Stretching out Start/End Dates for WO Operations

I have a requirement to have a WO operation that will take a short amount of time to complete, but I'd like the scheduled start date to be about 2 weeks earlier than it usually would be using the traditional backscheduling. For instance, if the operation run time is 0.5 hours, the start and end date would be the same, say 12/30/05. What I would like is for the operation still to have 0.5 hours, but have the start date set to 12/16/05 and an end date of 12/30/05. This would give better visibility to what's coming up for the WC to work on. It's almost like I need an "internal queue time" parameter -- any ideas on how I could accomplish this?

DSauve:
Please try defining level lead time of the item br./plnt as 15 days, if you have only one operation. You can still have 0.5 hrs in the routing.
Thanks,

Sathish,

Thank you for your suggestion. I tried it, but unfortunately it didn't help. This is a manufactured item, and I believe that for scheduling a manufactured item, it uses the leadtime per unit times the quantity plus the queue hours.

Your suggestion did prompt me to look into using machine hours (even though we've never used them before), and I found that if I changed the Prime Load code on the WC from a B (Run Labor and Setup Labor) to a C (Setup Labor and Machine Hours), that I could then enter in machine hours on the routing, and this would then spread the dates apart. Unfortunately, most of our routings already have run labor and setup labor, so I can't just ignore the run labor. Thus, the "C" Prime Load code won't work for us.

Don,
I would'a thought Sathish's suggestion would have worked better for you. When you keyed in the level leadtime, you would also need to make the item's fixedvariableleadtime flag to be F instead of V. This still may not be what you're after if your routing has more than one op; as you will wind up with all ops starting on the WO start date, all ops ending on the WO complete date, with no stagger in between.

Hi DSauve:

It worked for me. I am attaching the work order print out. Please check the start and end date of the work order operation. Please check whether you can replicate this.

PS: I have only one operation for the item

Thanks,
Sathish Kumar B

Sathish,

Unfortunately for the case I have, the WO will have probably 5-6 routing steps.

Don

Don,

You can have multiple no. of operations and the behaviour will be the same, as long as you fix your level lead time.

I always prefer to separate the work-arounds and make it simple so that it will be easy for the end users to identify and address any issues with less efforts in future, if in trouble. That is the reason why I suggested single operation.

Thanks,

Sathish,

Thank you.