We are multi-company - NOT multi-plant so I am not familiar with multi-plant and I don't know if the following would apply. In multi-company if we start a job in one company and decide to move to our other company we just add a subcontract operation and issue a PO. Then we open a SO/Job in the other company. This requires intercompany "paperwork" but it works very well other than that. This probably would not be as easy in all environments, but we do not have many transactions since we are a project based company with 12-24 week leadtimes, etc.
We are implementing MES in 9.05.702 and have an issue that I was wondering if anyone has solved. there are times that we start a job in one plant and then move it to another plant instead of closing the job and moving all of the material changing the methods etc.. we leave it in the original plant and just move it to the new plant, when we did this on paper no big deal but now with MES the MES station is locked to that plant so the employees can not log onto the job because it is in a different plant. is there a way to give multi-plant access on an MES station? we are using terminal server with winterms not sure if that changes anything or not.
Thanks
Joe
We started by adding each icon for each MES plant to the MES Station. We had to make sure the employee was part of each plant that would do the work. Accounting barked about “sharing†employees. But regardless of that impact, you still have to really train your people to look and see which plant the job was in, so on the job traveler to printed in bold at the top the plant the job was in. Then all the guy had to do was match the traveler to the MES icon. At the end Accounting won out and none of our employees were shared across plants. But we left the legacy info intact because it helped trace where are parts were.
Manasa
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2015 4:02 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] MES Multi-plant
We are implementing MES in 9.05.702 and have an issue that I was wondering if anyone has solved. there are times that we start a job in one plant and then move it to another plant instead of closing the job and moving all of the material changing the methods etc.. we leave it in the original plant and just move it to the new plant, when we did this on paper no big deal but now with MES the MES station is locked to that plant so the employees can not log onto the job because it is in a different plant. is there a way to give multi-plant access on an MES station? we are using terminal server with winterms not sure if that changes anything or not.
Thanks
Joe
IMPORTANT NOTICE FROM API: This communication, including any attachments, contains information that may be confidential or privileged and is intended solely for the entity or individual to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender immediately and delete this message. Any unauthorized disclosure, copying or distribution of this message is strictly prohibited.
We also are using 1 job crossing many plants. We actually had our Epicor consultant modify our Job Traveler to where the plant the job was written to is printed boldly across the bottom of the traveler. We also have all 4 plants Icons available on the MES screen. The operator must open the correct plant to correlate with the plant that is on the job traveler. If the operator leaves the Icon open, it is consuming another MES license. While the 1 job crossing many plants has been effective in tracking movement and capturing all the costs to the one job, we have encountered a few challenges – some which are just now beginning to surface.
Problem #1: Epicor is creating false warehouses in plants. Additionally, it is duplicating the qtys OH and demand from one plant to another which really messes up inventory, time phase, and net available. Just last night, after months of struggling to uncover the root cause, it appears the error may be from our 1 job crossing many plants. If we have a job written in Plant #2, but the first operation is in Plant # 1, we will call out on the Job detail for that operation to pull the material from Plant #1, #1 Main Warehouse. After we hit the save button Epicor creates a false warehouse called Plant #2, #1 Main Warehouse and populates the on-hand qty. that currently exists in the records of Plant #1, #1 Main Warehouse into the false Plant#2, #1 Main Warehouse. We thought it could be related to whether the Plants have Shared Warehouses. It doesn’t appear to make any difference. While we have had a ticket submitted to Epicor since January 2015 when we first implemented 9.05.702A, we had only received a tool to correct the errors when we discovered the errors. Epicor was unable to tell us why until we could duplicate. We submitted our findings this afternoon.
Challenge #2: Since the same resource cannot be tied to different plants, we ended up using the first letter of the plant to uniquely identify the resource on the work order. As an example – we have a Punch Press in plant G and identify the Resource in Plant G as GPUNCH. We need to use that Punch Press in plant G to run the 1st operation for a Job for Plant P. We identified that same Punch Press as PGPUNCH – Plant P Job Order using Plant G Punch. With the designations, we can determine how many hours Plant P is using Plant G equipment. One obstacle we haven’t overcome yet is how handle the Scheduling piece. We haven’t implemented that module yet. But how do you schedule a piece of equipment when it could be identified as though it were 2 separate pieces of equipment?
