Work in Progress > Job Postings > Load Levelling

Load Levelling

You use this program to analyze the capacity utilization of your work centers.

The program can be accessed from either the Work in Progress or Requirements Planning modules. The window title will reflect either Snapshot - Load Levelling or WIP - Load Levelling, depending on the module from which the program is loaded.

The program can be viewed as a short-term capacity planning tool, enabling you to address and resolve capacity constraints that occur within the manufacturing time fence. It enables you to determine the seriousness of work center overloads and to identify the jobs contributing to the overload.

You can then maintain these jobs and alter the quantity to be made, change the start/finish dates, or move operations within the job by manipulating the queue time, move time or the operation elapsed time. If necessary, the work centre capacity can be adjusted to provide for overtime work, a machine breakdown, absenteeism, etc.

Inputs

The Load Levelling program uses various data (specifically the work centre capacity calendar) to identify the total available capacity of the work centre. These include:

  • The queue time of an operation from the work centre.
  • The number of productive units the operation may use in the work centre.

  • The move time entered on the operation, or through the move time matrix

    • The load on the work centre is caused by the operation's required capacity, which is calculated from the setup, startup, run, and teardown over the batch quantity of the job.
    • The operation start and finish dates are established using the queue time and elapsed times with reference to the work centre calendar for non-working days.
    • Move time between operations determines the start date of the next operation from the finish date of the current operation. Move times can be a negative number of days to provide for operation overlapping, but cannot be more negative than this operation's elapsed time.

  • The other major input to load levelling is from the Work in Progress jobs. Typically there will always be some past due jobs.

  • The dynamic capacity profile table is also used. When load levelling is required and you add, change or delete labor allocations, the WIP capacity profile is automatically updated. You can, however, recreate this file by running the Balance function of the WIP Period End program (enable the Recreate dynamic capacity profile file option) if you want to recalculate the entire WIP capacity profile.

For load levelling to operate successfully, it is essential that job bookings are up to date. Load levelling does not identify available capacity for any day prior to the current date.

The Job Status report can be used (by indicating a range of due dates) to determine the volume of past due jobs.

The Dispatch List can be used to generate a detailed report indicating the outstanding workload for each work center over a specified period of time.

Work Center

Field Description
Identify Overloads Select this to identify the overloaded work centers according to your selections in the Options pane. These work centers are displayed when you select the Overloaded work centers only option in the Work Centers list view pane.
Options Indicate your selection requirements for identifying overloaded work centers.
OptionDescription
Date selectionIndicate the range of dates for which you want to identify overloads.
Work center selectionIndicate the range of work centers for which you want to identify overloads.
Ignore overloads with a % of less thanSpecify a percentage factor according to which work center overloads must be ignored.
Include suggested jobsThis takes into account the capacity required for suggested jobs when identifying overloaded work centers (only if the program is accessed from the Requirements Planning module).
Work Centers
Option Description
Overloaded work centers only Select this to only view work centers that have been identified as overloaded (this option is enabled only if the program is accessed from the Work in Progress module).
Exclude actioned overloads This excludes overloaded work centers that have been actioned (this option is enabled only if the program is accessed from the Work in Progress module).

The list view defaults to displaying all your work centers regardless of your selections in the Options pane, until you select the Overloaded work centers only option.

The date column in the list view indicates the first date on which an overload is detected for the work center.

If accessed from the Work in Progress module, you can highlight entries for overloaded work centers in the list view and indicate one of the following from the Exit Capacity Profile window:

  • Leave alone (i.e. ignore the overload identification).

  • Flag as actioned (i.e. indicates that the record in the overload work centre table has been actioned. Yes is displayed in the Actioned column).

  • Delete (i.e. removes the overload identification from the capacity profile).

