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Foy's EPICS Events |
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Extrusion
Production Information and Control Systems |
May 2005 * Volume 9, Issue 2
In this issue
User Conference a Great Success
Packing Department Enhancements
Importing New Sales Orders with a CSV File
Other New Features in EPICS V8
Welcome to New
EPICS Customers
EPICS Customer List
User Conference A Great Success
The
7th annual EPICS User Conference convened this year at the Gaylord
Texan hotel in Grapevine,
Thursday morning began with a welcome to attendees by Jim Foy. Jim continued with an overview of new features of EPICS V8. Mike Novels, managing director of Preactor International, followed with a presentation of the Preactor scheduling software, a robust multi-department scheduling tool implemented in over 5000 systems world-wide, now available with EPICS V8.
The morning continued with presentations by John Stenger and Chris Delzell on features added to EPICS over the past year as well as some new features coming in EPICS V8, including master workorders and how to allow your customers to place sales orders using common spreadsheets.
The afternoon began with a demonstration of the Preactor software and how it integrates with EPICS. Three sessions followed introducing new Die table fields, the new Advanced Production screen, and the highly-requested comprehensive Rack Tracking.
Thursday evening, scores of people crowded into two
chartered buses bound for an evening of honky tonkin’ at Billy Bob’s
Back at the Gaylord, Friday morning kicked off with a session by Mark Hairfield of 65G on remote application hosting. Bo Bagwell of Briteline Extrusions described how they have used 65G with great success in hosting EPICS off-site.
Friday morning included a wealth of information about enhancements and new features in EPICS V8. Scott Wilson described how data can now be imported into any EPICS table directly from a spreadsheet. John introduced new warehousing features and improvements to how EPICS handles packing operations. Chris introduced the new Pocket Ship application for use with the Enhanced Shipping Module as well as new tax schedules which greatly simplify how you apply tax to customers.
Moving into the Friday afternoon final stretch, Scott began
with an endorsement of
It may not have been possible to discuss all the new features and enhancements of EPICS V8 in the two-day Conference, but John got in several more Friday afternoon including the ability to print tags and tickets from Crystal rather than BarTender, new platen saw setting and shear increment setting on the Machines screen, and several others. The final session of the day was the always-popular Wishlist session. Many ideas were brought forward, ideas which become the priority list of Foy Inc for the year to come.
The Conference concluded with a drawing for an Ipod Shuffle. Ron Currens won this hot little item. But we want to certify that his winning had absolutely nothing to do with him also being the one chosen by Jim to draw the name from the box.
Foy Inc wishes to thank all the attendees for making the 7th
Annual EPICS User Conference the great success that it was. We hope to see you
next year in… (We’ll know soon)
EPICS Version 8 Released
EPICS
Version 8 will be released next week, and will be available for download
starting Monday morning.
The majority of time at the EPICS User Conference was spent reviewing the new features in this major update. The new features are too extensive to describe in detail in this newsletter, but the Help file that will be included with the EPICS V8 update contains full explanations of all the additions. The Help file will also be available on our web site as a separate download, in case you want to review the changes prior to installing EPICS V8.
After installing EPICS V8 you will need to add new screens to your menu-bar. Because each user has a customizable menu-bar, EPICS updates do not automatically alter that configuration. Below is a list of the new screens that you may wish to add. To add them to your menu-bar, right-click anywhere on the menu-bar and choose Customize. Click the Commands tab and then choose a category (left side of the Customize window). Drag items onto you menu-bar from the Commands box (right side of the Customize window).
Files Category
- Import CSV Files
- Tax Schedules
Orders Category
- Maintain Master Work Orders
- Maintain Production Racks
- Advanced Production Data Collection
- Import New Sales Order from CSV File
Also, remember that the old Order Entry screen is obsolete and is not included in EPICS V8. The button for the old Order Entry screen may appear as a button with no picture. Simply remove the button by dragging it out of the menu-bar into any open space.
Scheduling with Preactor
Mike
Novels, General Manager of Preactor
International, presented two interesting sessions at the EPIC User
conference. In the first, he reviewed the benefits to be derived from
scheduling the entire extrusion plant rather than just the press. He also
highlighted some of the advanced features of the latest release of Preactor. In
the second, he demonstrated development of a schedule using data that was
imported from EPICS.
