OrderLink Create Jobs
The Create Jobs procedure of OrderLink runs once (or more) a day and creates a schedule of what should happen for the upcoming day. It combines the demand from the bookings, loads the flexibility plan, calculates a daily schedule that keeps the machines busy, produces parts according to their due dates, and prevents traffic jams and inefficiency. The resulting FMS Insight jobs are then sent to FMS Insight to become the schedule for the cell.
There are two potential configurations:
- A built-in allocation algorithm combined with CSV Orders.
- A custom plugin.
Which plugin or allocation algorithm to use is configured inside the flexibility plan in SeedTactic: Planning.
Starting the Create Jobs Procedure
The Create Jobs procedure is initiated by clicking the "Create Jobs" button. This will produce a schedule of jobs but not send them to FMS Insight yet. Instead, the jobs are displayed in some charts and tables (see below), allowing you to preview the jobs. Once satisfied, you can send the jobs to FMS Insight by clicking a button. Once the jobs are sent, you can exit OrderLink.
Parts Produced
The parts produced graph shows the simulated quantity of parts produced over time. You can filter to a specific part and mouse over a line for more details. A part is considered completed only once it finishes unloading. The final quantities seen on the graph are used for the quantity in the daily schedule.
Station Use
The station use graph shows the simulated time blocks where the machine is busy or the load station is occupied. Each block represents a single part program on the machine or a single load/unload operation. You can mouse over a block for more details on it.
This graph helps determine if the flexibility plan has enough flexibility so that all machines are kept busy. If some machine has large gaps, you should consider expanding the plan to allow another part to visit the lightly-loaded machine. This can be investigated in SeedTactic: Planning.
Job Details
Each FMS Insight job is displayed with all details. These jobs are exactly what will be sent to FMS Insight, and should be reviewed to make sure the programs, queues, machines, etc. are correct.
Bookings
The bookings card shows the bookings either as a graph or a table, toggled in the upper-right. As a graph, it shows the combined backlog of bookings. The bookings are grouped by due date which makes up the x-axis. For each booking, the machining time from the flexibility plan is used to determine the total machining for all the bookings due on that day. Then, the bookings are split into scheduled and unscheduled and plotted in two different colors.
The reason the bookings are not strictly scheduled in due-date order is lack of flexibility. In the example above, no bookings from Feb 23 were scheduled because the machines or pallets were busy with other work, but the bookings from Feb 24 used different machines or pallets and thus could run instead. This may or may not be a problem. The schedule is running every day so the bookings due on Feb 23 will likely be scheduled tomorrow. This can be investigated more in SeedTactic: Planning which simulates 7 consecutive daily schedules.
Workorders
If workorders are used, there will be a table showing the workorders.