Scheduling tab¶

‘Use Production Scheduling’

If Administration > Parameters > ‘Use Production Scheduling’ is set to true, then the scheduled date is calculated by the following method.

When the order is saved, the manufacturing time for making the blind is calculated.
This could check two places because we can either hold the manufacturing time against the blind type record (Average Manufacturing Time) or hold the process times for the blind type in Blind Types > Process Times.
If there are no records against the blind type process time, then the average manufacturing time is used.

The program then checks the first available time that the blind can be made when the detail line is being saved.
We work out the next available manufacturing time by looking at the availability in the schedule.
This is done by checking the average manufacturing time for the blinds in the order by manufacturing location and then using the latest manufacturing time as the scheduled date.
We also take into account whether the order is for the same day despatch or not.

The scheduled date is not calculated if the order detail line is flagged out of stock.
Once the detail line is flagged as being back in stock, the scheduled date is then calculated.

If ‘Use Production Scheduling’ = true and ‘Display Checked’ = true, the scheduled date is calculated until the ‘Checked’ box has been ticked on the order form.

Other Rules

1. Quantity in the order detail line is taken into consideration when working out the scheduled time.
2. Scheduled date is recalculated each time an order is saved (or checked).
3. Same day orders go under priority scheduled time.
4. If you do set a scheduled date with permissions, the manufacturing time goes into the relevant assigned time
5. It is possible to manually schedule orders by serial detail line (scheduled date is on this record)
6. Orders can be scheduled with multiple lines over multiple days – if there is not enough time in one day, then the next available schedule date is used.
7. Delivery Day customers - scheduled date is the next free slot as normal. Required date is the next delivery day on or after scheduled date
8. Standard Customers - scheduled date = required date
9. The schedule is updated for delete, amendments, customer holds, OOS scans etc.
10. OOS Scan - all other blinds on the order in that manufacture location are unscheduled (then rescheduled for ‘Back In Stock’ scan)
11. Manufacturing blinds depletes the schedule time capacity, but only if the manufactured date is before the scheduled date (date only, ignore time).

If ‘Use Production Scheduling’ is switched on, the message for large quantity has been removed, and replaced with a new message if maximum scheduled quantity is exceeded for the order, saying ‘Please note this is a large order and has been scheduled over a number of days’.

We have a customer that does not schedule sales orders if they go on credit hold.
Therefore there is a new parameter called ‘Do Not Schedule On Credit Hold’ which defaults to false.
If it is set to true, (which is only possible if ‘Use Production Scheduling = true) the orders on credit hold are not scheduled.
When these orders are taken off credit hold, they are scheduled.

Acknowledgement XML Sending

At the moment an order acknowledgement XML can be sent automatically if the folder is set up against the customer and ‘Send EDI Order Ack’ is set to true.
If ‘Use Production Scheduling’ = true, then the file is only sent when the order is scheduled.
It is now possible to send the XML acknowledgement back to the customer as soon as the EDI order is imported successfully, so there is a new flag called ‘Send EDI Acknowledgement On Import’ which defaults to false. If set to true, then acknowledgements are sent straight away.

Manual Production Scheduling

If ‘Manual Production Scheduling’ is switched on in Parameters > Order/Quotation Processing, it is now possible to amend the ‘Schedule Date’ in the Order Amend Enquiry’ form and this then updates the ‘Schedule Date’ in all of the detail lines for that order.
A prompt appears saying ‘You are about to update the schedule date in all the detail lines. Do you want to continue?’.

Also, if ‘Manual Production Scheduling’ is switched on, then ‘Use Production Scheduling’ is switched off in Parameters automatically, and vice versa.
It is not possible to have both these flags on at the same time.

There is a new parameter in Administration > Parameters called ‘Re-schedule on Promised Date’ .
The following functionality will only be applied if this parameter is switched on, and only affects the ‘Blind In Stock’, ‘Blind Out Of Stock’, ‘Order In Stock’ and ‘Order Out Of Stock’ buttons in Order Processing > Order Enquiry.

