SECTION I LAYOUT PLANNING I-1 GENERAL INFORMATION INPUT Selection number one of the main menu is for General Information File entry. This is where you enter the general information about your project. This information can then be used to head all the printouts that you call up in this program. There is also, other pertinent information not used in headers but necessary to document the project. The example below begins after selecting menu item number 1. Example: SCREEN KEYBOARD PRESS ------ -------- ----- 1. Create Facilities Information File 2. Review Facilities Information File 3. Edit Facilities Information File Enter 1,2,or 3:<1> 1 ENTER Enter your City and State: ANYTOWN USA* ENTER Enter your Facility name: MYPLANT ENTER Enter your Street address: 123 EASY ST. ENTER Enter today's date: 01/15/89 ENTER Enter your planner's name: I. M. PLANNING ENTER Enter your planner's telephone number: 202-726-5000 ENTER * On any input from the keyboard commas are not allowed. At this point you are given an opportunity to review or edit your input as seen in the next example. 1. Create Facilities Information File 2. Review Facilities Information File 3. Edit Facilities Information File Enter 1,2,or 3:<1> 2 ENTER I-2 SCREEN KEYBOARD PRESS ------ -------- ----- CITY/STATE: ANYTOWN USA FACILITY: MYPLANT ADDRESS: 123 EASY ST. DATE: 01/15/89 PLANNER: I. M. PLANNING TELEPHONE: 202-736-5000 =---> Press any key when ready <---= ANY KEY 1. Edit General Facilities Information File 2. Create Operations or Department Data File 3. Review Operations or Depa rtment Data File 4. Edit Operations or Department Data File Enter 1-4: At this point you are allowed the opportunity to edit the general information you have entered or go on in the program. We will look at selection 1, edit option next. 1. Edit General Facilities Information File 2. Create Operations or Department Data File 3. Review Operations or Department Data File 4. Edit Operations or Department Data File Enter 1-4: 1 ENTER 1. ANYTOWN USA 2. MYPLANT 3. 123 EASY ST. 4. 01/15/89 5. I. M. PLANNING 6. 202-736-5000 Which entry do you want to edit? Enter 1-6: 6 ENTER 1. ANYTOWN USA 2. MYPLANT 3. 123 EASY ST. 4. 01/15/89 5. I. M. PLANNING 6. 202-736-5000 Which entry do you want to edit? Enter 1-6:6 Retype Entry: 202-726-5000 ENTER I-3 SCREEN KEYBOARD PRESS ------ -------- ----- 1. ANYTOWN USA 2. MYPLANT 3. 123 EASY ST. 4. 01/15/89 5. I. M. PLANNING 6. 202-736-5000 Which entry do you want to edit? Enter 1-6:6 Retype Entry:202-726-5000 Do you want to edit another entry? Y/N: n * ENTER * You will note that on the Y/N inquiries, the inquiry is not case sensitive. We will not spend any more time with General Information, but will now move on to operations or department file creation. OPERATIONS OR DEPARTMENT INPUT In this section of the program, you will be asked to input more detailed operational data about the building under study. Ordinarily you aren't concerned with how many operations there are, but rather what they are. In this case you will need to know how many operations are in the building. We need to define an operation at this point. For purposes of this study, an operation is any function within the building, that has significant impact upon another function. This impact does not have to be flow of materials related. As an example, a lunch room or break area location has impact on all of the areas within the building, and yet these areas have nothing to do with the flow of materials through the over all operation. The point to keep in mind when developing the count of your operations, is that the support operations need consideration also. Since the file that you are generating now, will be used for generating from/to pairs of operations in both flow and non flow considerations, your list needs to be expansive enough to include all significant impact areas. Some areas that might be missed are: Administration, Customer Service, Data Collection, Engineering, Garage, Maintenance, Timekeeping, Quality Control, etc.. While this list is not intended to be all inclusive it should begin to direct your thoughts to areas of non flow . After you have input the number of operations to be considered the program will automatically set up that many records. The program will next query you to fill each field within those records. If you want flexibility in your file, you might consider adding a couple of nul records to your file for future operations or operation splits. To do this, increase your count by 2, and when queried beyond your list fill the 2 remaining records with nul values by pressing successive enters to the end. The program then will generate from/to pairs of operations to be used throughout the balance of the study. Below is an example of the procedure. I-4 EXAMPLE: SCREEN KEYBOARD PRESS ------ -------- ----- Enter the number of operations for this file: 22 ENTER Enter depart ment or operation name (Up to 30 char.): RCVG DOCK ENTER Enter dept. or op. number (Up to 4 char.): R210 ENTER Enter square footage required (No commas,up to 5 char.): 950 ENTER Enter floor assigned to dept. or op. (2 char.): 1 ENTER The procedure repeats until all 22 records are filled. In this example assuming we had 20 operations in our list, we then would have 2 blank records for flexibility. Please note the number of characters allowed in each field, as shown within the parentheses on each