I guess the big question is, Will minimize WIP affect finance? They regularly use the Work In Process Report for specific financials. If I turn this on, and set all my jobs to minimize WIP, is finance going to lose important information? I am still not sure what minimize WIP does. It compresses the schedule. What is it compressing? Why is there time in there to compress? I think the answer is in Tim’s first post above, but I just am not getting it.
Edit: I also see Minimize WIP on the Global Scheduling form, but it is greyed out. What does this do?
From the Scheduling Technical Reference Manual:
Minimize WIP
The Minimize WIP modifier lets the scheduling engine reduce the gaps that can occur between operations and
assemblies during the Global Scheduling process. It causes this process to run the scheduling engine a second
time against the jobs that are using this modifier.
If the scheduling engine discovers that the Start Date on a job will occur before the Scheduled Start Date, it uses
the Bounce Condition to forward schedule the job. After the new End Date is calculated for this job, it backwards
schedules from that date - tightening the points where the assemblies are placed within the schedule.
This allows Just In Time (JIT) relationships for peer (predecessor) assemblies relative to their successor assemblies.
This allows the engine to more accurately schedule unnecessary gaps between the assemblies.
You select this modifier on priority codes. This additional calculation is run when a job with this priority code is
scheduled.
Note that using this calculation will cause the scheduling engine to take more time to complete its process run.
(note that this says nothing at all about anything financial)
2 Likes
I’ve read that entry before. It doesn’t talk about why the scheduling includes gaps in the first place.
My understanding of WIP is that they are parts on the floor that aren’t complete. These are work in progress. Wip has a number of parts, and wip has a value.
What does this have to do with the gaps left in the schedule? I think this is getting away from my original question about the gap in my job. I figured that out. it was a finite resource. But I still want to figure out this WIP thing.
I can’t explain it any better than (and not even as well as) @timshuwy already did… sorry!
1 Like
Whenever you schedule, the engine is making trade-offs. Do I schedule high value orders first over on-time, over utilizing a critical work center, over customer, over… When doing that, you will get gaps in for some orders in order to meet the schedule. When you say, “I want to minimize WIP”, I believe it means in a time sense: keep it on the floor for the least amount of time possible. Does this have a financial impact? 
I guess if you get it off the floor between period close, then sure. @Ernie will correct me.
So if you turn it on for all jobs, you’re optimizing for WIP value (maybe) at the expense of all other drivers, like shipping $1M per month. 
2 Likes
Correct… “Minimize WIp” reduces the time that a job is in WIP… but in reality when you reduce that time, you are also reducing the cost, because it will schedule the start of the job as far out as possible, and therefore pushes out when you need to purchase the materials.
2 Likes
Thank you all! @Ernie @Mark_Wonsil @timshuwy You guys rock! You are consistently able to help me more than the support services we pay for through Epicor. This forum is the best!