Capacity

Field Description
Toolbar and menu
Option Description
Start at Indicate the work center date to which you want to navigate to in the Capacity Profile list view and from which you want to display the Capacity Profile graph.
Include If accessed from Work in Progress, you can select to include suggested and existing jobs in the capacity profile.
Preferences Indicate the number of days for which you want to display information on the Capacity Profile Graph and in the Capacity Profile list view. You can save your preference against your operator code.
Capacity Calendar Loads the Capacity Calendar Maintenance program to maintain the daily capacity records for selected work centers. This cannot be selected for subcontract work centers.
Capacity Profile Graph

This displays a graphical representation of the load assigned to a work center (i.e. reserved capacity, free capacity and capacity overloads).

The graph displays the capacity required for each selected working day of the work centre. The capacity required is the total actual outstanding capacity per day.

The scale of the graph is based on the normal capacity per day of the work centre, where Capacity indicates the capacity entered for that day using the Capacity Calendar Maintenance program.

As each job is created, the operation load is placed on the dynamic capacity profile. Subcontract operations are not included in this table. For each working day, a record is added. The total capacity required per operation is divided by the elapsed time giving the daily capacity required.

As work is performed against an operation, the dynamic capacity profile is immediately updated with the capacity used. As the planned start date of an operation is not necessarily the actual start date, the capacity used is added to the first planned day until the planned capacity and the actual capacity are equal, before adding the second day, etc. If the actual capacity for the operation exceeds the planned, the excess is added to the last day of the operation.
Capacity Profile The following information is included in this list view:
DateThis indicates the date for which the information on the work center is displayed.
AvailableThis indicates the daily work centre capacity available.
Reserved 
OverThis indicates the overload on the work centre for that day.
FreeThis indicates the free capacity for the work centre for that day.
Capacity Pegging
Maintain jobThis loads the Job Entry program to maintain the job currently highlighted in the list view.
Job graphThis loads the WIP Job Graph program to view a graphical representation of all operations allocated to the job currently highlighted in the list view.
Query jobThis loads the WIP Query program to view details of the job currently highlighted in the list view.
Zoom on operationThis loads the WIP Browse on Labor Allocations program to view details of operation allocations for the job currently highlighted in the list view.
RecalculateThis recalculates the cumulative required for the job.
The list view displays the following information:
JobThis indicates the job number.
OperationThis indicates the operation number.
Job statusThis indicates the job status.
PriorityThis indicates the priority of the job in the range 1 to 99 (where 1 indicates the lowest priority and 99 indicates the highest).
ManualThis indicates whether the job date calculation method is manual (i.e. if the start and delivery dates for the job were entered manually).
Capacity reqdThis indicates the current daily capacity required by the operation.
Cumulative reqdThis indicates the total cumulative capacity required. This is calculated as the cumulative total of the Capacity reqd column.
PlannedThis indicates the planned capacity required according to the bill of materials.
IssuedThis indicates the total currently issued to the work center for the job.
Productive unitsThis indicates the number of productive units that the operation may use in the work center.

Work Center Information

This pane displays a summary of static information held against the work center, including general information, unit of measure information and productive units information.

Notes and warnings

Prerequisites

  • The Load levelling required setup option (Work in Progress Setup) must be enabled to run this program.

Inserting Application Help

You would typically follow this procedure to display help for the current program in a customized pane that can be pinned to the program window.

Information includes step-by-step instructions for the various functions available within the program, including a brief overview of what the program does, what setup options are required and how to personalize the program.

  1. Open the program for which you want to insert application help into a customized pane.

    This functionality is only available for a program that has panes.

  2. Right-click any form field.

    You can also click the triangle menu icon that appears in the title area of a pane.

  3. Select Insert Application Help from the context-sensitive menu.

    The application help appears in a pane within your program. You can reposition the pane using the docking stickers or pin it to the program window.

Removing the Application Help pane

If you no longer want to display application help in a pane for your current program, you can simply remove it.

  1. Select the Close icon in the right-hand corner of the application help pane.

  2. Confirm that you want to delete the pane.