Managing the enterprise BOP > Balancing a production line

Balance a line in process mode

Manufacturing processes contain multiple operations that must be completed sequentially. To reduce clutter in the Line Balancing Chart view, and to ensure that all operations contained in your processes retain their sequential order, use process mode to hide all operations.

Procedure

Allocate all the required operations to the stations in a plant BOP. If you have multiple process resources, allocate the operations to these.
If you have not already done so, assign time to your operations, processes, and resources.
If you have not already changed the Line Balancing Chart view to process mode, choose Edit → Options, search on the keyword LB, and ensure that the following preferences are set to Process.

MELBChartDnDSourceTypes

Enables you to drag processes in the Line Balancing Chart view.

MELBChartDnDTargetParentTypes

Lets you drag processes to stations and resources in the Line Balancing Chart view.

In the plant BOP, right-click the process area, line, or station for which you want to balance processes and choose Open with → Line Balancing Chart.
Choose View Menu → View Options → Process.

Note If the majority of your work is performed in process mode, you can also set your MELBChartProcessOperationTypes preference to Process.

The Line Balancing Chart view opens in process mode to show individual stations, labeled qp1... in this example, and any processes assigned to those stations. The first two stations in the image below contain two processes, the third only one, and the fourth none. Capacity is shown as black lines in the view. If the total allocated time of all the processes at a station exceeds the capacity of the station, processes above the capacity line are displayed in red.

Tip To view the complete station names, mouse over the labels or click Increase Bar Width .

If you are using process resources to represent multiple workers or machines, choose View Menu → Switch Views → Details.

The details view shows processes that are or are not assigned to resources, clustered for each station. Processes that are allocated to resources are displayed as gray in the left station bars, labeled Not..., or green if they are not yet allocated to resources. Processes allocated to resources display in green in the resource bars labeled qp1....

In this example, processes are:

Evenly allocated to resources in station qp131552.

Unevenly allocated to a single resource in station qp131573. The amount of time required for these processes exceeds the available resource time.

Not allocated in station qp131583.

Not available in station qp131604.

(Optional) Customize and navigate the line balancing chart.

Note You can customize the colors of operations, processes, text, and tooltips using the MELBChartColors preference.

Select a process to be allocated elsewhere.

You can:

Hover the mouse over a process to view its name, ID, description, and allocated time.

Navigate through the stations, resources, and processes in the bar chart using the arrow keys on the keyboard.

Select an entire station by clicking its name below the bar chart. Selecting a station in the bar chart also selects it in the plant BOP structure, and vice versa.

Press and hold Ctrl or Shift and then select multiple processes.

Drag the process to an appropriate station or resource.

Note To remove a resource or operation from a resource bar, drag it back to the station bar, or select it in the resource bar and click Unallocate .

Repeat steps 8-9 until all processes are evenly balanced across the line.

Note If the PSM_Enable_Product_Configurator preference is set to true OR the configurator context is attached to the PlantBOP structure, the PlantBOP → Open With → Line Balancing Chart option is not available in the rich client.