Method structure for multiple parts coming out of one mold in plastice injection molding plants

There is a lot of discussion on co-parts with very little detail, so I am going to start this discussion again.

I need to have a method for parts that are run at the same time in one mold. In addition to that there is a second operation in the cell to assemble those part to a third stock part and packaged. I need to be able to report scrap against the specific part that is bad. Ex: part A and Part B are extruded out of the mold at the same time. Part A comes thru its cavity and is usable Part B is damaged and has to be scrapped. I want to report Part B only scrapped so that costing is correct. Neither part A or B are stocked.

I also need to have scheduling correct on the job at the press with the correct total run time. I run finite scheduling and don’t want it doubled up or distorted in any way.

in summary:

Part A and B come out as a pair from the single Mold
Part A and B then are assemble to part C and packaged as they come off the line right to assembly to Create F/G part D which is stocked.

Need to report individual scrap at Part A, B or C as needed

Only want to have a single job created for Part D that is inclusive of all these activities.

Has anyone had success in doing all this

Hi Jeanne,

Using co-parts as they are in Epicor right now, there is no way to report scrap on an individual co-part.

What you could do is to create two jobs (one for each part) and run them concurrent. The operator running the press would need to clock into each individual job which would split the labor and the burden equally.

You would need to figure out how much material is needed to produce each co-part. If you are using shot weight for the material, you could divide it in half unless you want a more accurate costing of material (then it would be part weight plus half of the runner weight).

You would need a third job to assemble the two parts together to make part C and you could report scrap against part C. If you need to scrap Parts A or B when assembling, then you would scrap the part as material scrap at that point.

I hope this makes sense.

Beth

I was hoping to avoid running multiple jobs

Are you hooking the two jobs together? And when you say running concurrent is there a way to do this automatically? If I remember right there was a way for the parts to be automatically issue to the parent job because we don’t want to put them to stock and issue them. This is a continuous cell where all this is happening.

Right now we have the two parts setup as NS and listed on the parent Method as Pull and view as an assembly and we have a custom Time and expense screen that has code to allow scrapping at the operation on the method for each part

The current structure does not play well with finite scheduling which we need to be able to run as right now the scheduler has to manipulate everything manually and they are overloaded and missing customer demand

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Beth are you running finite scheduling and also using capabilities when you need to run a backup press

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Jeanne,

If you are referring to the third job (job to assemble), I would set the first two molding jobs up with a demand of Make to Job with the Auto Receive checkbox checked so the parts are receipted to the assembly job. That way you wouldn’t need to receive them and issue them to the assembly job. I would test this to make sure it works the way you want it to work.

We are revisiting our scheduling. When we went live a few years back, we replicated our old “schedule” because people were used to it. It is printed schedule and is manually manipulated by our scheduler. Now we want to work to use the tools within Epicor to schedule jobs.

We use coparts quite a bit in our jobs. When we need to scrap one side versus the other, we take the parts to stock and then scrap them (or nonconform them) because we can’t scrap them on the job. This is not what we would like to do but a workaround to the problem of not being able to scrap on the job correctly.

We are running with Finite Scheduling. We are just starting to use capabilities. When we set up our presses, we grouped like presses in one Resource Group. So we have several resource groups. Now we need to set up capabilities to determine what presses within the group can run what color of material, etc.

Part of our scheduling issues are that people don’t update dates on jobs like they should or update ship dates in Sales Orders. So it caused demand (unfirm jobs) to not be correct or duplicated. It’s discipline. I’ve been working on it and send out a lot of emails to people to get them to clean up their “stuff”. LOL!

Thank for all the input, I think I am getting close to a plan and just want to make sure all the pieces fit together so they make all the staff happy. When they went live a few years ago they were convince Epicor wouldn’t work for them and tried to duplicate their old system ways……you know where that gets us. Good luck with you improvements.

I will let you know what I end up with as a solution

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I’m thinking I should add an Epicor Ideas entry to program the system to scrap either part of a copart. I’m not sure what the thinking was to not allow that.

Lol I think a lot of us are wondering why it was not included

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1 Like

I just entered an Epicor Idea for it into their system:


Please go vote for it if you get the chance!

how do you vote

Go to the Epicor Ideas site Epicor ERP Ideas (aha.io). If you are not registered, you will need to register your Epicare email address. Then you can search ideas and vote.