Preactor is a finite capacity planning application that allows you to keep costs to a minimum by cutting out waste and making the most of the resources available. Preactor is fast and interactive. As soon as an event occurs such as a machine going down, a delay in material delivery, or a new high priority order arrives, the scheduler can see the impact, choose to re-schedule or repair the existing one to see the impact on delivery promises. Decision-making is easier with a 'what-if' tool available that can test the impact of alternatives without affecting the real process.
Foy Inc is continuing to develop an interface between Preactor and EPICS. If you would like to examine Preactor in more detail, email info@foyinc.com for a free evaluation Preactor CD as well as Preactor literature. These slides are available at www.foyinc.com/conference.
Rack Tracking
One of the major new features of EPICS V8 is Rack Tracking. Use of this feature is optional, but should be very valuable. EPICS will now know the contents of each rack in your plant. For example, it might know that rack E123 contains 50 pieces of SO 20452/1, 20 pieces of SO 20544/2, 65 pieces of SO 20385/1 and 43 pieces of SO 20411/5. If you age the metal in this rack, you only need to make one entry for the rack, instead of entries for each of the four SOItems.
You will realize another major advantage of using the EPICS rack tracking feature when you take a physical inventory. You can easily generate a report showing the location and contents of every rack in the plant. Add in a report of all the packing tickets, and you have a complete work-in-process inventory.
Please see the EPICS online help for detailed information about Rack Tracking. You can also see the Thursday afternoon presentation slides from the User Conference at www.foyinc.com/conference.
Master Workorders
EPICS V8 gives you the ability to combine multiple workorders into one master workorder. You may have done this manually in the scheduling process in the past, but EPICS now allows you to combine several sales orders with matching die number, alloy, temper and extrude length into a single extrusion order… a master workorder.
Creating a master workorder adds only one step to the usual work flow:
- Enter and post new sales orders.
- Create
the Master Workorder
- Calculate workorders
- Schedule the press
- Post press production
- etc.
Create master workorders from the new Maintain Master Workorders screen.
Please see the EPICS online help for detailed information on how to create, maintain, and work with master workorders. You can also see the Thursday morning presentation slides from the User Conference at www.foyinc.com/conference.
Crystal
Reports has for many years been the leader among reporting tools and we have
seen many improvements in the software over the past few years. Each new
version has given us improved tools and improved performance. But with each
release the community of Crystal users continue to ask the same two questions,
“When will we be able to give the report users parameters that take values
directly from the database and not a static list?” and “When will we be able to
put an image on a report that selects the image based on my report data?”
As you may already know,
There are a number of other new features as well, such as
improved charting features and improved TopN support. Some may be useful to
you, others may not. You can check out all the new features on their website at
http://www.businessobjects.com/.
One of the most notable enhancements you will find for all
EPICS V8 fully supports
advanced Production Posting
One of the central new features to EPICS V8 is Rack Tracking. To support this feature, a new Advanced Production Screen was created. Even if you do not plan to ever use the Rack Tracking feature or its master workorder, we recommend to all EPICS users to make a switch to this new screen and stop using the old production screens. Why? It’s just better.
After installing EPICS V8 you will need to add “Advanced
Production Data Collection” 
to your menu-bar. Here is a summary of what
you will find on the new screen…
- This single screen can be used for all production departments prior to Packing. The Advanced Production screen does not separate Extrusion from downstream departments. The screen will adjust for the requirements of each department.
- You will be able to post to either a sales order and item as you always have, or you can post to a master workorder. Or, post production against an entire rack containing any number of items.
- A Sample Weight calculator has been included. EPICS no longer requires you to calculate a weight per length. Input any length, any number of pieces and the weight of those pieces, EPICS will calculate the actual weight.
- The production summary that had always been available to downstream departments is now available for the Press as well.
- No longer are you limited to three columns for billets, and good pieces. The grid format allows unlimited input for any production posting. The same is true for Downtime and Scrap postings.
- If you are working from a master workorder, EPICS will automatically post to all sales order items on the master workorder.
- The workorder and master workorder are viewable on-screen. Just click the Workorder tab.
It is important to know that with the new screen there are also new production tables in the database. These new tables are ShiftProd and ShiftProdDetail. There are also new reports that will need to be used to view production summaries. The standard production shift reports you are using today will not pick up data posted to these new screens. The new reports are titled PressProduction.rpt and DeptProduction.rpt and are available from www.foyinc.com/admin.
