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F.C.S. Scheduling

What it is for

The AFCS Fluentis system allows simulating production, procurement, sales, and distribution processes of an organization.
Fluentis AFCS performs a highly realistic detailed simulation that aims to achieve the following objectives:

  • Accurately estimate delivery dates to internal and external customers (also in DDMRP contexts).
  • Optimize production processes to best balance production costs and service levels.
  • Identify critical issues that reduce the performance of the production system, and consequently simulate improvement actions (for example overtime, outsourcing activities, increasing production capacity, etc.).
  • Measure the quality of the production plan through numerical performance indicators (K.P.I).
  • Simulate different scenarios to compare through K.P.I to choose the best solution.
  • Create detailed short-term work plans to release into production.
  • Quickly update the production plan based on actual progress and unexpected events (for example unexpected lack of personnel, machinery breakdown, etc.).

To start an FCS simulation session, you must first execute the data import phase from the Fluentis database into RAM.
During this phase, many checks are performed on the validity of the data for simulation purposes, and at the end, you may receive error notifications that prevent starting the simulation session, or warning notifications that still allow proceeding with the simulation.
If the import phase concludes without errors, you can proceed with the simulation by pressing the Execute button, and at the end of this, you can save the result by pressing the Save button, and subsequently analyze the details through the form FCS Executions.
The scheduler's behavior depends on the values entered in the scheduling parameters found in the following sections of the form.

Simulation​

  • Simulation start date and time: this field sets the start date and time of the simulation. When the form is opened, this field is filled with the current date and time.
  • Scheduling step (minutes): this field sets the duration of each step of the simulation, in multiples of 6 minutes (tenths of an hour), from a minimum of 6 to a maximum of 30. The smaller the step, the longer the simulation will last, assuming the same simulation horizon.
    If the work activities are generally short, choose a small step; if they are generally long, such as in the construction sector, a longer step can be used.
  • Days lead time for order release: the phases of a production order are simulated from the order start date. If you want to advance the operations (scheduling as early as possible or optimizing work sequences on machines with long setup times), enter a positive value in this field. For example, entering 10 means that the operations of an order will be released in the department, and thus potentially workable, 10 days before the order start date.
    A negative value will have the opposite effect, meaning that operations cannot be released for production on the order start date, but only after the number of days indicated by this parameter.
    In summary, a positive value can improve work sequences on machines with long setup times and increase the workload in the factory in the short term, but inevitably, some operations will be advanced, increasing the working capital to invest in the production plan, and the costs of keeping goods in the department.
  • Scheduling horizon (days): this parameter indicates the duration in days of the simulation, starting from the set start date.

Suppliers​

  • Item availability after supplier delivery (days): this parameter indicates how many days after the delivery date indicated on purchase orders the goods are considered retrievable from the warehouse for the purposes of FCS simulation. It is a safety parameter that makes the production plan generated by the scheduler more realistic and likely.
    If this parameter is zero, the goods from purchase orders will be considered available from the day after the delivery date of the order. If, for example, a supplier's delivery occurs with a 3-day delay and this parameter is at least 3, the work plan created by the scheduler would still be valid and feasible, as we are sure that no operation requiring such goods could have been simulated before the actual arrival of the goods, whereas if this field were null, the operations that require the delayed goods scheduled within those 3 days would not be executable.
  • Item availability after return from subcontractor (days): functions as in the case of purchase, but for subcontractor.

Grouping​

  • Maximum waiting time for operation (hours): a process on a machine with grouped operations is placed on hold to be worked together with other phases with the same grouping code, in order to optimize machine productivity.
    If the waiting time of the phase (in active machine shift hours) exceeds this value, the operation is inserted into the first available work session, regardless of the optimization needs of machine usage.
    If no value is specified for this parameter, the waiting time of a work phase would be indefinable.
    For example, if the normal working shift of a machine is 8 hours a day, and if this parameter were 24, then the phase could remain waiting to be worked for no more than 3 days.
    This parameter serves to limit the delay that an operation can incur due to machine load optimization needs. The larger this value is, the better the optimization of machine usage will be, but the greater the average delays of the operations may be.

Setup​

  • It is considered a low setup time (minutes less than): if a machine is associated with a setup rule, when it becomes free during the simulation, if none of the released operations have a setup time lower than the value of this field, and if the work center has a load percentage lower than the scheduling parameter that determines when this is considered a bottleneck, the scheduler may decide not to use it immediately and leave it inactive, waiting for an operation with a short setup time to be released.
    If there exists a released operation that has a setup time not exceeding the value of this field, the operation is undoubtedly assigned to the machine.
  • Operation setup maximum days delay: an operation can be delayed from its scheduled start if, given the state of the machine, the setup time is not short.
    This logic could lead to an unacceptable delay of some operations; therefore, a maximum acceptable delay is established through this parameter, beyond which the operation is executed regardless of the setup time.
  • The center is considered a bottleneck if load % exceeds: this is the work center load percentage above which it is considered saturated. Consequently, the machines of this center that have a setup rule are always engaged when they become free, regardless of the setup times of the released and pending operations.
    This value only affects work centers with machines that have setup rules.
  • Daily delay cost: optimizing the work sequence of a machine with a setup rule may lead to advancing some operations and postponing others.
    This parameter, whose optimal value must be experimentally determined in each company, assigns a cost to each day of delay of an operation to arrive at the optimal sequence. Increasing this value penalizes more strongly work sequences with tasks significantly delayed, thus reducing the average delay of operations on machines with setup rules.
  • Stock annual cost (%): in machines with setup rules, the optimal work sequence is obtained by considering the cost arising from advancing operations in order to reduce setup time.
    This inevitably leads to generating a work in process cost, as advancing operations means making greater use of working capital (on which interest is paid) and needing more storage space, thus increasing the storage cost of goods. Increasing this value leads to reducing the average advance of operations on machines with setup rules.

For everything not detailed in this document regarding the common operation of forms, please refer to the following link Common functionalities, buttons, and fields.