Linked workorders and the initial 'release date'

When creating a new work order from the order entry screen; Does anyone know how to get the 'release date' of a new work order to be something more realistic than the date the order was created?

We are using linked work orders (obviously) & and the easy-lean scheduler.

These release dates are corrected when the scheduler runs, but unless the order entry people are talking to planning & purchasing though out the day, our proactive workers get a little excited when the 'surprise' demands show up in the planning window and expedite/release prematurely.

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We use MRP instead of EasyLean. What is the main feature of EasyLean that distinguishes it from MRP?

The release dates should just be the want date minus the total buffer set for the part.
Managing the want dates on linked work orders can get tricky. If you adjust the Customer Order Want Date it will not reflect in the Work Order Want Date. You need to do that seperately.
I've used Easy Lean in both linked WO scenarios and unlinked scenarios and it calculated the release date fine.

We have just implemented EasyLean, which I believe our management is quite satisfied with. Scheduling is done based on machine capacity, in other words, by Lean priniciples. This really helps identify where constraints are in a company's processes. In our case, this has enabled us to very quickly shorten our lead times for our production. It has also put more positive pressure on sales to provide work that can help us fill our capacity.

Good point. I assumed no CCR defined and it was a Free W/O part.

On one of the forums, a user shared code for a macro that automatically updates WO Want Dates when the Customer Order Desired Ship Date is changed. Wish Infor would make this a standard feature, like a button you can click to update all linked WO's.

Fluortekimis:

The "regular" scheduling using machine capacity. Does EasyLean use a pull system? Is it all based on a Kanban style supply? I am interested because we need to reduce leadtimes also, but before I came on the decision was madet that EasyLean did not fit our business model, but I have heard that Infor has improved EasyLean so I'm wanting to find out how it works.

My issue is not with the easy lean scheduler, or the customer want dates being changed... it is when a workorder is created via the customer order entry screen, the NEW workorder has a release date equal to the original entry date of the CO. So for the remainder of the day, there shows requirements for the components, even if the order is not due until next year. Running the scheduler will correct it, but I have no desire to have order entry re-run the scheduler every time they complete a line.

In our case the easy lean functions as a pull, back scheduling all the sub components, as for labor constraints on a workcenter, it's assuming infinite overtime. I would recommend you look into DDMRP (R-plus)... this is where my issue is coming from as the DDMRP handles both historical trends and abnormal future demands in a lean-compatible way.

We are considering DDMRP/R+. Does it work well to reduce leadtimes and keep inventory at an optimimum level?

We began playing with DDMRP before R+ was available to us, and via some proof-of-concept development now have our own variation on the DDMRP method. R+ is not recommended to run with Easy Lean, or so we have been told.

All in all, DDMRP for us has helped our inventory situation immensely by informing us of problems before they occur, as for lowering our inventory, that is going slowly as it is difficult to get people to trust the computer. Shortening the leadtimes, DDMRP hasn't done much more than Easy Lean, though, on-time delivery is up due to the dynamic and nearly automatic inventory management.

Tim:

I first thought we needed R+, but am beginning to think we might be able to develop something ourselves. How did you go about getting an ASR leadtime, then looking across all the ASR's to find the key parts? If you don't mind me asking.

Tim - may I ask what DDMRP is doing for you that Easy Lean was not? I've looked at DDMRP in the past and havent been convinced that I'd see much gains or differences.

