Manufacturing Planner

This model object reassigns workers on a production line if: 1. Employees are absent and the line needs rebalancing; 2. The production mix changes; 3. Production goals change.

The manufacturing planner defines skill levels, error rates, and resource assignments. A brilliant method of resources assignment accomplishes what seems to be impossible. The reassignment routine automatically rewrites the logic to reassign single, multi-shift, alternate or many resources to any station. For example, if a station has workers on three shifts, allows alternate workers and each person has different skills, then system automatically creates complex logic to assign workers. If a different worker, with greater skill is substituted then the logic rewrites, and will shorten production time because of using the higher skilled employee.

This new model object is important because complex resource reassignment is difficult. Now its visual, easy and fast. So easy that a novice can reassign workers on a production line. This is the most powerful model object ever built for you.

Where to Find the Model Object

The following model object can be found in the model objects directory:

• Resources \ Manufacturing Planner

Difficulty Level

• Ease of Use: Moderate
• Ease of Modification: Moderate

How to Use the Model Object

1. Open Your Model: Open your model or create a new blank model.
2. Prep Your Model
   1. Add a storage before the activities, where a resource needs to  be captured.
   2. Rename the storage to *Act-Name*_InQ, where *Act-Name* is the actual name of your activity. Additionally, you can change the capacity of the storage to what you want the input queue size to be.
   3. Change the input queue size on the activity to 0.
   4. Repeat for every activity where you would like to have resource(s) work.
   5. Add all the resources you will need.
3. Insert the Model Object into Your Model
   1. Locate the model object Manufacturing Planner and click the Insert button.
   2. Move the cursor to the point of insertion and left mouse-click. The upper left corner of the model object will be inserted at the location of the mouse-click.

      If you do not see the model object in your model objects gallery, make sure that you have updated your model objects gallery by clicking Model Objects \ Update.

4. Open the Excel File: Right click on the Manufacturing Planner Excel icon and click on the third option from the bottom to open the Manufacturing Planner vx-x Excel file, where x-x represents the version number of the Excel file.Before using this Excel file for the first time, or after changing your model name, make sure that a manual export of data is done via ProcessModel. From your model, click Tools \ Export Data, click ‘Yes’ to all prompts until the data export file opens, close the data file and then use this Excel file.

   Click Enable Content if prompted

5. Setup Workbook: Click the 1. Setup Workbook button. Once clicked, the Excel file will sync with ProcessModel and get the information regarding resources and relevant activities.

   All resources from the model should now be listed on the Shifts, Time Definition, Error Rate, Skills Portfolio and Resource Assignment worksheets.

6. Shifts: If your resources need to be scheduled for 24/7 skip to the next step Time Definition.
   1. On the Shifts worksheet, fill in the information required for all the resources.
   2. Qty: Quantity of the resource.
   3. Group: Group resource belongs to,  if you do not wish to do resource groupings, enter 1 for all.
   4. Start: Shift start time. Format: 12:00 AM
   5. End: Shift end time. Format: 8:00 AM
   6. Lunch St: Lunch start time. Format: 5:00 AM
   7. Lunch St: Lunch end time. Format: 5:30 AM
   8. Rate: Hourly pay.
   9. Sunday … Saturday: Enter days the resource needs to work. Format: ON = Resource available – OFF: Resource unavailable.
   10. Click the 2. Update Shifts button to send the shift information to ProcessModel.If you have different shift timings within a single resource group (#1.2 above), you can review the shifts in a graph by entering the resource group number in cell J2, and then clicking the Show Schedule Graphically for Resource Group:.
7. Time Definition (Time  Multiplier)
   1. Enter the skill levels of the resources, below cell A6. Add upto 6 skill levels.

      Skill level  is level  of experience a resource has on a particular task. You may leave the skill level empty for a resources that does not have a particular skill.

   2. Enter the time multiplier for each of the activity, based on the skill level to alter the standard production times.

      Using 1 makes no change, greater than 1 increases the time and less than 1 decreases the time.

8. Error Rate: Enter the Error Rate, in percent, for each resource for a particular skill and task. If a resource does not have an error rate enter 0.

   The error rate is the % of time the resource is likely to make a mistake.

   Do not change the skill values on this worksheet. If you need to add or remove skill values do it on the Time Definition worksheet, the changes will be automatically made to Error Rate worksheet.

9. Skills Portfolio
   1. Enter the Skill level each resource has on a particular task / activity. These are are the same skill levels that were defined under Time Definition worksheet. Make sure that you do not use a skill level that is not already defined.

      If a resource does not have any skill on a particular task / activity, leave the cell empty.

