Process Subdivision¶

Shop floor system / Barcoding / Process status levels

We have partially completed a shop floor system. The purpose of this further automates the processing of orders and to store extra information about timings and schedule planning.

At the same time, it is also possible to record the date and time when each stage of the life of an order has been completed.
We can now record when a blind was entered when labels were printed, WIP, blind manufactured, order manufactured, delivered and invoiced.

Within manufacturing, we now hold different process levels for blind type eg for vertical blinds would have e.g. ‘headrail cut’ and ‘vanes made’.
It is now possible to record each process as being individually completed (but there is also the facility to choose which processes you want to record times as some processes will be too short to scan).
When all the processes have been completed, the status of the blind changes to manufactured.

When scanning is carried out, it can be done in ‘process type’ order.
However, you could have a situation where two parts of a blind are being made separately, and come together at the end. We, therefore, have to subdivide process types within a blind type into ‘process groups’.
This means that more than one process group can be run (and therefore scanned) simultaneously.

In conjunction with this, we can also date/stamp every action that is taken when adding or altering data for order as an audit trial including which user has completed the transaction.

Phase 1 of the shop floor system has been completed. The following steps should be carried out.

1. Enable the shop floor system in Administration > Parameters.
2. Set permissions for ‘Shop Floor System’ in Administration > Users.
3. We have added one more table “Process Subdivision” to Administration -> System Tables.
It stores the process subdivisions with codes (important notice: the code of the subdivision should be a 4-digit number no less than 1000). Records should be entered here.
4. We have added additional fields to the Man Process Types tab of Blind Type Edit form, these fields are used to select a Subdivision and check if a process is scanned or not.
These must also be entered.
The program will work as follows:

The new logic is on the Order Enquiry form. If the “Enable Shop Floor System” parameter is enabled, an additional button “Shop Floor Scan” will be displayed on this form.
There will also be a panel at the bottom of the form with the buttons “View Process Transactions” and “View Process Transactions by Subdivision”.

When you click “Shop Floor Scan” button, you will see a form which can be used for scanning.
After each scan operation, the program will check the validity of data received from the barcode reader and if there are errors, it will display a corresponding message. If the data is correct, the application will display the process completion confirmation, and then it will save the corresponding Process Transactions.
If all processes have been completed for the scanned Serial Detail Line and you try to scan again, the program will show a corresponding message (an important detail – the last process in each Sub Division should be a scanned process, otherwise there will be no way to complete the subdivision).

If, after a scanning operation, the program determines that all processes for all Serial Detail Lines have been completed, the status of the order detail will change to Blind Manufactured.
If all order details have “Blind Manufactured” status – Order Made logic will be applied.

You can use “View Process Transactions” button to view the history of Process Transactions for the selected Order Detail Line.
There is also “Delete Last Transaction” button on the form, it allows deleting the last transaction for the selected Serial Detail Line and Sub Division.
However, you cannot delete the transactions for Order Detail if its status is Blind Manufactured.

When a user print Works Order Label 1, the procedure checks to see if ‘Enable Shop Floor System’ parameter is enabled.
If it is disabled, the old logic is applied, i.e. it prints the order detail id on the top small labels in the barcode, and subdivision field is not displayed.
When the ‘Enable Shop Floor System’ parameter is enabled, the serial number of the order detail and the subdivision code is printed in the barcode, so that it can be scanned in “Shop Floor Scan” mode.
The subdivision field is also being displayed below the barcode.

Here is the list of exceptions, which may appear when printing Order Label 1 with ‘Enable Shop Floor System’ flag enabled:

1. If it prints the previously added order details (the serial number does not exist for these details), then the old version of the barcode will be printed and there will be no Subdivision field, i.e. it will look similar to the situation with ‘Enable Shop Floor System’ disabled.
2. If a new order is added (serial numbers exist for the details of this order), but there are no processes and subdivisions for this Blind Type, then the barcode is not displayed and Subdivision field is not being displayed as well.
3. If there are processes with only one subdivision for the blind type, then the barcode and subdivision field will be printed only on the top left label.

When we worked on this report, we completely reworked the stored procedure which generates Works Order label 1 report, with the purpose of speeding up the generation of work order labels.