Packing department Enhancements
A number of Packing Ticket improvements have been added in this release of EPICS V8.
- A new “Scan for Available Items” tab has been has been added to the Print New Tickets screen, which allows you to scan for available sales order items or scan for available racks.
- The use of Rack Tracking eliminates the use of user prompts asking for a destination of packed bundles. For example, Racks bound for a TO_XXXX or PACK_TO department are automatically packed to go to the appropriate outside processor. Racks bound for PACK go to the customer. Racks bound for STOCK are sent to inventory. The packer, however, can always click the “Stock” or “Overage” buttons to override the rules above.
- Pieces for a single bundle may come from multiple racks.
- Also, you will now have the ability to design your packing tickets using either Crystal Reports or Bartender. This is a feature that many of you have been asking about for years. EPICS V8 makes it possible.
- A new configuration setting has been added that allows bundle weights to be calculated automatically from actual weight or print weight. Downtime can now be posted directly from the Print New Tickets screen.
Tax Schedules
EPICS has always handled numerous tax situations, such as GST, VAT, PST, and State Sales Tax. But as more and more governments devised new schemes (such as a local tax on the first $5000) the tax setup within EPICS became more and more complex. EPICS V8 greatly simplifies the matter with a Tax Schedule table that allows you to create unique tax code groupings on a customer by customer basis.
New Billet calculation Features
The calculations for best billet length are now done automatically at time of order entry. This means that the workorder records contain billet lengths even before the workorders are printed, and therefore reports such at the Billet Requirements Report are much more valuable.
Numerous fields have been added to the DieCopy and Machine tables to refine workorder calculations.
In the DieCopy table, the new fields include:
MultiBillets - Maximum number of billets allowed for each runout for this copy
MinRunout - Minimum allowed runout length for this copy
MaxRunout - Maximum allowed runout length for this copy
MinBillet - Minimum allowed billet length to use for this copy
MaxBillet - Maximum allowed billet length to use for this copy
FrontScrap - Length of scrap required at head of each runout
RearScrap - Length of scrap required at tail of each runout
Zone1Temp, Zone2Temp, and Zone3Temp – either container or heater settings
In the Machine table, the following new fields are used to calculate the setting for a platen saw, or flying saw:
Platen Saw Minimum
Platen Saw Maximum
Platen Saw Increment
The Machine table also has a new Log Override field that allows non-shear presses to pull from log inventory. This will be of value to extruders who cut billets just prior to extrusion. Another new field allows setting of the shear increment for each press, not just a plant-wide value.
Importing new sales orders with a csv file
A new feature of EPICS V8 is the ability to import new sales order that are provided by your customers, or an outside sales staff. This process is simple to use and can be accomplished with a minimal amount of data (only five required fields). It will highlight invalid fields, and allow you to edit them through EPICS. We’ve also provided a feature that allows you to export any incorrect orders to another csv file that can then be reviewed by the necessary person(s) for correction.
Other new features in EPICS V8
The list of new features in EPICS V8 is extensive. But you may want to at least scan the following list to identify items in your area of interest. This list includes all changes since EPICS 2000.18.0, including those described above. More information on each item listed can be found in the EPICS Help file.
§
Don't show
inactive Parts on Order
Entry screen
§
Fixed bug when
trying to scroll after leaving the length or extruded length fields on frmPart.
§
Don't allow background graphics if
Network WallpaperFile=NONE
§
Modify EPICS licensing to permit
workstations with different date/time settings
§
Enhanced Shipping:
Allow scan to find only orders that have packed tickets available to ship.
§
Add file browser
to Report Maintenance
screen. Set EPICS report Description and Category directly from the Title and
Subject properties of new report files added.
