List of Production Priorities
Based on demand plan Petkafy can list all Your items that need to be produced on machines by stock depletion dates, so all Your items (semifinished and finished) will be ordered automatically by the date when You run out of stock to deliver. This is the priority list to Your production planning and You are able to see next to each item if it has already been scheduled for production on some machines or not.
You will also see the first available date of the default machine next to each item, so in case the stock depletes sooner than the machine is free for production You should definitely look into this issue and reschedule the production or plan the production of such item on another machine. It is up to You, of course, how soon You want to have an item produced, but if You have the complete list covered and under control, it will be impossible to miss an item from production plan and You should not have any delivery delays.
Anyway, the priorities list is just a helpful tool to create the actual machine schedule. If You decide to plan an item onto the default machine on the first available date You can click on a link next to the item and You will be taken to machine schedule view with almost completely filled in form to add the item into production plan. You can simply state the qtty You would like to produce, click “Save” and that is it – You have successfully added the item into the production plan. But we know that life is normally never as simple as that.
It learns Your tool configurations
Most injection moulding companies know that You can produce different set of products in one shot with a single tool. In automotive this could mean for example that 2 pcs of LH and 2 pcs of RH part is moulded in one single shot and Your system must cope with it, allow proper planning, reporting and measurement of the production efficiency.
Petkafy is partly a self-learning system, so in case You have not set up the tool configurations while creating operations to Your manufactured items, it will see how You plan and simply learn from it. For example if You enter the quantities for two items into a single planned production run, it will know that this set of products is expected to be produced together in one shot and it will know that they are always running parallel in production.
So if You produce say 200 pcs of one of those items and 200 pcs of the other one, the calculated production time in foreacasts, planning, reporting and OEE calculations is the same as when You manage to produce 200 pcs of the first item and none of the other item at all (blocked cavity or whatever the reason may be), because they should have been produced together in the same shots resulting in the same production time anyway. Petkafy will know Your item sets in the tool and will take them correctly into account in all calculations from machine capacity forecasts to tool and machine maintenance planning.
This is one of the many things that makes Petkafy great for injection moulding companies. Knowing that many ERP-s cannot properly cope with it I believe anything similar would be almost impossible to achieve by Excel based reporting systems.
Helps to select the best machine
In addition to just planning an item or a set of items onto it’s default machine, You will probably want to consider alternative machines that might be available sooner. It is nice if You know on which machines the item could be produced and normally this is the case for any competent production planner. However, Petkafy will help You to take the most efficient decision regarding the machine, because You can see the manufacturing statistics from previous production runs including scrap rate and achieved cycle time right there in Your planning form view. It will even estimate the cost difference per production run quantity, so You as a production planner can see directly, what Your decision will cost and find the Lean alternative.
Shows You the need for operators
While You plan an item onto the machine You are shown the estimated duration of the production run and this will result as a red bacground over the days that are covered by a production run in the schedule. This will let You know if Your machines are completely loaded as there should be no white spaces in Your schedule. It might not be often the case, but it can happen that You need to consider available operators and reschedule Your planning so that the need for operators is stable over the days in the working week. The machine schedule header shows how many operators You will need for each day to cover all machines, so You can at least know how many people there should be available on the floor to keep the machines running.
Helps You to combine production runs for the same tool
The efficient planning does not end there, of course. Every production run requires set-up and You can reduce set-up time by combining the production of items from the same tool. If You are an injection moulding company, for example, You probably have parts in different colours produced with the same tool and the set-up time of material (colour) change is normally shorter than the time needed for tool changeover. Therefore Petkafy being a Lean system will display the stock depletion dates of all items produced with the same tool also right there in Your planning form view. This way You will have all items at a glance and if You see that You will run out of parts in another colour soon You can plan those parts into production right after or before the item You were actually planning. This means that instead of taking the tool down after a production run and discovering that You actually should produce a part in another colour tomorrow You can change the material or a tool insert and save the changeover time by aggregated production runs.
Visualizes status of each machine at a glance
You can see the production status of each production order that is being produced on each machine at a glance without having to search for it. Petkafy will tell You how much of the production run has been completed and estimate how long it will take to finish the remaining production quantity. In case a machine has broken down and it’s status is red You can see it too and take measures to reschedule or clear the situation so that there will be no delivery delays.
Any overproduction is waste according to Lean production principles and therefore You will see the quantities of a production run turn red in case the planned quantities are exceeded and reported into Petkafy. It will allow You to pull the break and investigate the causes of overproduction.
The list of items with the highest manufacturing priority having this as the default machine are listed next to the machine status as well, so You can see what runs out of stock next and if You need to worry about it or not.
Machine Schedule almost as flexible as Excel
Even though You can see a lot of helpful information in while planning the products onto machines Petkafy will never block Your actions when You want to play unsafe. This makes the machine schedule almost as flexible as MS-Excel based planning systems while maintaining the integrity and continuity. For example it will show You that a previous production run lasts for another day or two, but You are the boss and You can still plan another item into that period as well if You want to.
It will show You if the raw materials needed for the production run are available in stock, but Petkafy will not mind if You decide to replace a material in the planning form temporarily and will just highlight Your decision in the production schedule.
And of course You can drag and drop the planned item onto another machine or date as long as the production has not started and there is nothing reported to that production run already.
It is up to You how You will use the machine schedule and it can be rendered on the shop floor or shared to users without the rights to modify the planning, but unless You are already doing it using an ERP You can also go the old school style here and issue and print the production orders from Petkafy.
Plan the operators or start reporting right away
Petkafy Team Planner will allow You to divide Your people in shifts onto the machines to execute the production plan. You could skip this step, but some companies find it really useful and to achieve the best operator efficiency it might be a good idea to plan the operators onto machines centrally or allow the shift leaders or department responsibles to do it themselves.
Petkafy will provide You with a view on Your shop floor and You can simply drag the machines around to create the layout that resembles Your actual manufacturing facility. It is a one time job, because Petkafy saves Your layout automatically and it will always be the same unless You want to change it again. The production plan is rendered onto the machines for each shift automatically and the operators planner will now only have to cover the need for operators on any machine by dragging and dropping an operator onto that machine. The machine is highlighted in red in case it has too much resource planned for it and it will help You notice and reduce waste of manpower.
By using the Team Planner You can optimize the walking distance, but also see if any of Your operators is overloaded or still has time to perform additional tasks. The true benefit of the tool is that each of Your operators will know what machines they will have to service directly and as a result You will achieve the best operator efficiency, because there are no possibilities for hidden loss or “Oh, I forgot!” situations.
However, even without using the Team Planner You have already successfully created the most efficient production plan and the shop floor can continue with the reporting anyway.