Applying a production program with variants

When using the line balancing feature, you can define product variants (also known as control models) to balance an assembly line in a mixed production scenario. You can define production programs based on these product variants that determine the probability of operations according to given production rates.

A production program is represented by a three-level item structure. The production program contains one or more production program definitions that hold the data of the program for a specific effectivity date. Each production program definition holds a list of items representing the product variants. It also defines the targeted cycle time for the production line as a property. The production rate for each variant in a specific definition is a property of the occurrence that links the variant to its parent definition. You must configure the BOM structure to assure that the definition of the production program is unambiguous; only one definition is visible for the production program. The production programs are held in a production program collection that is then added as a structure context to the enclosing collaboration context. In this way, you can inspect and edit the state of all production programs for a consistent effectivity date and revision rule by opening the production program collection.

When you send a plant BOP to the Line Balancing Chart view, you can apply the production program to it and see the work content of the stations according to the operation probability defined by the production program that you are working on.

Siemens Digital Industries Software strongly recommends that you use only classic variants when working with line balancing. If you configure a modular variant condition on a structure, this filtering is maintained, but only the classic variant filtering is reset by the production program filtering done on the structure.