   2. Enter an X for any resource absentees under the ‘Absent’ column.
10. Resource Assignment: Notice that cells are color coded based on skill levels, any resource absentee row is highlighted with dark grey.
    1. For each resource, enter the assignment in the interaction between the resource and the activity.  There are 3 ways to assign resources:
    2. If you want to assign resources to a task / activity without a priority, use 1 in the cell.
    3. If a resource works at two activities, prioritize what they do first by assigning a number higher than one to the items to be completed first. A low priority will be 1, while a higher priority will be 2, and so on.
    4. If you want to use two or more resources together you may use an “&” after  the priority.  You can do multiple groups and priorities for the same task / activity.In the example pictured above, the inspection task will either need Person_11 and Person_14 or Person_13 and Person_15 to work together. This will only allow the process to start if 11 and 14 are goth available at the same time or if 13 and 15 are both available at the same time.
    5. Select activity times in minutes or hours. This will change the time an entity spends at an activity to either minutes, or hours.Do not change the grouping of resources on this worksheet, to change groups go back to the Shifts worksheet. The purpose of grouping is to show you which resource belongs to a particular group or shift.
11. Import Data: Once all the information has been entered, click the Import information to ProcessModel button. This will import all the required action logic, attributes and variables to ProcessModel. The following attributes will be added to ProcessModel:
    1. a_Time_*Act-Name*: User input required. Used to store individual activity times for each process step. The values for these attributes must be declared by the user. The way people enter this data is by using the Scheduled Arrivals or Scheduled Arrivals with Table Input model object.
    2. a_ErrorRate_*Act-Name*: Do not change. Used to store error rate for an entity on a particular activity.
    3. a_TimeIN: Do not change. Used to calculate time spent in input queue waiting for a resource.The following variables will be added to ProcessModel:
       1. v_EntCheck1: Do not change. Is used to randomize which resource is selected to work on a particular task / activity.
       2. v_*Act-Name*_TimeInQ: Do not change. Is used to store the time entities have spent waiting for a resource to be available.Where *Act-Name* is the name of the activity.

          The time values for the attribute a_Time_*Act-Name* must be provided by the user before simulating the model. These values should be imported into the moel using a scheduled arrivals, or can be added manually at the first activity of the model. The values for these attributes must be declared by the user. The way people enter this data is by using the Scheduled Arrivals or Scheduled Arrivals with Table Input model object.

12. Completion: Simulate the model to review the changes.

Learn with an Example

1. Open & Save the Model Object
   1. Locate the model object Manufacturing Planner and click the Open button.
   2. Once the model object opens, click File \ Save As to save the model to a different location on your computer, preferably an empty folder.
2. Review the Model: Once the model is saved to a different location. Let’s start with reviewing the model.
   1. Right click on the Model Name tab and then click Edit All Layers. This will allow us to select and review any object on the model.
   2. Click on the Scheduled Arrival route and review some of the 400 or so arrivals to see how the activity times are being imported.
   3. Click on Warehouse and review the action logic to see how entity is being changed based on their type, where the type information is coming from the scheduled arrivals.
   4. Click on any of the input queue (*Act-Name*_InQ) and you can review the action logic that gets added to it. Don’t worry, this logic is added via the Manufacturing Planner Excel file.
   5. Click on any of the 15 resources to review their shifts. These shifts are also automatically updated using the Excel file.
3. Open & Review the Excel File:  Since we just saved this model to a different location, let’s make sure that we do an export before using the Excel  file; Click Tools \ Export Data, click ‘Yes’ to all prompts until the data export file opens, close the data file and then use this Excel file.

   Right click on the Manufacturing Planner Excel icon and click on the third option from the bottom to open the Manufacturing Planner vx-x Excel file, where x-x represents the version number of the Excel file.Click Enable Content if prompted

4. Review Workbook: Once the Excel workbook opens, notice the tabs Shifts, Time Definition, Error Rate, Skills Portfolio and Resource Assignment worksheets. We will now review all the worksheets one-by-one.
5. Shifts: The shifts worksheet is specially designed to update resource shifts, their quality and hourly pay. This worksheet is semi-independent from other 4 worksheets as any input on this sheet will need to be updated to ProcessModel via the 2. Update Shifts button. Notice that all the resources form the model are listed here, let’s go through each area of interest to learn what it means.
   1. Column A: Contains all the resource names. The resources get sorted alphabetically everytime the 1. Setup Workbook is clicked. You may change the order of the resources if you do not need to do the Setup after the first time.
   2. Column B: Add an X to the column if you need to skip adding a shift to the said resource. Any shift that is already on the resource will not be deleted. This is useful when you first Update this worksheet and there are resources you do not want to create a shift for. You can also delete the row of any resource that you do not wish to update to ProcessModel, but we do not recommend it.
   3. Column C: Whenever the worksheet is updated, it takes these values from the model, these values can be changed to any number, to change the quantity of the resource.
   4. Column D: Group are useful when you have a lot of resources and you need to divide them in groups to make sense of everything. We have divided the resources into 3 groups. The first group works from 12:00AM to 8:00AM, then from 8:00AM to 4:00PM, and then finally from 4:00PM to 12:00AM. It is also useful when you have different resource teams working at different hours of the day and you need to graph the shifts to see the time slots where no resource form a specific group is available.
   5. Colum E-H: When the worksheet is first updated, these columns will show empty, the user will need to fill the times the resource should be working on a shift.
   6. Column I: Can be used to add an hourly cost of the resource, if you do not wish to add an hourly cost, you can enter a 0.
   7. Column J-P: Identifies which day a resource will work on.  ON means the resource will work on that day, and OFF will mean that the resource is off for the day.
   8. Column Q: Shows the number of hours the resource is actually available for work, minus lunch times. The values for this column are auto-calculated once the information above is entered.
   9. Cell Q3-4: These cells can display useful information such as how many Full Time Employees and Part Time Employees are working on the scenario / in the model. The value in cell Q3 can be changed from  32 hours to a different value, cell Q3 and Q4 should not be changed or edited.
   10. Show Schedule Graphically For Resource Group: This button provides interesting insights to the resource shifts in a group, specially if you have multiple resources that are on different schedules and you need to visualize at what time there are no resources available.
6. Time Definition: The time definition worksheet has two main purposes; 1. Define Skill levels, and 2. Define the time multiplier for each skill.

