Understanding Work Orders and Planning for Crew Scheduling
The planner or scheduler is responsible for confirming the coding on the work order and developing the job plan. The job plan includes the labor detail steps and the materials that are required to complete the job. The scheduling process is supported at both the work order and job plan levels, based on the work order document type and resource assignments level (UDC 48/RL).
The work order includes the default crew and lead craft (trade) that are required to complete the work, along with the estimated hours and planned start and finish dates, which you use when scheduling work at the work order level.
The labor detail job plan can have one or more steps, depending on whether the job requires multiple crews, crafts, or schedule periods to complete. Each labor detail step has a craft, description, estimated hours, and planned start and finish dates, which you use when scheduling work at the work-order labor detail level.
The system determines the materials that are required to complete the work using the parts list that is associated with the work order. Materials that are required for the work order may be stocked items or direct charge items. The stocked items will be committed to the work order and are issued out of stock. The direct charge items are ordered using a purchase requisition prior to the work order release. When the job plan is complete, the work order is available for inclusion in the scheduling process.
You use the Work Order Entry program (P13714) to add and review the work order. You use the work order to track the crew, lead craft, parts, and labor details that are associated with a job. You can set a processing option for the P13714 program to enable the system to automatically populate the Crew field on the work order using the SWM address book extension record for the customer, the equipment, or the work order category codes, which you enter on the work order.
You use the Work Order Detail program (P13732) to add and review labor detail steps that are required to complete the work. These steps include the craft that is required to complete the step. You can set a processing option for the P13714 program to automatically create the labor detail steps. The system creates the first labor detail step based on the work order details if the lead craft is entered. If you enter labor detail steps, the system totals the estimated hours for each step and updates the Work Order Estimated Hours field, which becomes disabled.
Based on the assignment level, the system aligns the estimated hours on the work order or the labor detail steps with the crew scheduled hours and proportionally splits the work into assignments.
The work order planned start and finished dates can be used as filters when you are searching for unscheduled work for a crew and a particular period. When the work order or labor detail step is scheduled, the schedule dates become the key dates when you are assigning resources and moving tasks to different schedule periods. Changes to the work order and labor detail planned dates will not update the crew or resource schedules. If you are not using crew scheduling, changes to the work order and labor detail steps will continue to update the assignment dates.
The system will allow only one schedule per work order, or one schedule per labor step based on the UDC 48/RL setting.