Taylor Scheduling Software - Decision One Version 3.2

Step One:
1. Model Your Facility by clicking on the Plant Model tab within the Plant Model & Orders window.
2. Click on the icons to add Plant Areas, Departments, Workcenters and other Primary Resources (machines, operators and other).
3. You must give each primary resource (machine, operator or other type) at least one of the following: setup, run or cleanup time/rate.

Step Two:
4. Add Routings by clicking on the Routings tab within the Plant Model & Orders window.
5. Click on the green Plus sign icon to add a new routing.
6. Add Steps to each Routing.
7. Assign possible Primary Resources to each Step.

Step Three:
8. Add Orders by clicking on the Orders tab within the Plant Model & Orders window.

Step Four:
9. Right mouse click on the Orders tab and select "Schedule all unscheduled orders".

You should now see operations displayed on the Scheduling Board window and can drag and drop operations.

Read the User Manual and/or Tutorial for more details on the above.

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Scheduling Methodology

Decision One uses the following method for scheduling operations:

Schedule All, first sorts by priority, then due date.
Scheduling a single Order simply tries to get it done the fastest.
If you have pegged orders all of the children orders will be scheduled before the parent order.
If all of the priorities are the same and all of the due dates are the same it will schedule based upon when the orders are entered.

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Tooltips

Operations:
Orders:
Routing Steps:

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Step One - Modeling Your Facility

Let's start by creating a new project.

1. Launch Decision One
2. Click on File | New
3. Click on File | Save As
4. Name the file something like my_company.d1

Decision One uses a top-down hierarchical visual representation of your facility. This means you start at the top - Plant Areas (e.g., Production), then add Departments that exist within a Plant Area (e.g. Main Facility), then add Workcenters that exist within a Department (e.g. Metal Working) and then add Primary Resources (Machines, Operators, Other) that exist within a Workcenter (e.g. Lathe 1, Lathe2).

Since the structure one manufacturer uses will differ from another manufacturer, there are some modeling features you may not need - in particular you may not need Departments or Workcenters.

For example:

Manufacturer 1		Manufacturer 2
Plant Areas ------------->Departments -------------------------->Workcenters -------------------------------------->Machines		Plant Areas ------------->Operators

In the above example, the Manufacturer 1 model requires that machines are located within Workcenters, which are in turn located within Departments, which are in turn located within Plant Areas. Whereas the Manufacturer 2 model does not have Departments or Workcenters and the operators simply exist within a Plant Area. Decision One is flexible enough to handle both methods.

The key point here is that only Primary Resources (machines, operators, other) are scheduled - regardless of how detailed your model is, you MUST add Primary Resources or the program will not do anything.

First, let's add a Plant Area:

1. Click on the Plant Model tab, located in the Plant Model & Orders window.

2. Click on the green Add Plant Area icon.

3. A Dialogue box appears. Enter the name of your plant area.

4. A Plant Area icon appears below the Menu button.

5. Right mouse click on the new Plant Area. Click on Add | Primary Resource | Machine.

Note 1: This is where you can also add Departments and Workcenters, Operators or Other types of Primary Resources.

6. A dialog box will appear requesting the name of the machine along with its default setup time, runtime and cleanup time.

Note 2: You MUST give each Primary Resource at least one of either setup, run or cleanup time/rate.

Note 3: There are 2 types of rates (pieces per hour based or time-based). You should only use time-based in those cases where the quantity produced per hour is not relevant (like a paint drying room that has unlimited space but takes exactly 8 hours to dry), or, when Setup/Cleanup takes a fixed amount of time (e.g. 1/2 hour).

The process for editing your Primary Resource configurations is essentially the same (right mouse click on a Primary Resource icon and select Edit Settings, make your changes, select OK, etc.) - this is left up for you to do.

7. A new machine icon appears on the Plant Model within the Plant Area

After you have modeled your facility and have set the defaults for each machine in your facility, you are ready to Model Your Manufacturing Process.

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Adding Shift Calendars

Adding a shift calendar - use this when your facility (or a particular work center, department or primary resource) is not 24x7

1. Right mouse click on the Plant Area, Department, Work Center or Primary Resource you want to add a shift calendar to.

2. Select Calendars/Add Shift Calendar.

Note 1: You can also add a global calendar (entire facility) in Options | Calendars | Add Master Shift Calendar.

Note 2: You can also select "Apply Uptime Always" to specify 24x7.

