Manage process resource interactions

During line balancing, you must ensure that stations and process resources (PRs) do not exceed their defined takt time. You can define and evaluate dependencies between operations that PRs perform, because one operation may not be able to start until another operation is completed.

Example

A machine can begin working only after materials are loaded into it. Or during an operation, material can be unloaded from a machine only after all operations are complete.

Interoperational dependencies may cause gaps in work executed by a PR. That gap is wait time, because the PR is idle. Process Planning for BTO/BTS/CTO helps you to identify wait time for each PR and to increase utilization by assigning one PR to multiple operations, when possible.

Note

In a process station, process resources may be humans or machines. Humans are often called operators, and machines are often called process resources.

Process Planning for BTO/BTS/CTO supports:

• Filtering data by product variant —you can analyze and manage balancing for one product variant without affecting balancing for other product variants.

• Shared PRs—if an operator in one station is also assigned to operations in another station, that is a shared operator.

  to the left of an operator indicates a shared operator is assigned to operations in the station
  
  
  to the left of an operation indicates the operation is assigned to a shared PR at another station
  

  Tip Hover on the symbol to view information about the shared operator.