Rockwell Automation FactoryTalk Scheduler Users Guide - Manual (Page 41)

4 • S CHEDULING F EATURES
35
•
•
•
• •
product bill of materials and indicates the amount of each material item required and
where in the routing it is required. FactoryTalk Scheduler combines the bill of materials
detail with the routing information.
You might think of a material as a bucket or bin containing inventory items of the same
type. In FactoryTalk Scheduler, you can replenish or add to a material at the completion of
any operation in a product routing, although in a make-to-stock environment, you would
typically add to the material after the completion of the last operation of the product
routing. You can also add to material based on the receipt of a purchase request for that
item. It is not necessary to define an item as only a make-to-stock or purchased item;
either method can replenish any material item. Material can also be consumed or removed
at any operation in a product routing. When a material(s) is required by an operation, that
operation will normally not be scheduled until all of the required material is available.
You can elect that material be consumed and/or produced in batches. For example, your
production order batch size for a given material may be 1,000, but the actual material is
transferred in batches of 100. By activating the batch transfer option for selective material
actions, you can allow material to be available for consumption by other operations before
the operation producing the item has been completed.
The replenishment or consumption of material is referred to as a material action. You can
have as many material actions of either type as are required at any operation. For each
material action, you must determine whether the replenishment or consumption is based
on a quantity, which defaults to one, or the operation batch size. This determination is
made at the operation level; thus, you can base the action on a quantity at one operation
and the operation batch size at another operation. Note that if an operation batch
quantity has not been specified, this quantity defaults to the order quantity.
In a typical ERP or MRP environment, all lower-level items have product routings that
result in items being added to a material, based on the operation batch quantity. Higher-
level items that require these materials are not scheduled until the materials become
available. Thus, the MRP system takes care of the product explosion, netting of lower-
level items, and the lead-time offset in scheduling the replenishment of materials.
FactoryTalk Scheduler then makes sure that the required lower-level materials or items
are available in developing a schedule.
When FactoryTalk Scheduler attempts to schedule an operation that requires a material, it
will only schedule that operation at or after the time that the material level is sufficient to
meet the requirements. If the scheduling horizon does not meet that condition,
FactoryTalk Scheduler will first look to see if there are any unallocated orders that would
produce the required material. If it finds such an order(s), it will first schedule that
order(s), then schedule the operation requiring the material. If the order that produces the
material requires another unavailable material, FactoryTalk Scheduler will look for an
order to schedule as before. This process will be repeated as many times as required in an