Our resources are configured with input and output bins. These BINs are not static, however.
We run a cart with material on it up to the start/input of the machine and the part comes out the finished/output side onto another cart. All of these carts are BINs and we use an updateable dashboard to update the input and output bins of each resource to the appropriate cart as carts are emptied/filled.
Keeping track of where these carts are is mostly a manual/physical organization process for us, however, we are able to indicate if a cart is currently attached to a certain machine (if it is set as an input or output BIN at that moment), or if it is somewhere in the wild.
That’s a really neat idea. I know you can play with the bin settings. I never thought about using a bin location that is physically movable. Then you could better focus your efforts on tracking the location of the bin like you said - which can be done however it makes sense. Even using a handheld!
@Ernie - how does Epicor keep track of the job as it travels from Output of Op 1 to Input of Op 2. Are there movement queues that happen? I believe we have just one warehouse/bin setup as our WIP and all resources use this same location for In/Out bins. So I don’t think we get any movement queues - maybe because they parts are already there?
As extra background, we are and aerospace build to print subcontractor with a detail fab shop, a bond shop, an assembly area, two chem-processing lines, & a final paint shop.
We have 104 work centers & no assembly lines.
Any one job can travel through a unique combination & number of these work centers.
Current number of firm open jobs is 4533.
Figuring out the physical location of all or any one of them is challenging.
It works for us. Our buildings are not 500k sqft though. If a cart is not attached to a specific machine, knowing what parts are on it, and what operation the WIP parts came from is enough to infer where the cart is to a reasonable degree.
I imagine you could leverage the Warehouse Zone data on a BIN, use an updateable dashboard to update the Warehouse Zone of a cart as it is moved to different areas of the warehouse, when it is not specifically attached to a machine.
The stock chaser guy has a general idea where everything is, but if a piano falls on him, we’re in trouble.
We can brute force find stuff by checking in two to three places. Last complete op work center, next op work center, & the MRB cage.
But the biggest reason for knowing where every thing physically is, is so we can filter a job priority list by various areas or down to a work center.
We use some dashboards to keep track of where everything is. For our purposes they are separated by which operation the WIP parts are currently waiting on. Here is a small section of data as an example.
The TRCRT002 BIN is a mobile cart. The BIN position field is calculated, if the cart is currently attached to a machine, it will tell you that, otherwise it will just say ‘Common Area’. I imagine that could easily be replaced with the Warehouse Zone data for the BIN.
We basically have one person in each manufacturing cell that is responsible for moving carts around and updating the BINs VIA the dashboard in real time.
With AMM, Epicor can automatically move parts completed at the Operation to the Output Bin assigned to the Resource Group (or Resource) defined on the operation. Triggers can then be created to alert material handlers that an item has hit the bin and needs to be moved to the next operation’s Input Bin. This sort of by definition means you have to be using MES (or Data Collection) since it is really an on-the-fly process.
When something is in a bin, it’s just like being in any other bin in regards to reporting. If all the Resource Groups are set with identical Input/Output bins, then yeah, there’s no “movement” for Epicor to track or anticipate.
I will depend on who gets the “quick and easy” part and who has to do all the setup work up front (and ongoing maintenance) to ensure that the USE of the process remains “quick and easy”.
If you want to know where stuff is, Epicor has to be told one way or another. Most of that can be automated, but that means it all has to be defined, then set up, and then processed according to the procedures you’ve also designed and set up. With the very best of intentions, stuff always gets lost.
I can’t argue that having bins, perhaps in & out, for each work center, & transacting every job move, wouldn’t give me what I need, but …
I don’t want to have to give each stock chaser an Epicor account.
I don’t want to have to grant them storekeeper permissions to perform stock transactions.
I don’t want to have to train every person I use as a stock chaser, & repeat the above.
My goal is to keep the process as simple & elegant as possible.
A generic Epicor account associated with the barcode reader, so anyone can use it.
A handheld app whose sole purpose in life is to read a job number off a traveler, a work center barcode, & dump the work center in a non-critical text field, that doesn’t need to trigger a BPM for the Job Header table.