   Since activity times are already being imported via the Scheduled Arrivals (under Learn with an Example #2.2), this worksheet provides a way to do a time multiplier based on how skilled a resource is. In this example, we have taken skill 1 as the least skilled and skill 3 as the most skilled resource. A time multiplier of 1 will act  as normal time while going above or under will increase or decrease the time a resource spends on a specific task.

   Example: John has been working on drilling frame for years and is considered a skill 3 resource, while Jane has just joined and is considered a skill 1 resource. We will add 1 for john and 1.5 for Jane as time multipliers. Considering we are importing time for Frame Frill via Scheduled Arrivals, and the normal time is 3 mins,  John will spend 3 * 1 = 3 mins on Frame drill, while Jane will spend 3 * 1.5 = 4.5 mins to do the same job.

7. Error Rate: The purpose of the Error rate worksheet is to define the error rate for each skill, the number of times a resource with particular skill will make an error. This is useful is you have to inspect what is being produced and need to rework on items that do have an error.

   In our example, review the routes going out of Inspection, the entities get routed to rework if there was an error from Frame Assy. We also change the error rate back to 0 in the action logic, on the route from Inspection to Rework.

8. Skills Portfolio: The Skills Portfolio has two purposes; 1. To define the skill each resource has on a particular task / activity, and 2. If the resource is present for the  work and not on leave.

   Adding the skill levels for each resource here will help the sheet compute how to create the action logic for activities, and also help you visualize the skills on the next worksheet.A resource that is Absent can have an X in the Absent column. This is useful when you want to see how an absent resource will affect your workflow and production levels.

9. Resource Assignment: The Resource Assignment worksheet is color coded and has the legends shown from cell B1 through G1. You can visualize what skill a particular resource has for an activity and then assign the resource to a particular task using the priority as the  attaching value. If a resource works at two activities, prioritize what they do first by assigning a number higher than one to the items to be completed first.

   The resource group values shown here are taken from the Shifts worksheet automatically.

   Once you have reviewed all the worksheets, let’s go to ProcessModel and do an example scenario.

10. Example Scenario: Once the model object is saved into a different directory;
    1. Simulate the model.
    2. On simulation end, click NO to return to ProcessModel.
    3. Click the View Output Report button from the toolbar.
    4. Goto the Resource tab and note Average Min / Usage, and resource utilizations.
    5. Goto the Entity tab and note how many were processed for each entity type, the cycle / production times, and the VA times.Total production: 1,080 (180+554+346)
    6. Close the Output Report.
    7. Open the Manufacturing Planner Excel file.
    8. Goto the Skills Portfolio worksheet.
    9. Add an X to the Absent column for Person_8.
    10. Goto the Resource Assignment worksheet, and then click the Import information to ProcessModel button.
    11. Once the import is successful, return to ProcessModel and Simulate the model.
    12. On simulation end, click NO to return to ProcessModel.
    13. Click the View Output Report button from the toolbar.
    14. Goto the Resource tab and note Average Min / Usage, and resource utilizations.Note the higher utilization for each resource and a higher usage time
    15. Goto the Entity tab and note how many were processed for each entity type, the cycle / production times, and the VA times.Note the lower production (154+475+300 = 929) and the higher cycle time
    16. The above report shows us that how one main resource being absent can affect utilization on other resources, increase cycle / production times and decrease production. We can now plan for the absentee resource by training a resource that has a lower utilization to take on more responsibilities, and thus help increase production and reduce cycle / production times.
    17. Since Person_8 was working on multiple tasks he was good on, let’s find the tasks he was an expert in and train some other resources for those tasks.
    18. Since Person_6 and Person_10 are on the same shift has Person_8 and have lower utilizations, let’s train them to work the tasks Person_8 can do. Person_6 to work on Shipping and Person_10 to work on Inspection.
    19. Assign the resources to those tasks using a priority level.
    20. Click the Import information to ProcessModel button.
    21. Once the import is successful, return to ProcessModel and Simulate the model.
    22. On simulation end, click NO to return to ProcessModel.
    23. Click the View Output Report button from the toolbar.
    24. Goto the Resource tab and note Average Min / Usage, and resource utilizations.
    25. Goto the Entity tab and note how many were processed for each entity type, the cycle / production times, and the VA times.Note the over 10% increase in production (174+540+338 = 1,052) and the lower cycle time

        The above example shows that how you can train available resources to cover for a resource on vacation and still be able to have a production close to ideal.