Tom/Jason

Step one, get the book: Orlicky's Material Requirements Planning (3rd Ed). Skip ahead to Part 4. (chapter 22) if you don't care for a history lesson. Getting ASR's requires a bit of programming, you need to know how to make the computer walk your BOMs - I assumed our leadtimes were correct (not really a good assumption), but that is the biggest key in DDMRP those have to be correct. As your program (I've done it in Java and C# now), builds it's web of what's connected to what you end up with the "matrix" table they talk about in the book. Magically getting it to tell me what to stock or not to, well, that hasn't happened, but has pointed out some constraints we otherwise would not have seen, and insists we can cut our inventory by 60%. The biggest advantage we've seen with DDMRP is the fact it looks ahead dynamically for abnormal demands, something visual (easy lean) just does not do for us. We also have it spilling that abnormal demand down through the BOMs to the raw material level, so DDMRP is flagging issues that otherwise wouldn't be caught for months on our long leadtime parts. Is DDMRP a magic fix? No, the hardest part is the deciding what to stock or not and verifying your lead times. Does it *augment* the system and provide consistently accurate information to our planners? A resounding Yes, and the only thing they have to keep updated is the lead time & a ranking (1 to 3) of how volatile a part is (delivery or volume). Developing it yourself, after you read the book, you'll need some programming skills & understand recursion. We are basically a job shop, making small quantities, but we do get project orders that are high quantity due all on the same day, so being able to look ahead in a timely manner across multiple BOM levels is a must... when you keep 5 of an item is stock for normal usage, but may have a spike using 200 in one day, easy lean will leave you hanging.

Tim,

Now THIS is the kind of info I have been looking for! I also have the Orlickey's 3rd ed. I understand the concept. I don't think we have anyone with the programming skills or the understanding of the database to make an in-house solution--I think. I can do some VBA and basic SQL and that's about it, but once I understand how things work, I can usually figure out a way to get what I need--looking to God for wisdom. But let me at least ask you this: where, in the Visual database, do you find the "link" that tells you and engineering master is at a sub-level? Is it basically, "Part X is on this BOM; look for and EngMstr that is named X; if found, load, if not found, dead end, next part; there is an EM for X, load; part Q is on the BOM--look for EngMstr named Q...etc." Does that make any sense?

Tom,
That information is in the REQUIREMENT table.

Kind of, if you have multiple masters, it's not going to be easy... here's the method I used, Load a BOM, look at the requirement (part master), is it manufactured, then get it's default engineering id, load the master for that requirement with the engineering id as the lot, and so on. In our case (where the lead time assumption came in), I'm using the lead time on the part master which again, in our case is the hours lead time in calendar days. In order to build the matrix end of it I found I had to use a programming language that would allow me to make records of my travels through the BOMs for each item, counting things like is it on an ASRLT path (recursion), how many child parts, how many parents, it's ASRLT (again recursion, set this on the way back out of the loop), etc. But your method should work too, a little more of the brute force way, I had timing issues and needed to optimize where I could to reduce the runtime down from 12hrs the first time.

Yes, Gail is correct, the Engineering master (WORK_ORDER (type='M')) joined to REQUIREMENT joined to PART. PART.FABRICATED = 'Y' then repeat the process.

Well, we should probably change the title of this thread 8^)

How do you keep track of what "level" you are on, like with the Bill of Material Report? BTW, can you just use the BOM Report? We are modifying it to include info such as Safety Stock, Min Ord Qty, Leadtime...

he level is kept track by the number of times the "load" function calls it's self. The Load function has a parameter, that is incremented each time it goes deeper into the BOMs. Although, I don't save this anywhere, as it's relatively useless except as a catchall when someone makes a BOM that references it's self. The reason being a 3/16" manufactured widget, may be used on multiple levels depending on the final product... it's the constraining parts that matter, the parts that lie on the most ASRLT paths. Hence none canned reports came close for me. Mine evolved into a separate app, because looking up the ASRLT for one item is nice, and a milestone in writing your own solution, it does not provide the answer to how many times is this part on an asrlt path - this may not be a raw material, although it will be on the list, the real constraint could be something a few levels higher. If your proficient with vba, access, and maybe even excel it may be possible to do, I've never tried. There's always the educational/free version of C# for windows forms from Microsoft. If your not into the coding, R+ is a good product, seen it in action at a few demos.

