Computers and Software > Business/Shop Management Programs

Scheduling Per press/location

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ebscreen:
I'm finally getting around to putting our whole daily shop schedule on a giant screen TV so that hopefully anybody
that doesn't know what they should be doing is able to see at a glance where to go. Detailed production information will be included to hopefully
clear up some of the million little questions I answer daily.

The dilemma I'm facing is how to format this info/scheduling. Currently each entire job is scheduled to one press, and the schedule for that day
is displayed. Our press ops are fiercely defensive of their individual machines so it's obvious who goes where in that regard.
The reality though is that rarely is an entire job produced on one machine, it's typically split between two or three, IE fronts on small machine, backs on larger, etc.
So a daily schedule by decoration *location/method* starts to make sense.

Basically it will be a ton of work for me to implement that style of scheduling/display and I'll probably break a million other things in our database
in the process so I'm hoping for a unanimous "yes do it that way it's worth the effort" or "no that's dumb" kind of response.

If anyone has images or info on how they like their scheduling displayed I'm appreciative. I try to approach it
as if I'm the employee looking for info but it's hard for me to conceptualize as I'm on the other side and already have all of the info haha.

3Deep:
Sounds like a great idea, but as you say it's going to be more work on you or whomever has to do a daily schedule to be posted up each morning, but you know and I know every good plan has faults.

tonypep:
Must...resist....temptation....to respond in a long tome on this extremely important topic. Seriously, it could easily be derailed into subtopics so for now, I will observe and absorb before commenting further.

ebscreen:
I'd love to hear your thoughts Tony. For me, scheduling is the unsung most difficult aspect of this industry.

tonypep:
Suffice to say I've seen scheduling "models" that run from letting the press ops pick and choose what they want to run, to having a scheduling dept that plans production several weeks out over 12 presses three shifts in two separate plants hundreds of miles apart; with dedicated youth, pocket/sleeve autos. With regard to the latter model; the schedulers allow X amount of time per screen for teardown, Y amount per screen for set-up, and Z figure for avg run time (including aInterruptive downtime allowance). Suffice to say that all the pre-press elements are dialed in and are pre-staged and press ready. No wandering around looking for anything. Over the years of careful record keeping, the numbers became more accurate and predictable, with specific numbers assigned to certain presses etc. Those days of printing long run 500 piece minimum orders have passed most of us by however. There are times that may take longer to changeover a press than it does to run the order (lets hope that a rare exception!)
I have yet to find industry base software scheduling that fits all needs and many simply can not be modified. The best models I have seen/used are ones that are built from the ground up in an excell spreadsheet or something similar. I have yet to see allotments for pallet paper changes, for instance. Much more on this but that will have to do for now.

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