Using proprietary resource master data settings in SAP Business One

Representation of resources in a production order in SAP Business One vs. Produce / Operator and Produce / Manager

Let us use Netronic Manufacturing to support the production of metal plates (Item code: PL00012, Item name: Plate A) that are cut from sheets of metal (Item code: MS00012, Item name: Metal sheet). The production is the responsibility of a senior technician (Resource code: R300006, Resource name: Senior Technician) who operates the cutting machine (Resource code: R300012, Resource name: Cutting machine).

The senior technician is represented with a default setup in SAP Business One:

• Unit of Measure Text = min;
• Time per Resource Units = <0:01:00>;
• Res. Units per Time Period = 1.

The cutting machine has four heads, and works in 2-minute cycles. With its four heads, it can produce 4 packs of plates in each cycle. Thus, its resource master data in SAP Business One are as follows:

• Unit of Measure Text = cycle;
• Time per Resource Units = <0:02:00>;
• Res. Units per Time Period = 4.

By default, the bill of materials for the plates is generated for 4 products (Quantity = 4 on the top row), i.e. the quantity produced in a machine cycle:

Let us create a production order for 20 plates:

Now let us walk through the values shown in the production order for both resources. The first few columns express resource usage in resource units as specified in the resource master data form.

For data field definitions, see Understanding resource related production order data in SAP Business One.

Remember that, in order to translate resource unit values into "real" time values, you need to use the formula:

<resource usage time> = <resource units needed> * Time per Resource Units / Res. Units per Time Period

For the senior technician, both the Base Qty and the Additional Qty columns of the production order contain 0.5 min. Since this resource has default master data settings in SAP Business One, this means that the senior technician takes 0.5 minutes to produce one item and needs 0.5 minutes to get ready for work. As a cutting cycle creates 4 plates and takes 2 minutes, it is logical that, for 1 plate, the proportional time required for the senior technician is 2/4 = 0.5 minutes.

For the cutting machine, the production order shows Base Qty = 0.25 cycles, since in a cycle, the machine completes 4 plates. Using the formula above, this translates into 0.25 * (2 min / 4) = 0.075 minutes for each plate. Likewise, the Additional Qty of 0.5 cycles shown in the production order means that the machine takes 0.5 * (2 min / 4) = 0.15 minutes to get operational.

Planned Qty is calculated as

<planned quantity of the resource> = <base quantity of the resource> * <planned quantity of the product> + <additional quantity of the resource>

Therefore, if everything goes as planned, the senior technician will need 0.5 min * 20 + 0.5 min = 10.5 min to produce the 20 items required, which is the value seen in the Planned Qty column of the production order. (As this resource has default master data settings, the conversion factor between resource units and time units is 1.)

Planned Qty for the cutting machine is 0.25 cycles * 20 + 0.5 cycles = 5.5 cycles. In other words, we can plan that the total time it will take the cutting machine to produce 20 item is 5.5 * 2 min / 4 = 2.75 minutes. 

The Production Time, Additional Time, and Run Time columns express resource usage in "real" time. They convert the content of the Planned Qty, Additional Qty, and Planned Qty columns, respectively. Consequently, the following calculations are applied to get the values displayed in the production order:

The Run Time of the whole production order is the longest of that of the individual resources, i.e. in our case <00:10:30>.

Indeed, these are the data shown in the production order in the screenshot.

Processing an operation in Produce / Operator

Now let us process the above production order (#201, for 20 plates PL00012) in Produce / Operator.

The order contains a single operation, Cutting. Its detail view in Produce Operator is as follows:

The operation’s detail view displays the following three time values for each resource used in the operation, in <hh:mm:ss> format. The first two of these coincides with the corresponding values in the production order.

• Setup time – The time it takes to make the resource operational (which is the equivalent of the Additional Time in the production order).
• Planned time – The time it takes for the resource to produce the planned quantity of items (which is the equivalent of the Production Time in the production order).
• Completed time – The time period while the resource has actually been used so far during the operation (in the screenshot above, it is zero, since no work has been registered for the operation yet).

Now let us register work for this operation. In the example below, we completed the order with 16 products and 4 scrap plates in 14:30 minutes. In Step 3 (Resources) of the PDC workflow, Produce / Operator displays the Expected time and Calculated time of resource usage. On top of the screen, we can see the actual Time spent, in our case <00:14:30>.

