A product is the physical result of combining different elements and processes to effectively satisfy market demands or consumer needs. It involves designing, manufacturing, and assembling various components to convert raw materials into finished goods.
To create a new product to manufacture:
- Go to Warehouse and select Products.
- You will be taken to the Products Panel. On the top right, look for the Create Product button and click it.
- A new window will appear. Here, you can add vital information about this product, such as its name and the code to identify it.
- On current stock, you inform the AI if you have this product available. Unit is how you can measure this product in case you have availability in the warehouse.
- On Product Type, you select between Product or Material. Then, you can add a brief description and choose if this product is Active (you still produce this product in your company) or not check this box if it is disabled.
- When you have finished, click Save.
- On the right side of your product panel, you will see a new option to add the process to manufacture this product. Click on Add process step.
- A new dropdown menu will appear. Here, you can select the process steps needed to manufacture this product. Add each process step one by one.
- When all the process steps have been listed, it is time to edit these according to the product. Look for the Gear icon on the first process step and click on it.
- A new window will appear in which you can edit this process step.
- You can select the box “Split job across multiple workstations” if you desire that this process can be carried out in different production resources.
- You can add or quit specific workstations in which this job can take action and select the calculation method you will use:
Time/Piece: This option indicates the time per piece to manufacture. Time can be in hours, minutes, and seconds.
Pieces/Time: This indicates how many pieces you create per hour, minutes, or seconds.
Fixed Time: This option refers to the specific duration required to complete a step under standard conditions. Fixed time remains constant regardless of the quantity or type of items being processed simultaneously.
An easy example is a bakery with an oven capable of baking 50 croissants per hour. Now, if the bakery receives an order for 20 croissants, despite the smaller quantity, it still takes the same amount of time to bake them all—1 hour. This unchanging baking duration, regardless of the number of croissants, illustrates the concept of fixed time in manufacturing processes.
- When you have selected your time calculation method, fill in the information needed. In this case, we will say that it takes 1 hour to produce 500 pieces of this product.
- Then, you have the options of Setting time and Teardown.
Setting time is the duration required for a machine to prepare before starting a job, such as job preparation or changing a tool on the production machine. In SkyPlanner, you can adjust this by hour, minutes, or seconds. In this example, we will inform the AI that it takes 10 minutes to set up the workstation.
Teardown is the duration that must pass after a job before the next work phase can begin, like paint drying or internal logistics. In this case, we will inform the AI that it takes 20 minutes.
You will also see the Minimum degree of manufacturing option. This intelligent feature of the SkyPlanner application allows the next production step to begin when the preceding step has reached a certain degree of completion.
For example, the packaging process can begin when the previous step, like assembly, is 10% complete. This boosts the entire production process, reduces downtime, and enables optimal resource use.
If you want to use this option, the teardown time must be zero, then you can slide the bar to any percentage; in this example, we selected 25.
- Then, we can add some job instructions or attachments like blueprints.
- Finally, we can click Save.
- We repeat this procedure with each process step because even if a job is going to use the same workstation, the product is different and has its own processes, times, and rules.
- After you have finished editing all the process steps, your product will be ready to be produced and will appear on the Product Option when you create an Order Item.