3. Select a Calendar Start Date

4. Select a Calendar End Date.

5. Select a Cycle period (one day, one week, two weeks).

6. Input the uptime for each day of the week that your facility is running.

7. You can create exceptions (for holidays, etc.).

8. Select OK.

Now, on the Scheduling Board, you should see black lines in the middle of operations (green bars) that indicate downtime.

Note 3: We do not recommend adding too much detail in the shift calendar (i.e., coffee breaks).

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Model Your Manufacturing Process (routings)

Here is how you model your manufacturing process:

1. Click on the Routings tab inside the Plant Model & Orders window.

2. Click on the green Plus button to add a new routing.

3. Give this new Routing a name. You can also add an optional description and units of measure (e.g. pounds, feet, etc). Units are added in Options | Units of Measurement. Click OK.

4. A new routing icon appears. Right mouse click on this new routing icon - select Add Step.

5. A dialog box appears requesting the number of this step, the name of this step (e.g. Cutting) and the option to override the default setup time, runtime and cleanup times (configured when you added Primary Resources). For the sake of simplicity, leave these configurations as their default.

Please read Chapter 4 in the User Manual for detailed information about Lag/Transfer Times and Operation Splitting.

Click OK. A new step icon appears below the Routing icon.

Note 1: By default steps are numbered 10, 20, 30, etc. - so that later on if you need to insert a step between 10 and 20, you can use numbers 11, 12, 13, etc.

6. Right mouse click on this new step - select Assign Primary Resource.

7. Another dialog box appears, this time it shows the hierarchy of your model on the right hand side.

8. Select the Primary Resource that does this step. Click OK.

9. If more than one Primary Resource can do this step, repeat steps 6 - 8 until you have linked all of the Primary Resources available to do this step. This will allow the scheduling engine to select from a list of possible Primary Resources when the schedule is created.

10. Repeat steps 1 - 9 until you have modeled all of the steps in your manufacturing process.

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Copy a Routing

This feature allows you to copy an existing Routing (including all steps and assigned primary and secondary resources). It is particularly useful for made-to-order or engineered-to-order manufacturers where a new Order is similar to an old Order but not identical.

Right-click on the Routing you wish to copy.
Select Copy Routing.
Give this new Routing a different name.
Select OK.

Now you can edit the Routing Details (setup, run, cleanup rates/times, assigned primary and secondary resources, lag, transfer time, etc.) of this new Routing.

Read the Chapter 4 in the User Manual for more information on Routings.

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Lag/Transfer Time

Decision One allows for lag and/or transfer time between operations. These settings are defined at the Step level of a Routing.

Lag time is the amount of time specifying how soon the next operation can start after its predecessor operation. There are four lag settings which are entered at the step level:

Lag Percentage: A portion of the run phase of the predecessor operation, calculated starting from the start of the run phase.
Transfer Time: A value in minutes/hours needed to delay the start of the next operation.
Uptime Only: A flag which determines whether any down times occuring during the tranfer time factor into the lag calculation.
Include Setup Lag: A flag which determines whether to include the successor operation's setup time in the lag calculation.

To have simultaneous operations, set Lag% to 0 and Transfer time to 0:

To have overlapping operations, set Lag% to value ranging from 0 to 99:

Note: be careful not to set lagtime so that a successor operation finishes before a predecessor operation - e.g., if lagtime on step 3 is set to 50%, plus the run rate of step 3 is 10 units per hour and the run rate for step 4 is 100 units per hour it may appear as if step 4 finishes before step 3 has completed (which is impossible).

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Splits/Batches

In those cases where you need the Order Quantity split into batches of some smaller amount, or, when you need to spread the work for one operation over several resources, use the Split Settings at the Routing Step level.

The following example shows what happens when Step 10 has the Number of Splits set to 10 (plus calculate lag from earliest split)

AND when Step 20 has a Split Quantity set to 100 (plus calculate lag from latest split)

You can see from this example that Step 20 (Sanding) can begin after the first split on Step 10 (Cutting) has been 50% completed. This shows how Decision One behaves when "Calculate lag from earliest split" is selected.

Also that Step 30 (Glueing) begins after 50% of the latest split has finished. This is an example of how Decision One behaves when "Calculate lag from latest split" is selected.

Note: Please read Chapter 4 of the User Manual for more information.

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No Interruption Settings

The easiest way to explain this setting is to provide an example:

If an operation should not be scheduled to begin on a Friday because your facility does not work weekends, you can set this flag (with parameters) so that scheduling does not begin on a Friday.

1. Setting the Maximum Break (maximum allowable downtime) to zero means that this step cannot be started unless it can also be completed without ANY downtime (e.g., not even a coffee break or lunch hour is allowable). Setting Maximum Break to 1 hour would allow this step to be scheduled across coffee breaks and lunches.

