Rockwell Automation FactoryTalk Scheduler Users Guide - Manual (Page 125)

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D
Time Pattern Editors
In this appendix, we’ll introduce the three available time pattern editors and show you
how to use them in the context of FactoryTalk Scheduler.
Time pattern types
Time patterns are an important part of the FactoryTalk Scheduler application as they
determine the availability—and in some cases, the efficiency—of your constraining
resources. Each resource in your application will have two time patterns: capacity and
efficiency.
The capacity time pattern defines the capacity, or the quantity available, over time. For
Singular, Simultaneous, or Infinite resources, the capacity time pattern can only have
values of zero (for unavailable times) or one (for available times). If a capacity value
greater than one is entered for these resources, FactoryTalk Scheduler will default the
value to one. The capacity value for an Adjustable Pooled resource can take on any value,
including values with fractions (e.g., 3.5). If you do not develop you own time patterns,
FactoryTalk Scheduler will automatically assign a default capacity time pattern. Typically,
this is a pattern with a capacity of one available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The efficiency time pattern defines the efficiency or rate at which the resource processes
operations. The default efficiency time pattern is typically a value of 1.0 (100%) over the
entire time span, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you want a resource to process at
different rates (e.g., a slower rate during the second shift), you would need to create and
attach an efficiency time pattern with the different rates. For example, if you wanted a
machine to process 10% slower, you would enter an efficiency rate of 0.9 (90%). The 10%
slower rate is expressed as 90% as the efficiency factor is divided into the processing time
to obtain the actual processing time.
When FactoryTalk Scheduler loads your application, it will first assign the efficiency time
pattern to a resource. It will then overlay the capacity time pattern on the efficiency time
pattern. To illustrate the results, let’s assume that you have an efficiency time pattern that
has a value of 1.0 for the first 12 hours, and a value of 0.9 for the remaining 12 hours in
each day. This implies that your resource processes at 100% for the first 12 hours and at a
10% slower rate for the remaining 12 hours. Let’s also assume your capacity schedule has
unavailable (0 capacity) for the first 7 hours, available (capacity of 1) for the next 8 hours
and unavailable for the last 9 hours. The composite time pattern would have the resource
unavailable for the first 7 hours (capacity of 0). Even though the efficiency is 1.0, the
machine is unavailable during that time. During the next 5 hours, the machine would be
available and processing at a 100% rate (capacity of 1 and efficiency of 1.0). For the next