How You Monitor and Manage Your Workstations
Monitor your work center and individual workstations from a single dashboard. To monitor production, select Production Supervision from the Tasks menu in the Work Execution work area.
The Monitoring tab is the default tab that appears. Production supervisors can use the dashboard to monitor key operational metrics relevant to their production processes. If any metric or Key Performance Indicator (KPI) deviates from its expected value, supervisors can take proactive actions to ensure production continuity and quality.
You can monitor all workstations from one place without having to visit each workstation in person. Aggregated metrics for all workstations along with individual workstation cards let supervisors monitor the work center. You can also see individual workstation statuses, operation statuses, and any exceptions that may have been reported.
Each workstation card includes the following information: The workstation status, reason code for the status, checked in operators, current work order operation being executed, the quantity progress for the operation, and an exception indicator if any issues were reported by the operator. You can click any workstation card to drill down into the workstation details, such as workstation metrics, equipment, and operator assignments.
When you drill down into a workstation, you can view the metrics at the workstation level. You can additionally perform certain supervision tasks from this page, such as operator assignments and work order operation assignments.
Metrics That You Can Monitor
The following metrics can be monitored both at the work center and workstation levels:
- Plan Adherence
- Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
- Availability
- Performance
- Quality
- Open Exceptions
- Completed Quantity
The following metrics are additionally available at the workstation level:
- Duration of Assigned Operations
- In-Use Duration
- Idle Duration
- Down Duration
Plan Adherence: This metric displays the percentage of actual completion, as compared to the target completion for a workstation during the shift. The actual completion is the sum of completed operation quantities at the workstation in the current shift. The target completion is the sum of operation assignment quantities for operations whose planned completion date falls in the current shift. The plan adherence values across workstations are aggregated to compute the average for the work center.
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE): This metric measures the production efficiency of equipment at a specific workstation for the current shift. Expressed as a percentage, OEE is calculated by multiplying its key components: Availability, Performance, and Quality for the current shift. The values across workstations are aggregated to compute the average OEE for the work center.
Availability: This metric provides information on the workstation's availability in the current shift. Availability calculates the percentage of runtime divided by the planned production time. The planned production time is calculated as the shift duration minus breaks, if any. Runtime is calculated as the difference between planned production time and all downtime, both planned and unplanned. Availability is calculated at the workstation level and aggregated across all workstations to compute the average availability for the work center.
Performance: This metric assesses the workstation’s performance by considering the impact of factors that can slow down manufacturing, namely slow cycles and minor stops. The performance percentage is calculated as follows:
Performance % = ((Ideal Cycle Time x Total
Count)/RunTime) x 100
The ideal cycle time for an operation is obtained from the resource usage rate of the work order operation being executed at the workstation. Runtime is calculated as the difference between planned production time and all downtime, both planned and unplanned.
Quality: This metric calculates the percentage ratio of good units to total units produced during the current shift. It assesses the quality of manufactured products produced during the current shift. Products that do not meet the quality standards, including products that need rework, lower the quality metric value. Quality is calculated at the workstation level and aggregated across all workstations to compute the average quality for the work center.
Open Exceptions: This metric shows the count of open exceptions logged for a workstation. Open exceptions are aggregated across all workstations to compute the total open exceptions for the work center.
Completed Quantity: This metric shows the quantity completed at a workstation during the current shift. The completed quantity at the work center level is the aggregate of completed quantities across workstations for the current shift.
Duration of Assigned Operations: This metric shows the total resource duration for all assigned operations in a workstation queue.
In Use, Idle, and Down: These metrics show the total in-use duration, idle duration, and down duration respectively for the workstation during the current shift. The downtime metric that is calculated at the workstation level is aggregated across all workstations to compute the total downtime for the work center.
Manage Work Order Operation Queue for a Workstation
On the Monitoring tab, click a workstation card to see the workstation details. Assigned operations appear in the sequence that the supervisor expects the operator to follow during work execution. Each assigned operation shows a badge indicating the current execution status of the operation, namely Not Started, Started, or In Progress. Any open exceptions are also displayed alongside the operation. Expedited work order operations appear near the top of the list, positioned just below any In Progress operations.
You can use the Work Order Operation Assignment parameter in the Smart Operations Configurations task to enforce the execution sequence at workstations.
You can expand an assigned operation to access additional details, such as operation ready quantity, completed quantity, rejected quantity, scrapped quantity, planned start date, planned completion date, and priority.
You can add work order operations to a workstation queue using the Assign Operations action. To be eligible for assignment, work orders must be in released status and the operation must be an in-house count point operation that belongs to the context work center.
You can assign any number of operations to a workstation. The Duration of Assigned Operations metric represents the total duration of all assigned operations in a workstation queue. The metric helps you assess the present workload on the workstation queue when assigning operations.
When assigning operations, you can search for operations, use search filters to narrow your search, and enable additional display columns relevant to your business in the Operation Assignment drawer.
When operations are first assigned to a workstation queue, the entire operation quantity is assigned by default. You can select and edit the assigned quantities of one or more operations using the Edit Assigned Quantities action. You may want to reduce assigned quantities for an operation if you are planning to distribute the execution of an operation across multiple workstations. You cannot edit the quantities of an operation that is in progress. When assigning quantities, the total work order quantities and ready quantities are also displayed for your information.
You can rearrange the sequence of work order operations in a workstation queue using the Set Execution Sequence action. You can modify the order of operations, as long as they are not marked as In Progress. You can only rearrange operations within expedited or non-expedited groups, but not across these two groups.
You can unassign one or more operations from a workstation queue using the Unassign Operation action. Unassigning an operation from a workstation makes the operation available for assignment in another workstation's queue. You cannot unassign an operation that is marked as In Progress.
With real-time management of workstation queues, production supervisors can efficiently manage sequencing of operations for their work centers. Supervisors can quickly adapt to changes in resource availability or customer requirements. They can optimize the utilization of resources to achieve maximum productivity.
Manage Shift Operator Assignments for a Workstation
On the Monitoring tab, click a workstation card to see the workstation details. The All Shift Assignments link takes you to assignments for the current shift. To manage operator assignments for any shift, click Manage Operator Assignments.
You can assign operators that belong to the resources for the context work center. When assigning operators, operators that were previously assigned to the workstation are identified and placed at the top of the list for quick assignment to the workstation. You can assign multiple operators to a workstation. You can also assign one operator to multiple workstations.
As a production supervisor, you can staff a workstation ahead of shift start. You can view operator assignments for up to eight shifts ahead. When performing operator assignments at a workstation, you can look at the workload of operation assignments at the workstation and make operator assignments accordingly.
You can also unassign operators from one workstation and assign them to a different workstation in response to real-time requirements, such as workstation availability changes, work priority changes, or changes in operator availability. If the operator is already checked in to a workstation, the supervisor can check out an operator.