Maximize your manufacturing operations and analytics in the cloud with a complete understanding of your Shop Floor components
Pursuing excellence and optimization is always a driving factor in a manufacturing environment. How can we make more in less time? How can we maximize output while minimizing input? Overall, how can we produce more with less? Knowing how to organize and configure your Oracle Manufacturing Cloud instance is one critical step in the process of answering these questions.
To do this, set up your Oracle Manufacturing Cloud solution to be competitive; you must understand and utilize the following cloud manufacturing concepts:
- Work Center
- Work Area
- Resources
Work Centers
Work centers are designated shop floor stations. Time and materials are consumed, transactions are recorded and tracked, manufacturing operations are assigned to work centers. The work center is the point where, at the base unit, costing and profit analysis occurs. Costing and profit analysis are aggregated from the work center to work areas and assemblies. Examples of work centers include packing stations, specific equipment spots, and specific kilns (if you are performing any baking).
Work Area
A work area is a grouping of shop floor stations. These stations are places where manufacturing events will occur. In Oracle EBS (eBusiness Suite), work areas were referred to as “departments.” Examples of work areas are kitting, quality testing, packing, and assembly. Why are work areas so important? Because they are used to logically group and report on the utilization of production, work centers, and resources.
Resources
In manufacturing, resources are grouped into two categories: people and equipment. Certain assemblies can only be made using specific equipment. You may have one or two of these machines available at a time. Therefore, you can not organize five similar tasks to coincide. Likewise, if you only have two people working the night shift, you cannot schedule a workload that will require four people. The tracking of resource usage is essential in the Oracle Cloud. Oracle Cloud Manufacturing leverages the planned resource usage to determine the work order operation run time. Without these components in place, all released work orders will be expected to be completed within moments of being released.
People
Labor is a crucial resource and constraint when it comes to planning. In a shop floor design, people management is a key to properly setting up work centers. If two distinct groups of people work on an operation, organizations may want to consider splitting that operation and work center in two. This is so that companies can easily track the usage, costing, and utilization constraints.
People can be broken down into multiple categories (based on additional training or certifications). This is needed if certain work centers require a specific skill to be used at that station. If the constraint is a tool-based component, adding an equipment resource to that workstation is recommended.
An example of this would be a forklift driver. The driver can perform labor duties with or without the forklift; however, specific tasks will require the forklift. The separation should be based on the requirement that a forklift is in use and not a labor group of people that are specifically trained on how to use a forklift. Workforces can be segregated into two groups (i.e., general labor vs. forklift driver), but this is only suggested if employees do not change roles regularly.
Equipment
Manufacturing equipment and tools are just as necessary as people. If you only have one automated assembly machine, you cannot plan to run three batches that require that machine simultaneously. In some cases, a work center designation and an equipment resource can physically be the same thing. An example would be an injection molding machine that can be designated as a work center and a resource.
Why is all this important?
All these set-ups drive your ability to gather data and analytics. The easier and simpler it is to understand how data is being captured, the quicker adjustments can be made. Resource constraints drive planned production outputs. Understanding the work area and work center utilization will help you plan facility improvements and expansions. Once these manufacturing components are properly configured, you can move on to the next phase, maximizing your production output. Stay tuned for Part Two of this series coming soon.
Inspirage can help
As the Integrated Supply Chain Specialists, with recognition from Gartner, IDC, and winners of Oracle’s ERPM (Enterprise Resource Planning & Management) & Supply Chain Management Cloud Partner of the Year (Global) awards in recent years, Inspirage is uniquely qualified to be your success partner. Whether you are upgrading your on-prem system or have decided to move to the cloud where continuous improvement is built-in, our team is prepared to guide you on your transformational journey. Contact us to learn more.
