Machine Module

ALERE Manufacturing Machine Module

The Machine Module defines the capacity of the manufacturing facility and helps with the machine maintenance. The key features are as follows:

Work centers are used to establish the capacity of the manufacturing plant for planning and scheduling purposes.

Each work center contains the following:

A description.
A serial number if applicable.
The option to set it as either finite or infinite capacity.
The days and times it is available for production.
Its estimated efficiency as a percentage.
The date it became available for production.
An optional overhead rate to be used for costing.
A list of up to ten (10) alternate work centers, in order of preference, that can be used in place of this one.

An unlimited number of work centers can be created and maintained.

Downtime records can be created when a work center unexpectedly becomes unavailable for production.

Downtime records record:

The work center that went off-line.
The date and time.
The reason.
The estimated date and time it will return to production.
The actual date and time it returned to production.

The time that elapsed and the hours lost are automatically calculated for a downtime record.

The finite scheduler takes into consideration work centers that are unavailable and will plan work for when they are expected back on-line or for alternate work centers in order to keep production on track.

A report permits the analysis of the downtime and lists the reasons for the work centers not being available and the associated dates and times.

Preventative maintenance instructions can be set up for individual work centers.

A work center can have assigned multiple different preventative maintenance records.

Preventative maintenance records include:

The number of days between service intervals.
The route to use for service.
The last work order to perform the service.
The last service date.

A bill of material can be created to support the preventative maintenance work.

In the Route module, the bill of material is associated with the route that is specified in the preventative maintenance record.

Maintenance type work orders, which include the route and material list, are used to service work centers.

The work orders may be created manually or automatically by the Machine module.

The materials requirements planning (MRP) process includes the maintenance type work orders so that components required for the service work are available for the scheduled maintenance.

The Schedule module includes the maintenance type work orders in its planning so that specific times in the production plan are reserved for scheduled maintenance.

The maintenance type work orders collect labor, material and overhead costs so that the real cost of the service work is known and accounted for.

A Group Definition function allows a group of work centers to be created that need to share some limited common resource, such as labor or molds.

The Group Definition function provides a second constraint and is used by the scheduler to report when the capacity of the group is exceeded.

A schedule of the dates and times the factory is closed can be created.

These closed dates and times are observed by the scheduler.

A Change Work Centers function provides a shortcut to making mass changes for a range of work centers. It can quickly change:

The on-line date.
The efficiency.
The dates and hours of operation.

Reports are provided for:

Listing work centers.
Tracking work centers that are down.
Dates the facility is closed.
Listing the maintenance activities.

Work Center

Grouping Work Centers

Closed Dates

Down Time

Preventative Maintenance

Mass Change for Work Orders