The available hours for a work center represent the actual physical hours in a day that a work center operates. The available hours are calculated by dividing the available work center hours for a day by your entry in the Number of Workers or Machines field in the Work Center Maintenance window. The number of physical hours spent at a work center for an activity is determined by dividing the extended number of hours calculated for a step by the number of workers or machines. For the purpose of scheduling, it is assumed that all work centers begin the day at the same time.
Example 1
If 4 machines operate concurrently at a work center on an 8-hour shift, the available hours should be set to 32 and the number of workers or machines should be set to 4. Production rate information for activity codes defined for the work center should be expressed in terms of production per machine.
As an alternative, you may want to define the production rate for activity codes in terms of production per work center instead of production per machine. In this case, the number of workers or machines should be set to 1 and the available hours should be set to 8.
Whenever an activity is scheduled, the available hours used for scheduling must be reduced by the number of hours already scheduled for the same day. If there are no available hours left, the activity is scheduled on the following day.
Example 2
Work center A has a machine operating two shifts a day. The total number of hours available for this work center is 16. The number of workers or machines is set to 1 and the available hours is set to 16. Work center B has a machine operating a nine-hour shift. The first step of a work ticket requires 10 hours of operation at work center A. The second step of the work ticket requires two hours of operation at work center B.
To determine the number of hours available to schedule for the second step, subtract the 10 hours spent at work center A from the 9 hours available at work center B. Because the result is a negative number, the second step is scheduled on the following day.
Example 3
If work center A has two machines operating an eight-hour shift, the capacity for the work center is still 16 hours, but the number of hours available is only 8. The number of workers or machines is set to 2, and the available hours is set to 16.
Using the same work ticket as the previous example, the number of hours spent at work center A is calculated as 10 hours divided by 2, or 5 hours. The number of remaining hours for the second step is 9 minus 5, or 4 hours. Because there is time remaining, the second step can be scheduled on the same day as the first step.
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