Understanding Process Maps

Process mapping is a Demand Flow technique that is used to determine the extent to which groups of products share common manufacturing processes. The objective of process mapping is to develop families of products that share common processes to determine which products can be produced on the same mixed-model Demand Flow line. The result of process mapping is a matrix of processes and products that shows where the two intersect—the process map. You use the Define Process Map program (PF30L901) to set up this matrix.

When you create a process map, you associate it with a volume design and its associated volume selection to retrieve the volumes for products in a mixed model family and copy them into the Demand at Capacity field. After you have set up a process map, you can add the products to the matrix. When you select a product from a list of items, you retrieve the processes based on the product synchronization that you associated with the product.

Important: If you make any changes to the product synchronization after you have already added the processes from the product synchronization to the process map, you must perform two steps to ensure that the process map reflects the product synchronization changes.The first step is to recalculate the product synchronization. The second step is to retrieve any process map that uses the changed product synchronization and click the Save Changes button on the Manage Process Maps form. When you access the form, you already see the changes, but they exist only in cache. If you do not save the changes, the system does not update the process map in the database.

For each process, you can select a source of work content, that is, the amount of labor or machine resource time that is required to complete the process. The system uses this value to calculate the Actual Time Weighted (ATW) for both resource types. You determine which source the system uses by specifying a design selection. The system enables you to derive work content from three sources:

• Standard sequence of events.

• Sequence of events.

• Manual entry.

To derive work content from a standard sequence of events, you can select the standard sequence of events that is defined for a process. After you have selected the standard sequence of events, the system populates the SSOE Labor and SSOE Machine fields for the process with times from the standard sequence of events.

If you do not specify a standard sequence of events as the source of work content, the system retrieves this information from the sequence of events if you have set up a sequence of events for the process. The sequence-of-events resource times automatically appear in the SOE Labor and SOE Machine fields for each process when you insert products. The process map retrieves these values from the F30L117 table.

Note: To eliminate any discrepancy between sequence-of-events or standard-sequence-of-events times and the labor and resource times that appear on the process map, you can run the Refresh Event Summary program (RF30L117) to update the resource and labor totals in the FF30L117 table.

The system also enables you to enter labor and machine resource times in the Process Map Actual Work Content program (PF30L904). You can access this program from the process map and enter the resources that are required for the process as well as the setup, move, and actual times for each resource. When you save this information, the system displays the cumulative work content for the process in the Actual Labor field or the Actual Machine field. You can also enter cumulative labor and machine times directly in the process map.

If multiple products go through the same process but have different processing times, you can split the process into cells to accommodate these variations and facilitate a smooth flow of product down the mixed model line. The longest processing time represents the upper end of the range. The system divides the total range into seven segments and assigns each product to the segment of the range that represents its processing time, together with the percentage of product that is moved through the process. You can assign cells to the process in addition to the original default cell and define the processing time ranges for each cell. You have to set up cells in the Cell Master program (PF30L905) before you can assign them here.

To evaluate to what extent products share processes, you can view a commonality map for a particular process map. The commonality map shows all the processes that the products on the process map have in common.

The time map shows the labor and machine times for each process on the product synchronization for the products that are included in the process map. This view enables you to evaluate the differences in processing time between products in the same process.

You can delete a process map, but only if it is not used in any line design or kanban.