query. As in General Information the same procedures apply for review and edit (see page I-8). We will now proceed into Flow of Materials. FLOW OF MATERIALS INPUT The concept of flow of materials between operations is universally understood. People don't have much difficulty understanding that a tree is felled, and trimmed of it's branches, before it is transported to the saw mill. At the saw mill it is trimmed of it's bark, cut to rough dimensions and smoothed to final dimensions. The flow of material continues until it becomes a roof over our heads or a chair that we sit on. That part of the concept is easy to understand but, what about comparison of two or three different types of materials? Let's say in the example above that we are building a house. Let's only consider 2 x4's and nails. A fair tree might produce 50 2x4's. So for 1,000 2x4's to be transported in the form of trees, possibly 7 truckloads would be involved. Yet, in finished form, only 5 truckloads are required for the 2x4's. Along the same lines 1,000 nails could be transported easily in an MG. You say it isn't possible to compare flows of different materials because of the difference size, shape, ease of handling,etc.. To compare strictly by volume isn't right, consider the 2x4's I-5 versus the nails. The answer can be seen in the example above. Equity between flows can be accomplished when we do a trip analysis of each flow, and compare trips required to transport the volumes. In the flow of materials portion of the program the trip analysis is accomplished through the use of Flow Intensity Factors. These factors are developed through analysis of your containers abilities to move a standard volume a standard distance. Since we are only interested in relative trends, in most cases, an empirical approach to development of the factors will be adequate. If your organization has special needs for exacting development of mag counts through methods time measurement, then you can develop your container file independently of the program, leaving room to develop special containers at the end of the file. This file then can be installed in C:\ALPS as CTR.DTA. You will also need a file called CTRCT.DTA, which contains your container count. If you need assistance in this area please contact ALPS Software. You need only develop your container file once. For this reason, the program has a query safe-guard built in to avoid accidental erasure of this file. A wise procedure would be to keep a floppy disk or tape back-up of these files as well as all others. This one area is extremely important in all computer operations, and probably is the most neglected. It isn't just the power failures that destroy files. Be aware. After the container file is in place, the program walks you through operation pair by operation pair, asking for volumes and major containers. When this query procedure is completed, the program calibrates the pairs, based on the flow intensity unit ( volume times the flow intensity factor). To this calibrated list an affinity value is applied to each operation pair. In Table 1 below you will see the affinity values and their meanings. These values remain in place throughout the program until they are reversed to become compatible with the SPACE (R) program. Table 2 shows those values. During calibration you are shown a counter to help you evaluate how fast the calibration is progressing. With some experience you might be able to forecast how long the calibration will take. An example of this procedure is given below. EXAMPLE: SCREEN KEYBOARD PRESS ------ -------- ----- 1. GENERAL FACILITIES INFORMATION FILE 2. OPERATION OR DEPARTMENT DATA FILE 3. FLOW OF MATERIALS ANALYSIS FILE 4. OTHER THAN FLOW ANALYSIS FILE 5. FIU/MAG COUNT FILE 6. QUIT ENTER CHOICE 1 THROUGH 6:<1> 5 ENTER I-6 SCREEN KEYBOARD PRESS ------ -------- ----- DO YOU NEED TO CREATE YOUR FIU/MAG FILE? Y/N: Y ENTER 1. Create FIU/MAG File 2. Review FIU/MAG File 3. Edit FIU/MAG File Enter 1,2,or 3: 1 ENTER In this section you will be asked to enter your containers used in the flow of materials, by name and full piece capacity, from the highest capacity per trip down to the lowest capacity per trip. =---> Press any key when ready <---= ANY KEY Enter the number of containers for this file: 12 ENTER Enter the highest capacity container name (up to 8 char.): WIDGCART ENTER Enter the highest capacity container capacity when full: 26500 ENTER Enter container name other than highest capacity: GIZCART ENTER Enter that container's capacity: 22275 ENTER This procedure is repeated until all 12 records are filled. Again, if you have, say 10 containers, it is wise to allow room for some special containers. Everybody seems to improvise when it comes to transporting materials. The review procedure can be accessed from outside the FIU section, but still forces entrance to creation routine through the protection query. Each time an operation pair is considered for volume your container list is shown on screen so that container selection is by number. There are several ways that review occurs. I-7 Editing is performed just like in the General Information section. The only difference between the General Information edit and subsequent edits is the presence of more than one record. Because of this subsequent edits include queries to allow browsing, record by record, or going directly to a specific