Oracle Work In Process (WIP) Details

1.          Discrete Execution Workstation for Shop Floor Operator and Supervisor

Deeper shop floor execution capabilities as well as an improved user experience in performing and monitoring shop floor activities. Through a simplified user interface, this workstation provides, all in one place, the information needed for shop floor workers to perform their work, thus maximizing the value-added manufacturing time and catering to customers requiring MES (Manufacturing Execution System) like capabilities in Oracle Work in Process. Shop floor operators and supervisors can see what jobs are assigned to which work centers, view requirements and instructions for performing work, and monitor progress and problems. The workstation provides enhancements to current discrete manufacturing features, an increase in the types and numbers of functions supported, and a significant improvement to the process flows of accessing and reporting information related to work in the factory. The major features of the workstation are:

a.           Configuration preferences -The workstation is highly configurable with a system of preferences controlling both overall behavior at the organization level as well as access to information and actions at the user level based on each user’s role. Based on the user role, predefined security and preferences control the types of functions and information that each user of this workstation can access. Configuration preferences related to actions allow actions to be either configured as “buttons” or “choice lists”.

b.          Dispatch lists - operations that are in queue to be worked on for one particular resource, across multiple resources or departments, or an entire organization. The content of this list is determined by a parameter setup. The display is modifiable allowing filtering, ordering, and grouping to improve production efficiencies. Columns in the list display information about each job operation like scheduled start and end time, assembly being built, customer, setup required, as well as various indicators of job readiness, and component and resource availability. Columns in the dispatch list can be shown or hidden based on preference there by allowing organizations to configure their lists to show only the information pertinent to their business policies and practices. There are a variety of actions and data drilldowns that can be performed in the context of any single line in a dispatch list. Record work start, clock in and out, transact completions and scrap, view work requirements and instructions, expedite a job, and report exceptions are some of the actions that can be initiated from the dispatch list.

c.           Transaction Enhancements - have been enhanced to allow the user/operator to perform multiple transactions in one pass. Some of these transaction enhancements are in the area of reporting good and bad assembly units through an operation – move or completion transaction combined with an assembly scrap or reject -- all in a single user entry.

Integration with Quality Workbench (html interface) in the Oracle Quality module - for move and completion transactions - is available through the discrete execution workstation.

d.          Streamlined lot and serial capture - When component and assembly lot/serial data need to be entered as part of a transaction, the workstation provides more efficient ways of doing that than is available currently through desktop forms. Operators can now be able to scan or manually enter the necessary data by choosing the screen that supports the desired method of entry. For manual entry, multiple components, all from the same serial range or lot can be recorded on a single entry line. Also, an icon is displayed on every component row indicating whether additional lot/serial input is required from the operator or all required information has been entered such that the transaction can be saved.

e.           Exceptions Reporting and Resolution - Exceptions reporting and resolution is a new feature that is available in the discrete execution workstation. Exceptions are reported manually to bring attention to events R12 Discrete Mfg. Release Content Document, Rev. 01 Oracle Work in Process - WIP 5 and occurrences that prevent operators from performing work on a job operation that otherwise appears to the system as “ready” to be worked. Such events would typically be a physical lack of material – assembly from a prior operation or component – that the system had not recognized as a material shortage, a lack of the proper labor resource or inoperable machine, or an in-process production quality problem.

There are several types of exceptions that have been made available in the workstation. The individual reporting the exception can indicate a reason for the exception and enter a short text description of the occurrence in order to assist future resolution efforts. A supervisor gets notified when an exception is reported and can see all relevant information related to that exception such as the reason for the exception and the immediately impacted job, operation, and resource or assembly or component depending on the exception type.

In addition to these, mass reporting of exceptions is also supported. For example, if production components expected to be available on a certain date suddenly become unavailable due to, say, a delayed delivery from a supplier or a rejection in receiving inspection, a material planner would be able to enter a material exception for jobs requiring the affected component. This provides an indication to operators that such jobs are not ready to be worked.

f.           Shop Floor Supervisor Activities - to current shop status and issues requiring resolution. Visibility to problem parts, problem machines, and problem jobs can all be viewed in one place. Specifically, this includes information on resource shortages, exceptions, and shop floor progress status. The coverage area (entire organization, or single department or resource) of this page is determined by the way in which the supervisor logs in to the workstation.

Open exceptions requiring resolution can be viewed and updated. Various actions are available to the resolving party including assigning a shop floor status to the operation to prevent assembly moves, rescheduling a job or putting it on hold, assigning work to an alternate resource and opening the job or resource workbench.

Information to support resolution of each exception will be presented along with a list of other jobs that are, or may be, impacted. The same exception can be created for any or all of these impacted jobs, whatever the supervisor deems appropriate.

Current information about problem jobs and machines is presented in a separate portion of the supervisor home page. The information displayed here are the information on problem resources, at-risk job operations for which projected completion time exceeds shift end or scheduled completion time. An alternate view provides a current status of current jobs running and the machine on which they are running, operator’s name, and projected completion time.

Various workbenches throughout the application can be accessed directly from the supervisor’s home page. Some of those are the Job Workbench, Resource Workbench, and the Manufacturing Intelligence home page.

