We have two Operations that must schedule back to back for the same job.
There are two Operations that use the same machine (this is key here); Operators always do both operations back to back. Is there a way to force Scheduling to schedule these back to back? We don’t want say 3 different jobs on operation A and then the same 3 jobs on operation B. We would prefer job 1 to schedule on the machine for operation A then operation B. Then job 2…then Job 3.
We discussed combining the Operations, but there is a setup required for the 2nd operation. So the operator would have to logout of Production and not take a quantity, then login to Setup (for a second time), and finally Login/Logout of Production to finally get all hours and counts. This isn’t a huge deal, but makes some more granular efficiency calculations wonky (anything that creates “odd” entries is less desirable, because we have a rather intense focus on efficiency/productivity).
That just makes sure that the 1st is completed before the 2nd can start, other jobs could be scheduled between the two. For that matter it could get scheduled two weeks later. The others don’t work because the would have some form of compressing the Operation Time, which doesn’t really happen.
there is no true option in the scheduling system to tie two operations together so that they always get scheduled to be next to each other. This type of joined operation would be really a great enhancement. In some situations where the operations are part of an assembly line, and cannot be interrupted, the only “good” option is to combine the operations into one single operation. This is not always optimal, especially if the operations have different resources, and for jobs that have a qty 1… where it does work well is when you have large job quantities, and small operation durations. Maybe someday we will have a way to link operations together.