record number. Not only is this procedure at the top of the routine but also at the end, after an affirmative answer has been given to the question, "Do you want to edit another record. _____________________________________________________________ AFFINITY VALUES _____________________________________________________________ Affinity Operation Pair Used in Flow/ Value Closeness Required Non Flow Studies 4 Absolute Both 3 Essential Both 2 Important Both 1 Ordinary Close OK Both 0 Unnecessary Both -2 Undesirable Non Flow -4 Extremely Undesired Non Flow ____________________________________________________________ Table 1 ____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ SPACE AFFINITY VALUES _____________________________________________________________ Affinity Operation Pair Used in Flow/ Value Closeness Required Non Flow Studies 1 Absolute Both 2 Essential Both 3 Important Both 4 Ordinary Close OK Both 5 Unnecessary Both -7 Undesirable Non Flow -10 Extremely Undesired Non Flow ____________________________________________________________ Table 2 ____________________________________________________________ As has been said previously, the creation of the flow of materials file is dependent on the from/to file of operations previously developed and the container file. In this routine you will be asked for volumes between pairs. It is highly recommended that you use the average daily volume developed from the 12 months immediately preceding. In this manner you will average seasonal trends, and have your most current statistics. In any case, you should use the most reliable data that you have. The procedure is straight forward. I-8 EXAMPLE: SCREEN KEYBOARD PRESS------ -------- ----- 1. GENERAL FACILITIES INFORMATION FILE 2. OPERATION OR DEPARTMENT DATA FILE 3. FLOW OF MATERIALS ANALYSIS FILE 4. OTHER THAN FLOW ANALYSIS FILE 5. FIU/MAG COUNT FILE 6. QUIT ENTER CHOICE 1 THROUGH 6:<1> 3 ENTER FROM: RCVG DOCK TO: PROCESS 1 ENTER AVG. VOLUME BETWEEN THE PAIR (000): 200 ENTER 1. WIDGCART 2. GIZCART ENTER MAJOR CONTAINER BETWEEN PAIRS: 1 ENTER This procedure continues through the from/to list of operations. The next thing that happens is the calibration routine mentioned earlier. The screen you will see is shown below. CALIBRATING FLOW XX PASSES MADE * PLEASE WAIT CALIBRATION COMPLETE ** * The XX in the passes made line is a counter inserted to allow some measurement of progress. ** When the calibration is complete, the computer will beep twice and display this message. Having completed the flow calibration we are now ready to move into the area of other than flow of materials. This is the last data file that requires entry from you in this program. It has the most difficult concept to master of the entire program. Most managers, when asked to describe reasons for two operations to be close, have difficulty thinking of other than flow of materials reasons for that closeness. The reason that this is true, is that they are flow or results oriented. Their performance is measured by their productivity. They equate productivity to output only, and lose sight of the fact that the productivity measure is really a measure of the efficiency of their operations. There are internal factors, that are rarely if ever considered, that influence the efficiency of a pair of I-9 operations that have nothing to do with flow. Getting a manager who is `locked' in on flow to recognize this fact is difficult. In this procedure you are required to get input from your line managers, as to how the operations should be close for other than flow of materials reasons. To assist you in steering your managers away from flow thought to other than flow thought, the following list of reasons is provided. This list is not intended to be all inclusive, but is given as only a starting place. Sharing: Equipment Personnel Special Utilities Special Environments Timeliness Communications Supervision These are all reasons that two operations should be close to each other. Some reasons why they should be separated are listed below. Contamination Dust Dirt Noise Safety Security You should make a list of reasons for guidance of your managers. This list must make sense within the framework of your organization for it to receive acceptance from your managers. Each manager that you ask to give other than flow input should be given a list of operation pairs, that has room on it for ratings and the reasons for the ratings. Along with this they should be given the guidance list of reasons mentioned above. The manager should be encouraged to work independently of other managers. Indicate that you value his judgement, and are not after a committee judgement. In this way you can average the viewpoints from all aspects of the total operation. It is wise to get input from second level managers also. Their viewpoints should tend to reflect a less provincial scope and have a more integrating effect, than the first level managers. Each manager should be encouraged to make two passes through the list. The first pass should be to just identify the pairs, that in fact, have an affinity for each other. In this pass, when a pair is identified, the reasons for closeness should be noted. The second pass, then, is for evaluating the reasons, and quantifying this evaluation into a rating. It is apparent that not all pairs can be absolutely close together. In the flow of materials