Challenge #3: Maintenance Module error just surfaced this afternoon. There may be problems with the Maintenance module running across a Multi-plant environment. According to Epicor technical help this afternoon:
PROBLEM DESCRIPTION:
Unable to approve Maintenance requests in a MultiPlant environment.
If the same Maintenance Request ID is generated for two plants, only the first plant is able to approve the job. The 2nd plant will receive an error message when approving the job. A different error message will be displayed if the 1st plant has already approved theirs.
SCR currently targeted for release as part of version 10.1.
We haven’t gotten to the bottom of the Maintenance problem yet.
Sorry to ramble. Hopefully, some of this feedback may be helpful, or hopefully others have run into the same problems and have found the solution.
Ron Brown
Process Manager
Tank Connection
3609 N. 16th St.
Parsons, KS 67357
Office: 620-423-3010 ext. 158
Email: rbrown@...<mailto:rbrown@...>
[http://www.tankconnection.com/sig/tc.png%5d<http://www.tankconnection.com>
[http://www.tankconnection.com/sig/tcli.png%5d <https://www.linkedin.com/company/tank-connection-affiliate-group?trk=nav_account_sub_nav_company_admin> [http://www.tankconnection.com/sig/tcfb.png%5d <http://facebook.com/tankconnection> [http://www.tankconnection.com/sig/tctw.png%5d <http://twitter.com/TankConnection> [http://www.tankconnection.com/sig/tcyt.png%5d <http://youtube.com/user/TankConnection> [http://www.tankconnection.com/sig/tcgp.png%5d <https://plus.google.com/u/0/+TankConnectionParsons/posts>
________________________________
NOTICE: This email and any attachments are considered confidential and intended for the addressee only. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender as soon as possible and delete this email. If you are not the intended addressee, any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message is strictly prohibited by law.
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2015 3:10 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] MES Multi-plant
We started by adding each icon for each MES plant to the MES Station. We had to make sure the employee was part of each plant that would do the work. Accounting barked about “sharing†employees. But regardless of that impact, you still have to really train your people to look and see which plant the job was in, so on the job traveler to printed in bold at the top the plant the job was in. Then all the guy had to do was match the traveler to the MES icon. At the end Accounting won out and none of our employees were shared across plants. But we left the legacy info intact because it helped trace where are parts were.
Manasa
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2015 4:02 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] MES Multi-plant
We are implementing MES in 9.05.702 and have an issue that I was wondering if anyone has solved. there are times that we start a job in one plant and then move it to another plant instead of closing the job and moving all of the material changing the methods etc.. we leave it in the original plant and just move it to the new plant, when we did this on paper no big deal but now with MES the MES station is locked to that plant so the employees can not log onto the job because it is in a different plant. is there a way to give multi-plant access on an MES station? we are using terminal server with winterms not sure if that changes anything or not.
Thanks
Joe
IMPORTANT NOTICE FROM API: This communication, including any attachments, contains information that may be confidential or privileged and is intended solely for the entity or individual to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender immediately and delete this message. Any unauthorized disclosure, copying or distribution of this message is strictly prohibited.
IMPORTANT NOTICE FROM API: This communication, including any attachments, contains information that may be confidential or privileged and is intended solely for the entity or individual to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender immediately and delete this message. Any unauthorized disclosure, copying or distribution of this message is strictly prohibited.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Problem #1: Epicor is creating false warehouses in plants. Additionally, it is duplicating the qtys OH and demand from one plant to another which really messes up inventory, time phase, and net available. Just last night, after months of struggling to uncover the root cause, it appears the error may be from our 1 job crossing many plants. If we have a job written in Plant #2, but the first operation is in Plant # 1, we will call out on the Job detail for that operation to pull the material from Plant #1, #1 Main Warehouse. After we hit the save button Epicor creates a false warehouse called Plant #2, #1 Main Warehouse and populates the on-hand qty. that currently exists in the records of Plant #1, #1 Main Warehouse into the false Plant#2, #1 Main Warehouse. We thought it could be related to whether the Plants have Shared Warehouses. It doesn’t appear to make any difference. While we have had a ticket submitted to Epicor since January 2015 when we first implemented 9.05.702A, we had only received a tool to correct the errors when we discovered the errors. Epicor was unable to tell us why until we could duplicate. We submitted our findings this afternoon.
