Fill idle times

Typically, scheduling with finite capacities, will often lead to idle times on machine centers and of course, for the sake of efficiency and cost cutting, everybody in planning wants to use their capacities to the fullest extent possible.

The function "Fill idle times" helps to avoid idle times on machine centers.

How it works

• The VAPS automatically generates a prioritized list of the production orders already assigned to machine centers, applying the same strict priorization rules used by the "Add all" function.

• The system attempts to move all operations forward to reduce or eliminate idle times.

• Already scheduled production orders are not getting pushed out (they are only squeezed in).

• The following settings can be made in the VAPS setup
  • Define the "schedule start" date
  • Decide whether you want to take into account EMAD
  • Specify the number of iterations
• When initiating the scheduling process via 'Actions -> Schedule', select the appropriate option to specify whether alternate machine centers should be considered.

To fill idle times on a specific work or machine center only, select the corresponding option from that center's context menu