Looking for how others set up their Resource Groups/Resources for scheduling purposes.
We currently have 1 operation for our fabricators (FAB) and build in Cells (Cell A, B, C, D). Each cell will have 1 or 2 operators in it that will clock to the same job.
I’m struggling with the best set up so the jobs schedule properly.
In operation set up you must select a primary production operation detail - that is a resource.
Our plan was to set up as Operation (FAB)_Resource Group (Cell, A, B, C, D) and Resources would be each operator. Because of the primary production operation detail requirement I’m not sure we can proceed as we intended.
Anyone have suggestions on the best way to do this?
The first question I ask is “is the time constraint the machine/asset or the worker”?
The second question is “are these resources largely interchangeable?”
I’ve got dozens of resource groups comprising hundreds of assets. Most are set up as groups of identical-make/model machines. Our MOM’s call out the resource group. Scheduling will level load the group. Some machines are scheduling individually by moving jobs around on the multi-resource scheduling board. In this case, I usually don’t care about how many people we need working the resource. 1 or 2 doesn’t matter. The floor supervisors know enough about what’s going on to staff accordingly.
Other groups are treated differently. Like, say, assembly where we just need to buy a new table to expand “capacity”. However, throughput is dictated by staffing levels. In that case, you have an assembly group, comprised of resources (ASMBL 1, ASMBL 2, etc) which represent the workers.
The weird ones are work cells which aren’t constrained by machine or staffing. Like a paint booth, where you’re really constrained by volume of the resource. It’s not a chokepoint in our process flow at all, so I treat it as unlimited. The alternative would involve collecting a lot of part-specific data and probably some custom BPM. It’s not worth the effort at this time.
Another weird one are machines that are largely, but not entirely interchangeable. For example, we’ve got a cell comprised of the same make of machines, but some of them are a slightly nicer model that can run at a higher RPM. Most of the time, that doesn’t matter. So they’re lumped all together with the low-RPM machines for scheduling purposes. The MOM might call out one of the specific machines (instead of the resource group), but usually it’s just noted it in the operation instructions.
Which method you should use, if you haven’t gotten the gist of it, is contextual. You know your business best. Pick the method you think is easiest to manage.