Challenge #2: Since the same resource cannot be tied to different plants, we ended up using the first letter of the plant to uniquely identify the resource on the work order. As an example – we have a Punch Press in plant G and identify the Resource in Plant G as GPUNCH. We need to use that Punch Press in plant G to run the 1st operation for a Job for Plant P. We identified that same Punch Press as PGPUNCH – Plant P Job Order using Plant G Punch. With the designations, we can determine how many hours Plant P is using Plant G equipment. One obstacle we haven’t overcome yet is how handle the Scheduling piece. We haven’t implemented that module yet. But how do you schedule a piece of equipment when it could be identified as though it were 2 separate pieces of equipment?
Challenge #3: Maintenance Module error just surfaced this afternoon. There may be problems with the Maintenance module running across a Multi-plant environment. According to Epicor technical help this afternoon:
PROBLEM DESCRIPTION:
Unable to approve Maintenance requests in a MultiPlant environment.
If the same Maintenance Request ID is generated for two plants, only the first plant is able to approve the job. The 2nd plant will receive an error message when approving the job. A different error message will be displayed if the 1st plant has already approved theirs.
SCR currently targeted for release as part of version 10.1.
We haven’t gotten to the bottom of the Maintenance problem yet.
Sorry to ramble. Hopefully, some of this feedback may be helpful, or hopefully others have run into the same problems and have found the solution.
Ron Brown
Process Manager
Tank Connection
3609 N. 16th St.
Parsons, KS 67357
Office: 620-423-3010 ext. 158
Email: rbrown@...<mailto:rbrown@...>
[http://www.tankconnection.com/sig/tc.png%5d<http://www.tankconnection.com>
[http://www.tankconnection.com/sig/tcli.png%5d <https://www.linkedin.com/company/tank-connection-affiliate-group?trk=nav_account_sub_nav_company_admin> [http://www.tankconnection.com/sig/tcfb.png%5d <http://facebook.com/tankconnection> [http://www.tankconnection.com/sig/tctw.png%5d <http://twitter.com/TankConnection> [http://www.tankconnection.com/sig/tcyt.png%5d <http://youtube.com/user/TankConnection> [http://www.tankconnection.com/sig/tcgp.png%5d <https://plus.google.com/u/0/+TankConnectionParsons/posts>
________________________________
NOTICE: This email and any attachments are considered confidential and intended for the addressee only. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender as soon as possible and delete this email. If you are not the intended addressee, any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message is strictly prohibited by law.
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2015 3:10 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] MES Multi-plant
We started by adding each icon for each MES plant to the MES Station. We had to make sure the employee was part of each plant that would do the work. Accounting barked about “sharing†employees. But regardless of that impact, you still have to really train your people to look and see which plant the job was in, so on the job traveler to printed in bold at the top the plant the job was in. Then all the guy had to do was match the traveler to the MES icon. At the end Accounting won out and none of our employees were shared across plants. But we left the legacy info intact because it helped trace where are parts were.
Manasa
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2015 4:02 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] MES Multi-plant
We are implementing MES in 9.05.702 and have an issue that I was wondering if anyone has solved. there are times that we start a job in one plant and then move it to another plant instead of closing the job and moving all of the material changing the methods etc.. we leave it in the original plant and just move it to the new plant, when we did this on paper no big deal but now with MES the MES station is locked to that plant so the employees can not log onto the job because it is in a different plant. is there a way to give multi-plant access on an MES station? we are using terminal server with winterms not sure if that changes anything or not.
Thanks
Joe
IMPORTANT NOTICE FROM API: This communication, including any attachments, contains information that may be confidential or privileged and is intended solely for the entity or individual to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender immediately and delete this message. Any unauthorized disclosure, copying or distribution of this message is strictly prohibited.
IMPORTANT NOTICE FROM API: This communication, including any attachments, contains information that may be confidential or privileged and is intended solely for the entity or individual to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender immediately and delete this message. Any unauthorized disclosure, copying or distribution of this message is strictly prohibited.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]