When any of the Out of Stock scan functions were run in the Order Enquiry screen, the order was removed from the schedule.
This has changed this so that the order is rescheduled into the ‘promised date’ on the order.
The promised date is the date the customer is told their order will be back in stock.
This will help production keep track of capacity as previously out of stock orders were not accounted for.

When the scan takes place, the order is removed from its current scheduled slot. If is then re-scheduled based on the order ‘Promised Date’.
If there is not enough capacity on the ‘Promised Date’ then the order is scheduled into the next available slot after the Promised Date.
If the quantity is less than the Large Quantity figure on the Manufacture Location system table, then the whole order is scheduled on the same day as normal.
If the quantity is greater than the Large Quantity then it is split over multiple days, starting from the Promised Date.

Lastly, if the Promised Date is blank, or is less than the current date, then the order remains unscheduled.
Also, the Required date on the order is set using the normal rules taking consolidated days into consideration.

We have a customer that wants to use scheduling but does not want to use ‘Priority’ time, so we now have a parameter to ignore this.
The new parameter is called ‘Disable Priority Scheduling’ and is in Administration > Parameters.
It defaults to false.
If this new parameter is set to true, then the scheduling will only update the ‘Normal Scheduled Time’, regardless of whether it is a ‘Must Go’, ‘Same Day Despatch’ etc order or not.
We have also amended the ‘Manufacturing Location’ form so we can hold records with a ‘Priority Assigned Time’ of 0.
Previously the priority assigned time had to be > 0 when the dates and times were being filled.

When an order is saved, it is now possible to schedule blinds to all be done on the latest(furthest) scheduled date.
To do this there is a new parameter called ‘Apply Latest Schedule Date’ which defaults to false.
If this flag is switched on, when an order is saved, the program now looks at the latest scheduled date and resets all the other scheduled dates in the order detail lines to be the same as this one.
Previously it was only changing the ‘Schedule Date’ on the order record to be the latest date.

There is a new parameter in Parameters called ‘Filter Scheduling To Last Week’ which defaults to false.
If true, only the last 7 days are displayed in this form.

There is a new parameter called ‘Do Not Reschedule When Taken Off Credit Hold’ which defaults to false.
If true, orders are not rescheduled if taken off credit hold. If ‘Do Not Schedule On Credit Hold’ is true then this new flag is disabled (and false).

There is a new parameter called ‘No Rescheduling For Amendments’ which defaults to false.
If true, then detail lines are not rescheduled if a detail line is changed, according to the following rule.
If the width or drop or an option is changed that has no impact on the schedule time required, then the scheduled date remains the same.
If it changes the scheduled time required, then the scheduled date is updated.

It is now possible to calculate lead time by an option chosen in an order detail line.
There is already a ‘Lead Time’ field held against a stock record.
If this is not 0 or null, and it is a bigger number than the lead time held against the blind type, then it can be used for calculating the required date.
NB. Originally this functionality worked for Regular POs only in the Expected Delivery Date calculation (and only if Add Option Time to Scheduling was ticked in Parameters).
Now the ‘Required Date’ calculation for Sales Orders also takes Stock Item > Lead Time into account

Previously, if process scanning is used and scheduling is switched on, the scheduling minutes only got reduced when the blind was made.
There is now a new flag called ‘Update Schedule Time by Process’ in the Parameters table.
This defaults to false (so the program will behave as it currently does).
If the new flag is switched on, when a process is scanned, it should check the scheduled minutes held for the relevant process scan, then reduces the minutes in the schedule for the relevant manufacturing location. This means the schedule minutes are not altered when the blind is changed to ‘Blind Made’, because the schedule has already been updated.

There is a new flag called ‘Schedule SDD Order To Next Day’ which defaults to false.
If this flag is set to true, same-day despatch orders will be scheduled for the next day, providing they are input before the cut off time, otherwise, they will be scheduled for 2 days ahead.

There is a new parameter for scheduling called 'Schedule By Required Date' .
If this is true, orders are prioritised by the required date of the order.
If there is no capacity for the required date, then the scheduler looks at the day before and so on.
If there is no capacity available before the required date, a message appears saying 'There is no available capacity before the required date'.