Updated every 30 seconds, a modular 'real time' Graphical Work Planning Board is able to provide a live visual display of what is happening to production schedules on the shopfloor.
Updated every 30 seconds, the modular Seiki Systems 'real time' Graphical Work Planning Board (GPB) is able to provide a live visual display of what is happening to production schedules on the shopfloor. Indeed, with a full integration and two-way communication capability, the new system now available from Seiki Systems of Brighton, is able to transform the data from existing MRP/ERP scheduling systems into a dynamic 'real time' planning facility. This transformation enables automatic updating as time and work in progress changes, thus providing information for advanced decision making in order to maintain production schedules.

GPB overcomes one of the major criticisms of MRP/ERP systems which, from a manufacturing perspective, tend to be regarded purely as generators of 'work to' lists based on due date.

This means they are usually retrospective and are normally only updated, through the completion of a work docket from the operator or supervisor.

Instead of providing a live picture, these systems tend to provide historic information with little or no help to maintain the production requirements, often resulting in a waste of valuable production time or resource in the event of problems.

Ideal for any CNC machine tool based batch production, GPB provides a graphical display of the planned work for each machine in real time.

It shows jobs on time and immediately highlights late predictions with automatic updates as jobs progress, accounting for shift patterns to depict projected lead and finish times.

The full implication of new or unplanned jobs or maintenance, for instance, can be visualised on the graphical work plan as well as the effect of moving jobs to other machines or instigating split-batch working.

The jobs allocated for each machine are distributed electronically to the operators which eliminates paper-based job queue tickets.

Because the electronic work queues are interactive, this enables other departments to add information relative to the commencement of production such as programs, material and tooling availability.

As a result, a major advantage is created to management that whenever a change is instigated, all departments involved are immediately informed.

At any time, any job allocated to any machine can be interrogated to check if critical manufacturing data such as the CNC program or drawing is current with an automatic warning issued to the responsible department in the event of a problem.

In addition, through the communication interface of GPB, when an operator selects a job from the queue, any manufacturing data can be automatically displayed.

And, with the inclusion of Seiki Systems 'optimiser' package, which has access to tooling information, it will recommend the best order to produce jobs on a machine.

This priority order is based on use of fixed tooling present in the machine and thus minimises tool exchange between jobs, further increasing productivity, machine utilisation and maximising profitability.