§
Auto-calculate billet requirements when
new orders are posted
§
Add Platen Saw (Flying Saw)
settings to Machine table for extrusion presses:
o
Minimum saw
setting (min. distance from platen)
o
Maximum saw
setting (max. distance from platen)
o
Saw increment
(cutting precision of platen saw)
§
Add log-override
to Machine table to allow non-shear
presses to pull from log inventory
§
Add
ShearIncrement field to Machine table to specify precision of log shear for each press
§
Modify Machine
maintenance screen to include new fields listed above
§
Add frmMWO to
allow creation and maintenance of Master Workorders
§
Modify Workorder scan screen and
press schedule screen to make sure that all items from a master workorder are
scheduled and planned together
§
Add new extrusion
specification fields to DieCopy table that affect Workorder calculations:
o
MultiBillets -
Maximum number of billets allowed for each runout for this copy (default = 1)
o
MinRunout -
Minimum desired runout length for this copy (default = 0)
o
MaxRunout -
Maximum desired runout length for this copy (default = Machine.StrLen)
o
MinBillet -
Minimum desired billet length to use for this copy (default = Machine.MinBil)
o
MaxBillet -
Maximum desired billet length to use for this copy (default = Machine.MaxBil)
o
FrontScrap -
Length of scrap required at head of each runout (default = EndScrap/2)
o
RearScrap -
Length of scrap required at tail of each runout (default = EndScrap -
FrontScrap)
§
Add Zone1Temp,
Zone2Temp, and Zone3Temp fields to DieCopy to specify optimum temperatures
§
Modify DieCopy screen to create
Extrusion Specs. section to store new fields listed above
§
Add
FrontScrapAct, RearScrapAct, and MultiBillets fields to WorkorderCalc table
§
Add WorkorderCalc.BilReq to
store decimal billet requirements for each billet size (allows for more precise
consolidation of multiple small lots)
§
Revise Workorder calculations to
support platen saw, multi-billet runouts, min and max runout settings, min and
max billet settings, and front and rear scrap requirements.
§
Add Rack Maintenance screen.
Uses new Rack and RackDetail tables to track all production racks and their
contents.
§
Add Location
table to list of lookup tables: indicates where a production rack currently resides.
§
Add Category,
PullFromRackFlag, and OutToSameRackFlag to Dept table for use in new production screens
§
Add Advanced Production Data Collection
screen - allows input of all production data prior to packing. Includes tabs to
display the workorder and all racks available for each department. New screen supports production of master
workorders and input/output from/to racks.
§
Add "Scan
for Available Racks" tab to Print Packing Tickets screen. Add full support for
packing metal or adding to stock from production racks.
§
Add ability to
pull material from stock
inventory into a production rack
§
Add ability to
receive material from an outside
processor directly into a rack
§
Add support for Crystal Reports-based
rack tags using new production screens
§
Add
gPackingBTWSource to determine whether ticket format should come from Bill-To or Ship-To
customer
§
Permit auto-numbering
of Rack ID's when a 'RACK'
document is added to the NextNum table
§
Allow automatic
removal of Rack
ID's when a rack is empty
§
Permit receiving
metal from outside
processor directly to a packed ticket
§
Add Crystal XI Viewer with
full support of new features. EPICS now supports version 8.5, 9, and XI
reports. The Version 9 viewer is the default.
§
Support Crystal Reports-based
packing tickets
§
Add screen to import new sales orders
from a CSV file
§
Add Tax Schedules feature to
simplify tax calculations
§
Create configuration
category for Packing
Tickets - move packing production settings here
§
QBE: Warn user if
they have not filled in an example and query will return more than 1000 records
§
Add
gAllowButtIncrease to enable/disable increasing the Butt to prevent a double-drag
§
Add
gAllowReinstall to enable/disable automatic re-installation of EPICS
§
Allow removal of
user from active session list under SQL Server
§
Make sure that
all components of a master
ticket are shipped together
§
Add new screen to
import CSV file
data into EPICS database
§
Print New Packing Ticket screen
changes:
o
Add
gPackWtAutoCalculate to allow auto bundle wt calculations
o
Fix panel
displays for Scrap/Overage/etc.
o
Remove obsolete
Form Feed button if using Bartender
§
Show only bill-to
customers in right-click list of Customer Service Inquiry screen
§
Show only bill-to
customers in right-click list of Customer Part maintenance screen
§
Ask user if they
wish to add a copy
for a newly added die
§
Automatically set
StdCopyNum to first copy added for a Die with user confirmation
§
Fix runtime error
when adding a new die copy
and using an existing copy as basis for the new one
§
Add
"Save" button to the "Show All" screen to allow export of table data to a
text file
welcome to New EPICS Customers
In our last newsletter, we welcomed five new EPICS customers: ALDECA in
epics customers
On any given day
EPICS is helping over 10,000 people
at over 70 extrusion
plants around the world.
