Digital Production Planning

Matrix Controls is delighted to announce the latest innovation available in V5 Control Center Professional Edition V5.7.4.1 and above.  ‘Planning’ allows companies to schedule batch production from sales orders containing finished goods or SKU’s.  After entering or importing sales orders, the Planning module allows the batch production schedule to be constructed automatically, based on max/min batch size parameters.  The process would normally be done by Planning personnel – but this automation process helps to reduce the repetitive nature of the task.  

Sales Orders

From the Sales Orders tab, view imported or created sales orders with the finished products listed in the lower panel.  In the example below, the 3 pack sizes of Wholewheat Muffins (6,12 & 24 pack) are all made from the same base formulation Wholewheat Muffin (Batch).  For simplicity, each of the 4 sales orders in the sample contain only Wholewheat Muffins of varying pack size.  In normal operation, a range or orders and SKU’s can be selected.

Planning (Shortfall Analysis & Production Suggestion)

In the Planning tab, select the sales orders (upper left panel) which you would like schedule.  You can select as many orders as you like by highlighting them. Use the arrow to consolidate the finished goods requirement.  The upper right panel displays the ‘shortfall analysis’.  The shortfall analysis displays the total amount of each SKU ‘REQUIRED’. Then it displays the ‘IN STOCK’ value (you must be using the V5 WMS to manage your stock for this to function). The ‘TOTAL’ column shows the SKU shortfall.  In this case, we are 1000 items short of each SKU.

In the lower panels, the system is displaying the ‘FORMULA NAME’ for the manufacturing batch required to produce all three SKU’s.  The system is calculating 15 x Batches at 200% Mix Size to fulfil the 3000 item shortfall.  In the ‘STATUS’ column, you must hit the green + to send the job to the main Scheduling tab. The operator has the option to omit any jobs from the schedule if required. A Production Schedule Report can be generated if required.

Production

From the Production tab, you will now see all four jobs added to the schedule. Three of the jobs relate to the finished product SKU’s and one job creates the manufacturing batches.  You can set the max batch sizes in the Formulas tab under ‘MIN PRODUCTS’ & ‘MAX PRODUCTS’. 

You now have your finished product and manufacturing batches ready to go.  A RM Requirements Report will allow the planning team to view available raw material inventory and their levels. Shortfalls are displayed in yellow.

Chief Technical Officer, Simon Hartley states “The V5 Traceability Planning module provides the ability to automatically produce daily production schedules without the need for time consuming production requirement gathering. Consolidation of sales orders allows our dynamic algorithm to identify product and submix requirements, streamlining production to ensure optimal resource allocation, cost savings and waste reduction across the factory”

Production Floor Plan Execution

After an operator has logged into the V5 Formula System Terminal, they can view the schedule. 

Jobs can be routed to different terminals in separate locations if required.

*The following screens are representative of the Operator Terminal and designed for touch screen operation.

After selecting the Wholewheat Muffins (Batch), the operator can view the recipe steps required, with the target weights adjusted to meet the requirements of the batch size. 

The jobs can be scales vertically of horizontally across a number of system locations.