Introduction:
It’s been more than 7decades a journey towards systematic formulation of manufacturing business process that started with MRP followed by ERP and supported by many more advanced algorithm & technologies with vision to reduce uncertainties and maximize productivity of manufacturing business function. SAP being market leader introduced manufacturing planning with ERP followed by a advanced planner and optimizer and now IBP. But with these tool, strategic manufacturing planning, forecasting, supply network planning, demand fulfillment by ensuring availability became highly robust. With PPDS, short term floor planning has also been made possible.
On the other hand, SAP Manufacturing execution solutions like SAP MII, MES, OEE etc are there as a integration platform connecting individual shopfloor machines with ERP.
After all these even, there were some disconnect between the planning (Top floor) and execution layer of manufacturing (Shop floor). Demand was there to have a reactive spot planning tool to bridge this gap.
For example, in a shopfloor if a machine gets broken down suddenly, a system should be there to assist the floor supervisor to shown available alternative machines to manage the undue disruption and continue production. If a labour gets sick and had to take a half day leave, there should be a system to show available capable labour may be from other production line who can be utilised to keep the floor running seamlessly. During shift planning need to ensure that the PRT required to accomplish the job has not been identified by other production line. Sometime supervisor of one production line require to plan it’s machines, labours or tools based on the plan of it’s antecedent & dependent production line and thus can assist to best utilization of resources in the floor.
In a nutshell, demand was there for a single window that can provide the production supervisor complete visibility of shop floor (machines, labours & tools) live that enable the supervisor to react to undue events at shopfloor and assist to ensure the highest productivity from the shopfloor.
To bridge the above-mentioned gap, SAP introduced “Resource Orchestration (REO)” functionality as a part of their digital manufacturing cloud solution. Resource Orchestration is a cloud-based scheduling tool within SAP Digital Manufacturing Cloud for execution (DMCe) that enables production supervisors and shop floor controllers to control and monitor events on the shop floor. This application can be used to schedule and dispatch operations to appropriate work centers, and resources for further processing on the shop floor.
There are three basic components that need to be set up prior to proceed for Dispatching & Scheduling Functionality:
- Enable Resource
- Schedule Labor
- Schedule Tool
Enable Resource:
- Create shift with category ‘Resource’ – “Manage Shifts” App.
- Maintain Calendar rules in shift definition. - “Manage Shifts” App.
- Create Resource type assign to resources for grouping - “Manage Resource Types” & “Manage Resources” App.
- Assign Resources to work centre – “Manage Work Centre” App.
- Assign Shop Orders to Resource – “Manage Resource Assignment” App
Schedule Labor:
Objective of this step is to create shift roster for labors.
Note:
- Without supervisor assignment, users shall not be available for ‘Schedule Labor’ or at ‘Dispatching and monitoring’
- One labor or user can be assigned to multiple supervisors.
- Shift plan or Labor roster can be copied.
Schedule Tools:
A tool is a movable operating resource used in production and that can be used repeatedly. Objective of this step is to create a tool roster.
There are three Apps to manage tools (PRTs) in DMCe – Manage Tools, Schedule tools, Manage Tools Assignment.
When integrated with SAP ERP systems, the production resources/tools (PRTs) in ERP systems can be downloaded as tools in SAP Digital Manufacturing Cloud.
Dispatching & Scheduling:
This is quite a user-friendly tool, where drag & drop, functions available on right click, configurable UI for better Ux has been taken into due consideration.
Based on setup done with the prerequisites, in REO tool, resource, labor & tool status can be visible “Resources Section of the window with timeline. Whereas at the bottom at Worklist section, order wise operations get listed in timeline based on it’s schedule.
Timeline can be managed hour, day, week, or month basis.
In setting, following configurations can be done:
Self-explanatory legends are also available.
After getting the orders from S4HANA or SAP ME system, corresponding operations shall listed at the bottom “Worklist Section”.
Operations can be dragged from “Worklist” section and dropped (at “Resources” section) to desired timeline against intended resource.
Rescheduling can be done simply by dragging the operation across the timeline in “Resources” section. For auto dispatching functionality, it’s required to have a “Default Resource” maintained for each operation.
Functions related to Orders and operations are mostly available on right click
Highlights:
- A shop floor spot planning tool to ensure maximum output with optimum utilization of resource, tools and labors.
- Capable of dispatching, scheduling, rescheduling, splitting, merger of operations.
- Notify to ensure balance of demand and available machine capacity
- Notify to ensure availability of Labor & tools
- Integrates alerts and notifications from PODs.
- Allow to modify Labor and shift rosters based on situation.
- In case of capacity overload, suggests alternative resources available.
- Allocate or deallocate operations or balance load on resources.
- Allows to release Shop Orders
- Shows live view of Order, operation or SFC Progress
- Capable of integrate on-premise SAP ME system both inbound (SDI) & Outbound (Cloud Connector) direction.
References: https://help.sap.com/viewer/066baf723b0f40d7bce61590ebcec2ef/latest/en-US/1ce3505167d24b87a2b4827d57...