In order to keep the scheduling efficient, the next setting called Scheduling Horizon must also be set:

2. Setting the Scheduling Horizon to 12 Weeks means that the scheduling engine will only look ahead for 12 weeks to see if it can find a place that meets the above Maximum Break requirement. If it cannot find a suitable placement, it will not schedule this operation.

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Adding Secondary Resources

In Decision One there are 3 types of Secondary Resources that can be added to a Routing Step: Operators, Tools & Equipment, and Other (general).

1. Before you can add Secondary Resources to a Step, you first need to enter the names of each secondary resource in Options | Secondary Resources.

2. To add a Secondary Resource to a Step, right click on the Step and select Assign Secondary Resource.

3. Select the type of Resource you wish to add.

4. Select the Resource Name.

5. Assign this Resource to Setup, Run, Cleanup (or any combination).

6. Enter the Quantity required for this Step.

7. Click on "Add".

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Attaching Files to a Step

You can attach files (2 maximum) to a Step in a Routing. These can be any type of file (e.g. Word documents, text, images, audio, video, etc.) and linked when the schedule is published to HTML. It can be used to provide support information about your manufacturing process (e.g. training video for a particular step) to your production personnel.

1. Right click on a Routing Step.

2. Select "Attach File".

3. Browse for the file to be attached.

4. Click on OK when finished.

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Modeling Outsourced Operations

Modeling External Operations (outsourcing):

1. Create a step (+ fictional machine) in each routing that requires outsourcing called "Send to Supplier".
2. Make the run-time of this step very short in duration (e.g. 5 minutes) so that multiple orders going out do not amount to a lot of time.
3. Put a Transfer Time on this step of 1 week (or estimated time).
4. Create another step (+ fictional machine) called "Received from Supplier". Again, make the duration (run-time) short.
5. At the end of the day, when you send out a group of orders to your supplier, do a production update on the "Send to Supplier" step indicating that this step is completed.
6. When you receive orders back from your supplier, do a production update on the "Received from Supplier" step saying this step is completed.
7. Reschedule as needed.

It means that regardless of when/which orders come back into the system the schedule will be able to reflect the actual reality...

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Adding Orders

Once you have modeled your facility and your manufacturing process (routings), you are almost ready to schedule. All you need to do is add some orders.

Here is how you add orders:

1. Click on the Orders tab within the Plant Model & Orders window.

2. Click on the green Plus button.

3. A dialog box will appear requesting the Order Number (can be almost anything as long as it is unique), description (optional), Customer (optional - added in Options | Customers), Customer Reference # (optional), the routing to use (choose which product you are making), the quantity, the priority, the earliest start-date and the due-date.

4. Fill out the entire form and then select "OK".

5. A new order icon will appear.

6. Repeat steps 1 - 5 until you have added all of your orders.

Note 1: Once you have modeled your facility you can import Orders using Excel. Please read the User Manual (Chapter 8) on how to export your data to Excel and how to import.

The process for editing your order configurations is essentially the same (right mouse click on an order icon and select Edit Order, make your changes, select OK, etc.).

Note 2: You cannot edit some fields of an order that has been scheduled - you must first "Unschedule" it.

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Pegging Orders

This feature allows you to peg orders together so that component parts can be linked to final assembly or packaging.

To create a Pegged Order Highlight Pegged Orders

Right-click on the "parent" Order that you want the "children" Orders to be pegged to.
A dialogue box will appear with two tabs, one that shows existing pegs and one that lets you add new pegs.
Click on the "Create New Peg(s)" tab.
Select those children Orders that should be pegged to this parent Order.
Click on "Add Peg(s)". These pegged Orders will now appear in the Existing Pegs tab.
Once you have created a pegged Order you can view the pegs by right-clicking on the Order and selecting Highlight Pegs.

Read the Chapter 5 in the User Manual for more information on Pegging Orders.

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Isolate Order

When looking at a full schedule, it is challenging to see the flow of a single order. While Highlight Order allows you to see the order in context of the entire schedule, Isolate Order allows you to view the order on its own.

1. Right click on any operation, or order.

2. Select "Isolate Order".

3. A dialogue box will ask you if you want to isolate this order only, or this order and its pegged orders. Make your selection.

4. The order will now be displayed on the Scheduling Board, only showing those resources it uses.

5. Click on "Return to Full View" to see the full schedule.

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Freeze Order

When you want to "commit" an order to your production schedule (i.e. the dates/times it will be processed), you should freeze it.

