Engineering and scheduling

Was wondering how others handled Engineering time, engineering changes, and engineering scheduling.

I know infor can forecast scheduling of work orders and such, but on many of our projects, our engineers have to create the parts due to customizations request from the customers or recreate parts.

Has anyone tried integrating the process into infor or just leaving it out?

Currently the project managers have no visibility in our engineers schedule, infor or not.

Just touching base with anyone else that has a process in place. Thanks for any help.

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Legacy Contributor

We schedule engineering the same as any other resource using an operations card in the QM/EM.

If engineering can estimate how much time they need to spend on something in the QM/EM and place that card correctly in the chain of activities, it will be accounted for when you run your scheduler.

Legacy Contributor

ah ok. That's what we were thinking too.

0712131256598360.doc

Legacy Contributor

We schedule all engineers. Each one is a resource. We have a complete pre-production process, operations like INITIAL DWGS, DESIGN REVIEW, DWG MODS, CUSTOMER APPROVAL, DWG REVS, REGULATORY APPROVAL, CNC FILES. They are on a leg atttached to BOM Development, which we use as Operation 1. That way its easy to not send the engineering stuff to the floor because it prints on separate pages of the Traveler.

The engineering Manager assigns engineering resources to the operations. The first operation is Released so the Engineer can clock in. When he/she is done, that op is completed/closed, and the next one released. This enables tracking progress.

Engineering forward-schedules, so the manager can see exactly what is on the engineer's plate.

If you implement TrueFit's Percentage Completion modification of VTA (only costs $4,500 or so), elapsed time is auto-deducted from the schedule and your engineering dispatch becomes quite accurate. Contact Karen Engraffia (Karen.Engraffia@infor.com) or Kelli Currey

ECN's should go through the Visual ECN module, which is slick, has its own built-in approval workflow. You could conceivably do much if not all Engineering work using the ECN, and then you have very good visibility and accountability for progress.

Special engineering projects: we do an internal Customer Order with a linked WO with whatever engineering operations are appropriate, usually just one operation. But you can divvy the work up as needed, and use sequencing/legs to define the order the work needs to be done in. We might consider using the ECN Module for that in the future, we don't at the present time.

Using the WO Want Dates/Release Dates, and Scheduling techniques such as Forward Scheduling vs Backward Scheduling, WO Priority, etc, you can get to where your engineers can work off the Dispatch.

[Updated on 2/27/2014 11:28 AM]

2011-10-27_CH-Stammtisch_2.pdf

Legacy Contributor

That is really interesting how you have it. That would help in planning and putting certain people accountable for their part of the project.

How long have you been doing it this way?

Legacy Contributor

Couple of years now. We are really beginning to gel in our pre-production flow and tracking. We also use a Customizable User Defined Field (CUDF, uses the USER_DEF_FIELDS table) in the Customer Order line, we call it Location, and it has a drop down list like, SALES, DESIGN, CUSTOMER SERVICE, CUSTOMER, WO ENG, REG APPR, PROD, $$$. It is filled out by various team members, and answers the question, "Who's got the ball?"

Legacy Contributor

Do you restrict that UDF to who has edit access? Or every person on the team has the ability to select any item?

Legacy Contributor

Basically anyone who has write-access to Customer Order Entry can change it. We have an assignment list, such as:

Design --> Customer Engineering

Customer --> WO Eng Customer Service

WO Eng --> PROD Whoever prints the Traveller

etc.

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Legacy Contributor

Interesting discussion. Havin the engineering detailed out on operations can work very nicely. An alternative for the progress item is to have the engineering on a particular project be on one work order with legs [yes those who know me can get off the floor I did say legs] Engineering tasks can tehn be tied together into a flow. the one part numebr that engineering is making on the work order is then a material card for the first work order that is needed to be released for the actual fabrication of the project. Thus scheduling ties in nicely. The way to keep on track here is to use "QTY OVERRIDE" on every engineering operation. set the quantity to the expected hours for that engineering task and the time as one hour per part. Engineers then report daily the number of hours they completed for the tasks. Since all of this is on one work order, the scheduler is fully updated every day and your overall project has a scheduled finish date. The engineering work order even provides the critical path for you to keep the fabrication starting when you want. Just a few thoughts.

Legacy Contributor

We also use a "pre-production leg" with the engineering and approval ops lined up in the order they are done.

If you have a very complex engineering scenario, say for a major build like a plane, ship, bridge, etc., you can use legs and operations to plan the work in the sequence you need, and assign various engineers to parts of the task.

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