Assembly Control

When the order content on a specific line station is the same for multiple orders, that content is only stored once. This similar information is stored in a line station variant. The assembly orders only have a link to Line Station Variants. This feature reduces the data storage and improves performance.

The material requirements for a line station for a day. A CLSO consists of user-defined buckets. The material requirements are combined for each bucket. In Assembly Control, transactions can be carried out per line station and per period, instead of per order. LN can combine the same materials for a specific period into one material line. The cumulated quantity is stored in the CLSO. This accumulation reduces the number of transactions that are necessary, because the transactions are performed for a specific bucket. CLSOs are used in assembly part allocation and in backflushing to combine materials for a line-station order for a day.

A grouping or categorization of parts supplied to a line station is called an assembly kit. Two types of these can be used in LN: line station and product. Line station type assembly kits deliver supplies to a specific line station. The assembly kit is an order-dependant set of components that is determined by the product configuration and is delivered to the shop floor warehouse for the relevant line station.

Product type kits support only Order Controlled/SILS supply from a warehouse that supplies a shop floor warehouse by warehouse transfer. With this kit type it is possible to assign an assembly kit to a specific end item or an assembly line combination.

Assembly orders can be partially frozen, this means that depending on the position of the assembly order in the process, some parts of the assembly order will no longer be refreshed. The frozen parts of the order can still be manually changed.

Other parts can still be refreshed by linking a time fence to a line segment.

In many mixed-model-flow companies, the assembly process is performed over multiple companies that have their own logistical data set. These companies can have several assembly lines in different logistical companies. A generic subitem is assembled on a supplying line and supplied to the main line on which the final end item is assembled.

Assembly orders generated by Assembly Planning can be sequenced by using the sequencing engine, resulting in a line mix and line sequence. During this sequencing process, line rules are taken in to account, such as clustering assembly orders based on items characteristics, or blocking assembly orders based on capacity rules.

You use a control panel to manually change the generated sequence. You can move orders to a different position in the line or swap the positions of two orders

An optional inventory check can be performed. A list of problem parts and orders having shortages can be displayed.

For each operation, work instructions can be printed. This is handled through process-triggered workflow. The user can partially determine what type of information is printed on these instructions.

From pulling materials from supplier of warehouse to the correct destination triggers can be used. For some supplying methods these triggers can be based on events in production.

Instead of initiating material supply based on process triggers, this can also do this based on time fences. Material supply is initiated for a line station order when that line station order coincides with a predefined time fence. Several time fences are defined to control the generation and update of supply massages.

Assembly Control call-offs are stored in sales schedules and sales releases. These releases (shipping and sequenced shipping schedules) are communicated to the supplier through EDI. Additionally, a unique reference per kit, station, and part is included in that information. At the supplier's system, this information is stored in sales schedules and sales releases. After sending the parts, they can be received by reference ID.

A planner is responsible for a segment and can be linked to a specific segment. All information related to assembly orders will be visible per segment planner.

The status/progress overview per segment shows orders on the segment based on line sequence whereby toggle mode is available to show the orders in various modes.

A control panel is available on which the schedule orders per buffer are displayed. You can use the toggle function to select different overviews.

Similar to the progress overview per buffer, the progress can be monitored per line station. This can be used to report which line stations contain work for an order.

In mixed model flow production environments, many activities are based on the progress information of individual orders. When an event selected by the user occurs for an order on a certain line station, another activity can be started. In the system, process triggering covers the automatic start and execution of a process based on an event.

The calculation of the man and machine hours that must be backflushed differs for high-volume and low-volume. For high-volume situations, backflushing is based on the rate specified for a line and the number of employees. In low-volume situations, backflushing is based on the duration of every operation and the number of employees required per operation.