Mass Production Maintenance is a new Production Control feature from our most recent release of Vicinity Formula Management Software. The feature is used to release, delete, and ops-close batches in bulk.
Video Summary:
Take a minute and watch the video above to go over the functionality added around the management of batches. We added this into our 4.37 release, which is our year-end release for 2021. Specifically, we added a new menu option under Production Control, called “Batch Production Maintenance”. The purpose of this screen is to give you the ability to perform actions on a number of batches simultaneously.
There are also filters that enable the user to see a specific batch. If you want to view the R&D Lab batch only, then the filter will let you view that batch in particular.
There is also a “Process Cells” option, a scheduling concept that enables the user to schedule products by production lines. Another option is “Planners”, a field referencing a batch of planned orders which allows the user to group the items by the person that’s scheduling them.
Furthermore, the user can set a limit by the type of batch or where the batch is in its process -- either ‘Released’, ‘Ops-closed’ or ‘Deleted’ (represented by green checkmarks). When a batch that has unposted transactions associated with it is deleted by the user, the system will release that commitment and put that inventory back to ‘available’ again.
Lastly, the “Number Selection” (info that is highlighted in blue, e.g. RD00003, RD00004, etc.) indicates a drawback, and this is helpful when the user wants to look into a batch to be deleted but has unposted transactions that need to be reviewed.
Clients have often contacted us to delete a whole range of batches or ops-closed a whole range of batches. Perhaps somebody has been entering data, posting them and they forgot to ops-closed. We always had to do that for our customers in the database. These new features are now giving you the ability to do that same function on your own. You should now be able to do your own ops-closed and/or delete and/or release a batch or a group of batches with this new release. We appreciate your feedback, bringing new ideas for features to our attention, and we look forward to hearing other ways so we can make our product easier for you to use.
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Transcript
Hello. I’d like to take a minute to go over the functionality added around the management of batches. We added this into our 4.37 release, which is our year-end release for 2021. Specifically, we added a new menu option under Production Control, called Batch Production Maintenance. The purpose of this screen is to give you the ability to perform actions on a number of batches simultaneously. Examples would be to release a batch to release, delete and ops-closed a batch. So one of the first things you’ll notice is our Vicinity view grid-type user interface where I’m showing all of these batches that are listed based on some type of criteria. So if I want to see everything grouped by facility, I can do that. We also have the regular grouping functionality that you’re used to through Vicinity view and other areas in our product.
The other thing to point out is we have filters, so we can filter things out. Say I’m going to the R&D lab for a second, I can say I only want to see the R&D lab and batches, and then just refresh it then it will filter it out. I can also do the same thing for Process Cells, which is a scheduling concept, it’s a field used to help us schedule products by some production lines.
And then you have Planners. Planners is just a field on the batch and on planned orders that allows you to group items by the person that’s scheduling them. You may have Dry Products scheduled by one person and Wet Products scheduled by another, and you can limit that by scheduling type of person. We can also limit by the type of batch or where the batch is in its process. I want to see batches that can be released (planned batches), so these are all batches that can be moved to the next stage from Plan to release. You might want to look at those that can be Ops closed, or these are released batches that may or may not add new transactions processed against them, but it allows us to Ops-Closed them. I can also filter these out by those that can be deleted. Now a batch that can be deleted is a planned batch, it could also be a released batch, but it can’t have any transactions that have been posted against it, so that would be a batch that could be deleted. Once you have identified the selection process and limited the number of batches that are out there, what you will do is come in and just select the batches that you wanna do something with. I’ll just pick these selection boxes and you can go and select as many of those as you want, or you can do ‘All’ if you want to. I did point out that these restricted batches that can be selected are actually visually represented here by these green checkboxes. So visually you can see that same information, so this one can be deleted, or it can be Ops-closed, and we’re also showing that it has unposted transactions.
I want to point out what happens when you delete or Ops-close a batch that has unposted transactions so that we’d be able to really ops-close them. If it has an unposted transaction associated with it, this system is going to release that commitment and put that inventory back available again. So select whichever batch you're interested in taking action on, and in this case, these are both planned, so in this case, I can release them and it will change them from ‘planned’ to ‘released’, and they’re still listed on this selection. I could go even further with that and say ‘’okay these can also be deleted’’, and I can take those and go down to its deleted stage and actually delete those batches, which gets rid of them out of my database.
Finally, I can come in and, let’s say, a released batch, and then ops-closed that batch, so in this case, that batch that I’ve got (55 to 88) has now been ops-closed and it’s now gone from my selection. Finally, these blue underlines indicate this as a drawback, so if I need to go look into this batch and work on it or activate it, I can go directly into that batch, and it pulls up the batch and I can make any modifications. This could be helpful if you’ve got a scenario wherein you wanna delete a batch, but it has unposted transactions. You may want to navigate to that specific batch and find out what’s going on with these transactions that are sitting out here that happened and posted, and do I actually want to delete this batch or do anything further with this batch? So, some great functionality can be used when clients contact us to delete our whole range of batches or ops-closed a whole range of batches, maybe somebody’s been entering data, posting them and they forgot to ops-closed. We always had to do that in the database.
This is now giving you the ability to go and do that same function on your own. I’d be happy to walk you through it and see how it’s done. But you should be able to do your own ops-closed and/or delete and/or release a batch or a group of batches with this release. Alright, we appreciate your feedback, bringing it to our attention, and we look forward to hearing other ways so we can make our product easier for you to use and be more beneficial in your company. Thanks a lot and have a great day. (End of Transcript)
