be copied onto a new job.

When you use the “Get Details” option, you have the choice of getting them from a Method, a pre-existing Quote that is marked as a template, or a pre-existing Job that is marked as a template. If the job or quote doesn’t have the template checkbox enabled, it won’t be on the list to be selected.

1 Like
15

I assume any template on the equipment would be the default on any new plans. I believe the plans themselves are what drives everything. We don’t apply templates to any equipment though. They all sit on the plans.