Introduction
In any business, knowing your production capabilities is crucial. This is where the Capacity Planning feature of Empress comes into play. It ensures you have a clear understanding of your available resources and the ability to accept new work orders.
Accessing Capacity Planning
You can find this feature by following the path:
Home > Manufacturing > Settings > Manufacturing Settings
Prerequisites
Before you can make full use of the Capacity Planning feature, please ensure you have created the following:
- Bill Of Materials
- Operation
- Workstation
- Work Order
How Capacity Planning Works
Empress allows you to define the number of days in the “Capacity Planning For” field under manufacturing settings. This helps plan for upcoming work orders. For example, if you’ve set the Capacity Planning For 30 days, and each finished good takes 5 days to produce, you can accept 6 work orders (30/5 = 6) on the current date. You can accept the next Work Order when your Workstation becomes available.
Creating a Work Order with Operations
To keep track of Job Card timings against the Work Order, you should create Work Orders with Operations.
Upon submitting the Work Order, Empress will generate a Job Card with the available Workstation’s time details. If ‘Allow Overtime’ is disabled in Manufacturing Settings, the system schedules the job based on the timings defined in the Workstation. If “Allow Production on Holidays” is disabled, the system schedules jobs only on working days.
Setting the Workstation’s Production Capacity
You can set the ‘Production Capacity’ in the Workstation. This is the number of Operations the system will allow you to work on in this Workstation. For instance, if a particular Workstation can handle 10 operations simultaneously, enter the ‘Production Capacity’ as 10.
Job Card With Timing
Empress auto-creates the Job Card with timing against each operation based on the time required to complete that operation and the Workstation’s availability. You need to set the planned start date, and based on the operation time, the system calculates the planned end date.
Calculating Work Order Planned Start Date and End Date
You can use the planned start date and end date to calculate the capacity of your workstations. Additionally, you can track the status of the work order using the Calendar.
To view the calendar, navigate to:
Work Order List > Calendar > Default
Capacity Planning Error
If the Production Capacity days are less than the time required to complete the operation, the system throws a capacity planning error. In this case, you need to increase the number under “Production Capacity” days in the Manufacturing Settings or reduce the number of finished goods according to the capacity of the Workstations.
Summary
The Capacity Planning feature in Empress is a powerful tool for managing and optimizing your business’s production capabilities. By properly utilizing this feature, you can ensure your resources are used effectively and you’re able to meet the demands of new work orders. For more detailed guidance or support, please refer to the Empress user manual or contact our customer support team.