Expected time is based on the resource setup and the produced quantity of items, and it is the same as the Run Time in the production order – just here we also count scrap quantity as part of the produced quantity:

<expected time> = <setup time> + <job time for one product> * (<completed quantity> + <scrap quantity>) = <setup time> + <planned time>

Therefore, in our case, as we produce 4 products in a cycle:

• Expected time (senior technician) = <00:00:30> + (<00:02:00>/4) * (16+4) = <00:00:30> + <00:00:30> * 20 = <00:00:30> + <00:10:00> = <00:10:30>
• Expected time (cutting machine) = <00:00:15> + (<00:00:30>/4) * (16+4) = <00:00:15> + <00:00:07.5> * 20 = <00:00:15> + <00:02:30> = <00:02:45>

Calculated time is determined by distributing the actual time used (i.e. Time spent) into setup and job time components using the following formula:

<calculated time> = [<longest setup time of all resources> or <time spent>, whichever is shorter] * <setup time>/<longest setup time of all resources> + {<time spent> - [<longest setup time of all resources> or <time spent>, whichever is shorter]} * <job time for one product>/<longest job time for one product of all resources>

• Calculated time (senior technician) = [<00:00:30> * <00:00:30>] / <00:00:30> + {<00:14:30> - <00:00:30>} * (<00:02:00>/4) / (<00:02:00>/4) = <00:00:30> + <00:14:00> = <00:14:30>
• Calculated time (cutting machine) = [<00:00:30> * <00:00:15>] / <00:00:30> + {<00:14:30> - <00:00:30>} * (<00:00:30>/4) / (<00:02:00>/4) = <00:00:15> + <00:14:00>/4 = <00:00:15> + <00:03:30> = <00:03:45>

These are exactly the values shown in Produce / Operator.

For resources that have Issue Method = Manual in their Resource Master Data form, the last, Time, column in Step 3 of the PDC workflow displays the Calculated time value by default (like in the screenshot above). This value can be overwritten manually to enter the actual time used by the resource.

For resources with Issue Method = Backflush, the Time column shows a lock icon (). No value can be entered manually, since the usage will be issued by SAP Business One automatically.

If a resource’s Issue Method = Manual in SAP Business One, then in the last (Review) step of the PDC workflow we also have the longest Calculated time value for manually issued resources displayed as Resource time, and the Expected time for the whole operation:

<expected time for the operation> = <longest setup time of manually issued resources> + <longest job time of manually issued resources for one product> * (<completed quantity> + <scrap quantity>)

In our example, both resources are issued manually, hence

• Resource time = Calculated time (senior technician) = <00:14:30>
• Expected time (operation) = <00:00:30> + (<00:02:00>/4) * (16+4) = <00:10:30> (i.e., in our case it is the Expected time of the senior technician).

The Resource time value for manually issued resources can be edited manually by clicking Change ().

If all resources have Issue Method = Backflush in SAP Business One, then the Resource time box will contain the following text:

Once the production order has been completed, and the transaction has been processed, the production order in SAP Business One gets updated with the resource usage data. This information is shown in the Issued column of the production order.

For example, the Calculated time for the senior technician above has been <00:14:30>, which is exactly the same as shown in the updated production order below (14.5). Likewise, for the cutting machine, the Calculated time was <00:03:45>. Converting this to cycles (which is used as the unit of measure in the production order), we get 3.75 min * (4 / 2 min) = 7.5 cycles, i.e. the value in the production order.

Resource time values in Produce / Manager

When opening a production order’s detail view under the Production orders menu item Produce / Manager, among other data, you can see the Expected time and the Used time for each resource involved in the execution of the production order. The values are the same as for Produce / Operator, discussed above.

Used time is only shown for resources that are set to Issue Method = Manual. For resources with Issue Method = Backflush, the Used time column shows a lock icon (). Used time is the same as the Time value in Step 3 (Resources) of the PDC workflow in Produce / Operator. If the value in the Time column is not changed manually then Used time will also coincide with the Calculated time value shown in Produce / Operator.

The following screenshot shows the details of our previous example, production order #201 (for 20 plates). The values are rounded up to integer minutes, e.g. <00:10:30> to 11 minutes, or <00:03:45> to 4 minutes.

Produce / Manager also displays the total duration of the job and the resource time usage in Transaction details screen, in the Time column. The screenshot below is based on the full completion of the operation in our previous example (production order #201).

Time is only shown for resources that are set to Issue Method = Manual. For resources with Issue Method = Backflush, the Time column shows <00:00:00>. The Time value in the Transaction details screen is the same as the Time value in Step 3 (Resources) of the PDC workflow in Produce / Operator. If the value in the Time column in Produce / Operator is not changed manually, then Time in the Transaction details screen will also coincide with the Calculated time value shown in Produce / Operator.

• For the case of default resource master data settings in SAP Business One, see An example of resource capacity / usage calculations in Produce / Operator, Produce / Manager and SAP Business One - Resources with identical Setup time.
• For definitions of time concepts used in production orders, see Understanding resource related production order data in SAP Business One.
• For an overview of resource time concepts across members of the Netronic Manufacturing family and SAP Business One, see Equivalences of resource related time concepts across Netronic Manufacturing and SAP Business One (SBO).