Here's how:

1. Right click on the order you want to freeze.

2. Select "Freeze Order".

3. This order (including all of its operations) will now be frozen on the Scheduling Board and will not move when you reschedule.

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Suspend Order

There are many cases when you want an order to be included in the system, but do not want to schedule it. For example, you may have a customer who has requested their order be put "on hold" for the time being.

Here's how:

1. Right click on the order.

2. Select "Suspend Order".

3. A warning dialogue will appear, telling you that any frozen operations will be thawed (and removed from the Scheduling Board), all partial production update data will be removed and saved as operation notes when you release the order back into production, and, order pegging constraints may be violated (leaving you to resolve them).

4. This order will now be removed from the Scheduling Board and will not be scheduled when you reschedule all other orders. You can easily see which orders are suspended (magenta color).

5. To bring this order back into production, right click on it and select "Release Order".

Note: you can also suspend an order when importing orders.

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Attaching a File to an Order

You can attach 2 files to any order (e.g. photograph of the final product, purchase order, etc.).

Here's how:

1. Right click on an order.

2. Select "File Attachments".

3. Browse for the file.

4. Select OK

These files will now be linked to this order when you publish the schedule to HTML.

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Override an Operation's Settings

One very powerful feature is the ability to override an operation's settings. For example, after an order has been scheduled, the quantity at one or more stages (operations) may change, or, the rate of that particular operation may change (perhaps you've added more operators to expedite this operation or it will go slower than expected for some reason), or the secondary resources assigned to this operation may change.

Operation Override gives you the flexibility to handle the above situations. In addition, it can be used for made-to-order manufacturing where the routings are basically identical, but the rate of production changes depending upon the product. Operation Override allows made-to-order manufacturers to maintain fewer routings.

Here's how:

1. Right click on an operation.

2. Select "Operation Override"

3. There are two (2) tabs, one for Quantity and Rates, the other one is for Secondary Resources.

4. Make your changes to quantity, setup/run/cleanup rates, or secondary resource assignments.

5. Select OK.

Note: you can also import this data.

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Scheduling Orders

Once you have modeled your facility (Plant Model) and your manufacturing process (Routings) and have added Orders, you can begin scheduling.

Here's how:

1. Right click on an Order.

2. Select "Schedule Order"

3. You can also schedule all orders at once (right click in the gray area of the Order tab and select "Schedule All Unscheduled Orders".

The orders scheduled will now appear on the Scheduling Board, allowing you to view the schedule and refine it.

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Production Updates

Decision One provides an easy method for doing production updates. You can decide to update each phase of an operation (i.e., setup start, setup finished, run start, run finish, clean start, cleanup finish), enter the time and amount of a partial update, or, simply go to the last phase and select Finish.

Please note: it is recommended that each time you do a production update you reschedule all orders, otherwise if you add a new order it may appear to overlap an existing operation on the Gantt. This is the Reschedule Button:

If you do see overlapping operations and do not want to reschedule, you can right-mouse click on the overlapping operation and select "Overlapping Operations" to do production updates on those operations:

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Purge Completed Orders

This feature allows for convenient cleanup of old orders that have been completed so that you do not have to select each order one by one in order to delete them. It is useful because as the number of orders increases, the speed that Decision One works is decreased (i.e. there is more data to calculate). Purging Completed Orders should improve the time it takes to schedule.

Please note: we recommend that before you Purge Completed Orders you first export your data to excel, using unique filenames (e.g. may_year1.xls, june_year2.xls, etc.) so that you build an archive about what Orders were in production, when they completed, etc. You can read more about exporting your data in Chapter 8.

To Purge Completed Orders:

Right-click on the Orders Tab and select "Purge Completed Orders".
A dialogue box will appear requesting a cutoff date for the purge.
Select an appropriate date.
Click OK.

Read the Chapter 5 in the User Manual for more information on Orders.

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Reschedule

Rescheduling is one of the most powerful functions in Decision One. It is the best way to update the Scheduling Board to include the most current data:

1. To schedule around frozen operations
2. To display capacity realized after doing a production update
3. To resolve overlaps caused by doing multiple production updates

It is recommended that you reschedule often!

Decision One comes with a Reschedule Button:

Waiting to be rescheduled:

Reschedule Occurring:

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Publishing The Production Schedule

One of the key features in Decision One is the ability to share data via a web-browser.

Here's how:

1. Click on File | Publish Schedule.

2. Browse your harddrive or network for the location where you want to publish the data.

3. Select a date range.

4. Select what part of the production schedule you want to publish (i.e. Routings, Orders, Dispatch List).

5. Click OK.

Now all of your employees can view the production schedule data using a web-browser and opening the file called index.html (located in the directory you published to).