Yeah, the thread is pretty well hijacked. I still have no solution to my issue except to stop transactions and run the scheduler during the day. Thought of having them change the order date to something close to the delivery date and back again, but then I end up with dates like 4/10/2103 on a linked work order. Like Jason said "The release dates should just be the want date minus the total buffer set for the part." which is not the case for me until the scheduler runs and corrects it. I was hoping it was something dumb like turning on an INI setting on the order entry users.

Tom,
Are your users selecting Released as the status of the work order when they create it? If they pick Firmed or Unreleased would that help the employees using the material planning window until the scheduler runs? They would have to look for the status though, or uncheck the options on the View menu to Show Firmed Status and or Show Unreleased Status. Downside: Somone will have to watch those orders and release them at the appropriate time.

Why don't you leave the WO's in Unreleased status, release the CO, then have a macro that runs at 2AM or whatever that looks up all Unreleased WO's for all Released CO's, changes them to Released (so the Scheduler will use them in calculations), then runs MRP?

BTW Gail, I think you meant Tim, whose looking for a solution to running MRP at the appropriate time for their DDMRP-based process?

Wait, I got that backwards, I see the problem is the system-generated release dates. How about this? Have a macro that automatically sets every every new WO Release Date to 31 Dec 2999, then when you run MRP all the release dates can be changed and that will let everyone know which dates are not truly scheduled dates.

Due to a specifications process of ours we must link the work orders, and they may not all be created at the same time, due to the specifications and engineering, such as the part id is unknown or doesn't exist until engineering looks it over.

The workorder creation is from the Customer Order Entry screen, the little "new w/o" checkbox, and is not acted upon until the sales rep hits Save. However with at least up to 7.0.0, there are no options (I know of) that allow you to change the default status of these new workorders to anything other than Firmed and the release date = "order date". Now the workorders are not actually created until the "onsave" macro completes, and to the best of my knowledge, there's no onsave-finished macro. Presently ALL workorders are created as firmed, releasing is manual so the traveler will go out as a packet with all the correct documentation, drawings, and CNC programs. (We use a product called "trial-kit" from synergy to assist in only releasing what can actually be worked on.)

I've come close with a database trigger, but unless I get the date exactly right it interferes with the scheduler when it creates firmed WO's - ALOT of DBR reschedule messages.

Just doesn't seem right that the default release date is always in the past on a lean scheduler.

I stand corrected, there is a make workorder unreleased option from the CO screen.

As long as the scheduler doesn't decide to group these on me, that would work... off to the test DB.

I don't know if its the same in EasyLean as in MRP, but when I run MRP and generate WO's from Planned Orders (PL's), they automatically schedule the Release Date as the part leadtime minus the calculated Material Require Date (which becomes the Want Date). I think that's what you are looking for. Then, when I gang-print these WO's (sometimes over a hundred) from Print WO Traveler Report, with the options (1) Firmed (print Firmed orders) (2) Print Unprinted Workorders, (3) Auto release all details of each Workorder, (4) Change status of subordinate materials and operations--then it auto-releases the whole bunch, and they have system generated Release Date and Want Date. Maybe if you take the approach of letting your DBR-MRP generate all the orders as planned orders, you can get the results you are looking for.

Also, are you using the Check Availability from Customer Order Entry? That generates a Release Date and Want Date for a WO linked to a Sales Order line item, based on the soonest available slot in the Schedule (without running the whole Concurrent Scheduler). You can select options to Check Material Availability (how I wish Infor would enable multi-level Check Material Availability for ASR leadtimes!), force forward schedule (to pack the schedule) and treat release date as hard.

I appreciate the attempts at help here, but this is for Easy Lean, so anything that builds based on the concurrent scheduler is not applicable. Releasing the order or line just marks it as released, there's no date checking/scheduling done, as in lean the want dates are considered hard dates, lean will never push an order out for you.

I agree on the multi-level material check - this is a BIG issue when lean, hence the DDMRP project.

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