routine a proper mix of affinities of varying intensity is maintained automatically. Here, however, it falls upon human input to maintain the proper mix. Table 3 shows the ratings and the ideal mix between the positive rated pairs. I-10 _____________________________________________________________ AFFINITY VALUES _____________________________________________________________ Affinity Operation Pair Used in Flow/ % +RATED Value Closeness Required Non Flow Studies PAIRS 4 Absolute Both 10 3 Essential Both 20 2 Important Both 30 1 Ordinary Close OK Both 40 0 Unnecessary Both -2 Undesirable Non Flow -4 Extremely Undesired Non Flow ____________________________________________________________ Table 3 ____________________________________________________________ This routine allows you to input and average four managers forms. If you have more than four managers submitting forms, then you will have to perform some manual computations before input. You should keep in mind, that if you don't handle the manual computations properly, you can introduce bias into your study. An example of this would be: You have 12 forms and you average 9 of them so that they can be input as 1 of the 4 inputs. What has happened in this case is the 9 forms averaged have been reduced from 75% of the weight in the total vote to 25%. The proper way to handle this situation, and exert less energy is to total the 9 forms for input as 1, and when asked how many forms you have enter 12. The correct average will then occur. One other area that you will need to have an answer ready for is, where does this total operation fit on the PQ ( Product Quantity ) distribution curve? If quantity is high with few products then a production line opportunity exists. On the other hand, if there are a lot of products with low quantity then a job shop situation exists. The areas on the curve between these two extremes indicate modified production line, to lined up process departments, to group production, running from low product high quantity to high product low quantity. Based on your view of your total operation, you will weight the value of other than flow ratings, when they are combined with flow. A rule of thumb to use is seen below in Table 4. I-11 _____________________________________________________________ P Q Curve Determinations _____________________________________________________________ P Q Enter OTF Area OTF Ratio Value Product Quantity PRODUCTION LINE 5 1/5 LOWEST HIGHEST MOD. PROD. LINE 4 1/4 MIDLOW MIDHIGH LINED PROCESS DEPT. 3 1/3 MID MID GROUP PRODUCTION 2 1/2 MIDHIGH MIDLOW JOB SHOP 1 1 HIGHEST LOWEST ____________________________________________________________ Table 4 ____________________________________________________________ EXAMPLE: SCREEN KEYBOARD PRESS ------ -------- ----- 1. GENERAL FACILITIES INFORMATION FILE 2. OPERATION OR DEPARTMENT DATA FILE 3. FLOW OF MATERIALS ANALYSIS FILE 4. OTHER THAN FLOW ANALYSIS FILE 5. FIU/MAG COUNT FILE 6. QUIT ENTER CHOICE 1 THROUGH 6:<1> 4 ENTER The program will average up to four other than flow forms for you. You will be asked how many forms you have to average and then will be given an opportunity to enter the ratings from each form, operation pair by operation pair. If you have less than four forms, or the operation pair in question has no rating, simply press Enter to pass. Your ratings should be 4= Absolute closeness, 3= Essential closeness, 2= Important closeness, 1= Ordinary closeness,-2= Closeness undesired, -4= Closeness Extremely undesired. =---> Press any key when ready <---= ANY KEY ENTER THE OTF PORTION OF FLOW/OTF RATIO (1 TO ?): SCREEN KEYBOARD PRESS ------ -------- ----- 4 ENTER ENTER THE NUMBER OF FORMS YOU HAVE: 2 ENTER I-12 SCREEN KEYBOARD PRESS ------ -------- ----- FROM: RCVG DOCK TO: PROCESS 1 ENTER THE FIRST FORM RATING BETWEEN THE PAIR: 4 ENTER FROM: RCVG DOCK TO: PROCESS 1 ENTER THE FIRST FORM RATING BETWEEN THE PAIR:4 ENTER THE SECOND FORM RATING BETWEEN THE PAIR: 3 ENTER FROM: RCVG DOCK TO: PROCESS 1 ENTER THE FIRST FORM RATING BETWEEN THE PAIR:4 ENTER THE SECOND FORM RATING BETWEEN THE PAIR:3 ENTER THE THIRD FORM RATING BETWEEN THE PAIR: ENTER FROM: RCVG DOCK TO: PROCESS 1 ENTER THE FIRST FORM RATING BETWEEN THE PAIR:4 ENTER THE SECOND FORM RATING BETWEEN THE PAIR:3 ENTER THE THIRD FORM RATING BETWEEN THE PAIR: ENTER THE FOURTH FORM RATING BETWEEN THE PAIR: ENTER This procedure is repeated until all of the from/to pairs have been completed. At that point the program automatically starts combining flow and other than flow rankings, and then calibrates them. A message comes on screen stating: CALIBRATING FLOW/SERVICE Upon completion of this calibration you are brought back to a menu option where you can review the flow and other than flow affinities. OBTAINING PRINTOUTS When you elect to obtain printouts you will be given a menu option to select printouts for: General Facility Information Operation or Department Information Container Information Flow of Materials Information Other than Flow of Materials Information Combined Flow/OTF Information Combined Flow/OTF Information SPACE Format Other than Flow Blank Survey Form I-13 You are given the option to set your paper before print. You are asked if you want an automatic page feed before printing. In order to get the menu you will be instructed to type 2 and press enter. This will obtain the printout program for you. I-14