Tag Archives: Epicor

Production scheduling has an impact on the entire business—from commit-to-order to resource planning, and even job costing. Plus, your reputation, growth, and ability to conduct business profitably depend on delivering the right quantity of the right product at the right time—and effective production scheduling is essential to success. Epicor Advanced MES includes real-time production scheduling visualization tools that automatically keep pace with what’s happening on the shop floor every minute of every day, so jobs start at the right time, orders finish when they’re supposed to, and your company delivers on commitments.

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Real-Time Means “Right Now”

The Advanced MES production schedule uses job information to tell the shop what to make, how much, and when. Job information comes from your ERP system, MRP, or is even entered manually. From there, the production schedule comes to life, using current production conditions and equipment constraints to create a clear, accurate production schedule.

Advanced MES constantly keeps the job schedule up-to-date in real-time—every minute of every day. Because the system knows what’s running right now, how many parts or pieces are left in the job, and how fast each machine is running, you don’t have to wait until a job is finished or until someone enters data to find out exactly when a job will finish or when a machine will be available. The information you need is there when you pull it up and refresh it continuously.

Visual and Easy to Understand

Production scheduling with Epicor Advanced MES is visual and intuitive. You can see every machine and every job, and even non-production tasks like scheduled maintenance. Color coding means that with just a glance, anyone can see what’s running on time and detect schedule problems and delays. It’s also clear where there’s available capacity to take on more work or make adjustments for greater efficiency or better margins.

Drag and Drop What-if Planning, Worry-Free Precision

Unlike a static whiteboard or spreadsheet, the Advanced MES job schedule is dynamic and interactive, so planning is quick and easy. With role-based permissions, schedulers and engineers can conduct what-if scenario planning, while material handlers and tool room techs can see what work is headed in their direction. Plus, the job schedule in Advanced MES helps ensure accuracy. The system prevents people from scheduling jobs on the wrong machine and it knows when the right tools won’t be available. The system automatically tries to resolve resource conflicts and provides visual cues where problems remain.

Dynamic Scheduling

Dynamic scheduling is one of the most powerful features of the Advanced MES scheduler. When a job is created, the forecasted end date of the job will be based on the standards in the process sheet which include factors such as:

• Standard Cycle
• Setup
• Scrap
• Downtime
• Parts per Cycle

Once a job is started on a machine, the standards are set aside for efficiency calculations and the forecasted end date will then be based on the live performance of the job on the machine.

MES Real-Time Production Scheduling Features

• Intuitive graphical scheduling
• Real-time notification of job status
• Drag and drop job allocation
• Create and schedule individual or family parts
• Define equipment process parameters
• Report on capacity, labor, material needs, equipment performance, and more
• Integration with ERP
• Handle priorities, capacity, and constraints
• Helps to eliminate job, machine, and tool conflicts
• Facilitates on-the-fly schedule changes
• Simplifies sophisticated scenarios
• Schedule by start time or finish time
• Easy to understand color coding
• Drill down into past performance

Advanced MES Benefits

• Pinpoint available capacity
• Identify tool constraints
• Help increase throughput for revenue growth
• Impact labor and inventory leveling
• Provide accurate delivery quotes
• Improve on-time delivery performance
• Make real-time decisions

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, or renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.

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