Manufacturing · Setup & configuration · 8 min read

Work centres, calendars and maintenance blocks

Set up the machines, resources and working time that capacity and scheduling depend on.

Before you begin

You need manufacturing.configure. Maintenance blocks need manufacturing.plan. Decide your working week and shifts first, because every work centre uses a calendar.

Steps

Create a calendar

1. Go to Manufacturing > Configuration > Calendars and click New.
2. Enter a Code and Calendar name (for example 2SHIFT, "Two shifts").
3. Tick the Working days. A new calendar defaults to Monday to Friday.
4. In the Shifts table add each shift with Start, End and Break minutes. Times are HH:MM in company (Dubai) time, for example 08:00. An end at or before the start means a night shift. Break minutes are taken off the length.
5. Save.

The seeded calendar "STD Standard week" is Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 17:00, 60 minute break, which is 8 hours a day.

Create a work centre

1. Go to Manufacturing > Configuration > Work Centers and click New.
2. Enter Code (upper-cased, spaces become underscores, unique) and Name.
3. Choose the Calendar. Empty uses the settings default.
4. Enter Capacity (stations). Daily available hours are calendar hours x capacity x efficiency.
5. Enter Efficiency %. Empty becomes 100. Planned minutes are divided by it.
6. Enter the hourly rates in AED: Machine rate / h, Labour rate / h, Setup rate / h, Overhead rate / h. An empty labour rate uses the Production Settings rate.
7. Enter Operators; labour cost is multiplied by it.
8. Optionally set Queue time (min), which is added to each work order's schedule.
9. Set Status: Active, Down or Archived. Archived centres leave pickers, the Shop Floor and capacity.
10. Save.

Rates are copied onto each work order when it is created, so changing a rate later does not change work orders already made.

Create resources

Manufacturing > Configuration > Resources holds machines, employees, teams, tools, rooms and equipment. Give each a Code, Name and Type; optionally the work centre, an employee and a rate per hour. Skills are entered as a list with an expiry date. A work order cannot be released on a resource that is not Active.

Add holidays, overtime and maintenance

1. Go to Manufacturing > Configuration > Maintenance Blocks and click New.
2. Choose the Kind: Holiday, Overtime, Maintenance block or Breakdown.
3. Choose the Calendar or the Work center. One of them is required, except for a Holiday, which then applies company-wide.
4. Enter From and To. The end must be after the start: 'The block ends before it starts.'
5. Add a Note and save.

After saving, a banner lists work orders the block lands on and suggests rescheduling.

What happens next

• Capacity Planning shows load against available hours per work centre per day. Overtime adds working time; the other kinds remove it.
• Example: CUT has capacity 1, efficiency 100 % and the standard calendar. A 10-hour job starting Monday 08:00 shows Monday 8.0 / 8 (100 %) and Tuesday 2.0 / 8. A maintenance block on Monday 08:00 to 12:00 lowers Monday's available time to 4 hours.
• Block status moves Planned, Active, Done each day by itself. Cancelled blocks are ignored.

Good to know

• Removing a work centre that is in use switches it off (Archived) instead: 'It is used by existing records, so it was switched off instead.' Unused ones are deleted.
• Lists such as reasons and cost categories are never deleted, only switched off.
• Duplicate codes are refused: 'Another record already uses this code.'