Multiple Production Calendars

We are trying to get our scheduling in Epicor off the ground and I am undecided on whether or not we need multiple production calendars. Normal work week vs Overtime work week. Some weeks we are at 48 hour work weeks due to capacity or due dates. Other weeks we are working regular 40 hour work weeks. Any suggestions/opinions one way or another?

What are your objectives in the long run?
That would help users to let you know what they think.
We have one production Calendar and we barely use it overall so your goal matters :slight_smile:

I am using 2 production calendars, they are set up to reflect my resource groups and work weeks.
6 day work week with 10 hour shift and 6 day work week with 20 hour shift. This has worked very well for scheduling for us.

I have found that “typically” most companies need one 24/7 calendar to assign to special resources that are not on a calendar… for example, where I used to work, we had a “cure” operation that lasted 7 days… it didn’t need to have any staff… simply the “table” where the products cured. That table was a resource, and it was assigned to a 24/7 calendar. When the engineer defined the routing, they specified that the part needed 7 days of cure, and the system schedules it… the scheduler doesn’t care if it is a weekend, holiday, etc. It will simply insert a gap for the cure.

Our objective in the long run is to have have a schedule that reflects a normal work week 5 days at 8 hours per day. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to work overtime. We have two different overtime schedules. One at 4 days 10 hours per day and 8 hours on 1 day, and 4 days at 9 hours and 8 on 1 day. Do I create multiple calendars and change them as the needs change? Or do I keep one standard schedule and working the overtime just improves the schedule or pulls it to the left?

Amanda, what I have seen is that you do not need an Epicor production calendar to work overtime. There are two scenarios likely…

If you have a 5 day work schedule set and fall behind and need to work Saturday to catch up then that does not need a Production Calendar for the Saturday to do this.

However, if you need to schedule production on a Saturday or Sunday then you need to have those days available for scheduling purposes and need them on a Production Calendar for the Resource you want to schedule.

I believe if you go to the Resource and change the calendar for that Resource, then you will need to run the Generate Shop Capacity to change the shop capacity.

Hope that helps.

Brad

The idea is to set up your resources so that the hours scheduled are “reasonable”, and to use overtime to make up any shortfalls if you do not earn the full scheduled standard hours. It’s a fool’s game to try to schedule overtime (or absences for that matter). Just meet the dispatched schedule.