2.          Fixed Component Usage Independent of Build Quantity

Users can now define fixed component usage regardless of the number of assemblies that are manufactured through a Discrete Job or a Work Orderless transaction. This is achieved by defining components with a basis as “Lot” in an assembly’s bill of material.

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The treatment of lot based component transactions is similar to the way lot based resources are currently handled in Oracle Work In Process.

With this enhancement, customers can define and use components whose consumption quantity does not directly vary with the assembly quantity produced. This can be deployed in situations where a fixed amount of a component is expended either to facilitate production start up, or as a part of production setup, or during the course of production.

This feature is available for Discrete Jobs, Work Orderless and Flow Transactions.

3.          Optional Inclusion or Exclusion of Component Shrinkage in Material Transactions

An added flexibility has been provided to specify whether to include or exclude component shrinkage in material transactions. This control has been introduced through a new organization parameter which when enabled, factors component yield in the component quantities during material transactions (current behavior). Alternatively, users can disable this parameter to prohibit component yield from being factored into material transactions, should they want to avoid transaction quantities getting inflated to an amount greater than actual use.

4.          Inverse Component Usage

Users now have a way to enter inverse component usage through the new inverse usage field on the bill of material. The resulting quantity per assembly is stored unrounded for accurately determining the total required quantity of a component for a job. Moreover, storing the raw fractional quantity per assembly prevents any undesirable component usage variances to occur particularly in discrete jobs with large build quantities.

5.          Reservation of Discrete Job as Source of Supply through Inventory Reservation Form

        In addition to the currently available modes to reserve supplies from a Discrete Job, users can manually reserve the output of jobs through Inventory reservation forms by selecting Discrete Job as a source of supply while establishing reservations against a source of demand.   

6.          Reservation of Completed Serialized Assemblies through Inventory Reservation Form

        From this release, users can reserve completed serialized assemblies against sources of demand through Inventory reservations forms. A reservation record can be created by selecting and reserving specific serialized assemblies against a sales order line or other sources of demand. 

7.          Mobile Return of Assembly Reserved to a Sales Order

Mobile Assembly Return screens have been enhanced to provide greater flexibility in referencing Sales Order details while performing assembly return transactions. When such a transaction is performed, assembly quantity reserved against the referenced sales order is reduced by the appropriate amount.

8.          Scheduling Workbench Enhancements

Job & Resource workbenches have been enhanced through the support of the following features:

A.        Print Gantt Charts

Users now have the ability to print Gantt charts, often used as referable hard copies in a production shop floor. Apart from generating the print preview, this feature supports customizing the printout content such as printing the Gantt chart by:

• Specifying the date and time range for the printout

• Specifying the level of details in the Gantt Print (Jobs only, Jobs scaled down to Operation level, Jobs with operations scaled down to the resource level, Resource only, Resources scaled down to the Resource instance level, etc)

• Printing the snapshot of the “as is” Gantt view

• Printing Gantt for a chosen timeline bucket

• Limiting the number of jobs or resources to avoid a cluttered display

In addition to the above features, users will be able to specify page setup options and revert back to the original Gantt view after printing.

B.         Restore last-worked customized views

When users of the job and resource workbenches create a preferred view through pane sizing, time bucket selection, row height adjustment, etc., it is possible for that view to be saved and recreated in subsequent launches of the workbenches. This eliminates the tedious task of readjusting the view each time a workbench is opened.

C.        Additional tool tip for Resource and Job Workbench

With the new “Bar Inspector” as a tool tip, users are guided with necessary information (such as, start and end times) while performing a drag & drop to achieve greater scheduling accuracy. This is available for Job bars, Operation bars and Resource Bars in the Job Workbench and for Job Operations bars for Resource and Resource Instance in the Resource Workbenches.

D.        Schedule over long time ranges in the Resource Workbench

Users are also provided with an ‘Edit Schedule’ option in the Resource Workbench, for an easy way to schedule over a long time range, instead of dragging a bar object.

9.          Genealogy Enhancements

In many industries because of complex manufacturing, predominant outsourcing, and rigid traceability requirements as in medical devices, it is necessary to identify and build genealogy for each end assembly by linking it to the various lot and/or serialized components manufactured or procured from suppliers. To support this critical need, users now have a combined view of lot and serial genealogy in one inquiry. In addition, operators performing completion transactions can tie component lot and/ or serial numbers directly to the parent assembly eliminating the intervening callout to a job.

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These enhancements enable stricter controls in material movement such as validation of lot number for component returns from a job back to inventory.

For more information, please refer to the Inventory section of the Oracle Logistics Release Content Document and Oracle Quality section of this document.

10.      Enhancements to Lot/Serial Entry during Backflush

In the desktop forms application, single lot information can be entered in the backflush window, for one or more components, when the transaction quantity for a component comes from a single lot. When there are multiple backflush transactions for the same component for the same job, you can set the system to automatically default lot numbers used in the previous transactions. Usability features have been added including visual indicators for data entry and labeling on the Lot and Serial button corresponding to the information needed.