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Viewing Secondary Resources

T.B.D.

Here's how:

1. T.B.D.

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Viewing Text Details on the Scheduling Board

You can view text details on the Scheduling Board.

Click on Options | Configure Settings
Click on Scheduling Board tab
Select "show operation text details"

Read the Chapter 7 in the User Manual for more information on Viewing the Schedule.

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The Visualizer

When you click an operation, details about that operation are shown in the Visualizer pane.

Right click on an operation
Select View Operation Details

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Zooming in Time

You can zoom in horizontally (on the time axis) using the zoom horizontal buttons

or, by holding down CTRL and scrolling the mouse wheel.

That is:

This...

Becomes this:

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Zooming Vertically

You can zoom vertically using the zoom horizontal buttons

or by holding down ALT and scrolling the mouse wheel

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Configure Your Settings

You can configure Decision One for various settings including: Start of Day Hour, Start of Day Minute, Start of Week Day, Primary Resource Units, Freeze Operation (time horizon), along with whether or not to display text information on the Scheduling Board, Time Marker and Operation Phases.

1. Click on Options | Configure Settings to bring up the dialogue screen.
2. Configure your settings.
3. Click on OK.

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Units of Measurement

Instead of your order quantities being called "pieces", it may make more sense to use exact unit descriptions (e.g. boxes, packages, gallons, board feet, buns, etc.).

Here's How:

1. Click on Options | Units of Measurement to bring up the dialogue screen.
2. Enter the Unit Name.
3. Click on Add.
4. Add as many units of measurement as you need.
5. Click on OK.

Now, when you create your Routings, you can select which unit of measurement each Routing uses. This unit of measurement will then be attached to all Orders using that Routing and displayed when you publish your production schedule to HTML.

Note: You can also import units of measurements when you import Routings.

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Add Customers

If you want your Orders to be associated with specific customers, you first need to add your customer list to the system.

Here's How:

1. Click on Options | Customers to bring up the dialogue screen.
2. Enter the Customer Name.
3. Click on Add.
4. Add as many customers as you need.
5. Click on OK.

Now, when you add Orders, you can select which customer requested each Order. Customers are then displayed when you publish your production schedule to HTML and you can view a Customer Summary.

Note: You can also import customers.

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Adding Secondary Resources

Before you can assign Secondary Resources to a Routing Step (or via Operation Override), you first need to add these Secondary Resources to the system.

Here's How:

1. Click on Options | Secondary Resources | Type of Secondary Resource (i.e., Operator, Tools/Equipment, or Other) to bring up the dialogue screen.
2. Enter a Name for this Secondary Resource.
3. Click on Add.
4. Add as many Secondary Resources as you need.
5. Click on OK.

Now, you can assign these Secondary Resources to any Step in a Routing. Secondary Resources are then displayed when you publish your production schedule to HTML.

Note: You can also import Secondary Resources.

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Configure Decision One To Use Your Language

You can configure Decision One to use your language (e.g. Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portugese, etc.) and/or wording that makes sense for your manufacturing process.

1. Create a backup copy of the file called "language_en.properties" that is located in /config/translator/ directory.
2. Edit the file called "language_en.properties", replacing the English words to the right of the equals sign with your translation.
3. Save your changes.

Please note: Be very careful if you decide to edit this file! If Decision One stops working, you may need to replace the file called "language_en.properties" with your backup copy.

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Import/Export Data

Exporting

The following steps will export your plant model to a spreadsheet which you can later view with Microsoft Excel.

To export a Decision One plant model:

1. From the File Menu, select Export.
2. Enter a filename and destination.
3. Click OK.

Note: this xls file can now be used as a template for importing data.

Importing

Importing data into Decision One requires the same spreadsheet structure used in exporting. The spreadsheet for importing contains the same 14 worksheets.

Note: you cannot import Primary Resources - these must created using Decision One. Once your Primary Resources have been created, simply export your data model to create a template to be used for importing data. This allows you to use the export file as an import template.

Also Note: Only the following eleven worksheets are used during import: Routings, Steps, Primary Resource Assignments, Secondary Resources, Secondary Resource Assignments, Customers, Orders, Order Pegs, Operation Override, Operation Override - Resources and Down Markers. If there is new data on the other 3 worksheets (Primary Resources, Operations, and Operation Phases), this data will be ignored.

Note: If any errors occur during the import process, import will indicate the problem with an error message. If possible Decision One will attempt to import the remaining data it encounters. All errors are logged in a file called decisionOne.log located in the /logs/ directory.

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