Now that I’m typing out loud, perhaps I could do this very informally with with an Epicor UD table.
Set the handheld scanner up create records in the UD table with a date, job number, work center. And then use a BAQ to data-mine the data in the UD table?
As jobs are processed, material is pulled from the correct cart/input bin, and produced parts wind up in the appropriate cart/output BIN.
This requires labor be recorded in MES, and the input and output bin of each machine be set when a change is made. Resources are not set to auto move, again, no actual inventory moves need to be done, unless you need to move WIP quantity from one cart to another, which we really never have to do.
But yeah, if you want Epicor to keep track of where stuff is, on some level you have to do the work of telling it where stuff is.
It’s the telling part I want to keep as simple as possible.
At a minimum, I need an Epicor Table a BAQ can access.
The table must have columns for Job Number, Location, & probably a date/time field, so I can find the latest or last transaction.
The location would typically be a work center, or a text description of the location.
Work center in racks, carts, whatever, would have a barcode to be read.
But if needed, that text could be typed in, if not a work center. For example “Bob’s Desk”
I think the way you’ve described it is very do-able. Update the UserChar01 field or something on JobHead like you suggested initially. Expose the field on whatever the form or BAQ or dashboard you’d be using. Make the Work Center ID into a barcode on your traveler (if it’s not already). Train someone to scan the barcode for the work center when moving the material. Do you actually start/end activity using MES or anything? Or just report quantity when it’s done?
We do use MES to start, stop labor, & report qty. But the people working in the work centers don’t move parts. The stock chaser does the moving to the next work center in rack.
Our goal of prioritizing work in a work center requires us to know what’s physically in the work center, so we can filter a company wide job priority list by the work center.
With the crazy mix of parts we deal with, it’s not unusual for parts to arrive in a work center 5 minutes ago, that has higher priority than what’s what’s being worked on, & what may have been on the in rack for days.
It’s not possible for us to FIFO work through a work center.
The CEO wants to know if the hottest jobs in the plant are being worked on.
Department heads want to know if the hottest jobs in the department are being worked on.
The workers want to know what the hottest job in their work center is, so they don’t get caught with that hot potato.
We have a customer who just went live with Advanced Material Management and the Kinetic App on the Handheld. To transfer inventory, users scan the QR code on the inventory label, move the product to the bin, which is either another inventory location or an Input Bin of a Resource, and scan the QR code of the laminated card at that Bin. The QR code is the PCID. When the job operation is complete, a similar process transfers the inventory from the Output Bin of the Resource to either a new Inventory location or the Input Bin of the next job. It is rather elegant.
Thanks to those who have chimed in so far.
I understand that WIP bins are a valid way of tracking job location.
I just don’t want to suffer the complication of creating hundreds of bins, making tens of thousands of inventory transactions a year, granting the permissions to all the people that need to perform the transactions, blaa, blaa, blaa …
To refocus the original ask.
I’m now thinking of a Custom MES button.
When this custom button is clicked, a dashboard opens with a blank text box for the Job Number, a blank text box for a Location, an Update button, & a Close button.
The blinking cursor should be in the Job Number text box.
If I read a bar code, or type something manually into the Job Number text box & hit tab, the Job Header table is queried for an open job with the same job number.
If a job doesn’t exist, throw up a dialog box that says “No such open job.”
If a job exists, move the cursor to the Location text box.
Type or barcode read the Location into the location text box.
Click the Update button to write the text from the location text box into a UD field in the job header table. This should also clear the text boxes & put the cursor back into the Job Number text box, making it ready to accept another input.
Click close to close out the dashboard.
… I need an Epicor Table a BAQ can access.The table must have columns for Job Number, Location, & probably a date/time field, so I can find the latest or last transaction.
Re this table you are looking for, I think you want PartWIP. And really, I see that you’re looking for a fast way to use the Move WIP program. Though that is assuming you have AMM, which isn’t clear in this thread?
