The PC-Topp Instant Messages are now easier to use and their functionality has been made more useful.

PC-Topp now allows targeted messages!

So far, messages could only be broadcast to all PC-Topp users. Now, you can send a message to one or several other users, or for example to a conversion machine.

On PC-Topp's Post a Message page, just select a recipient in the list of all PC-Topp users, type your message, and click send - the message appears instantly on the other user's PC-Topp screen.

To send a message to several users, press Shift while you click on further user names, the message will be sent to all users that you highlight that way. If you still want to send a broadcast message, select "all users" as recipient.

New Reply Function Allows Easy Conversations

When a message appears, clicking "Reply" opens a message form with the right recipient already selected, just type your reply and send your message.

System Messages Inform All Users of Incidents on the PC-Topp System

As before, the PC-Topp System itself will generate messages when it finds incidents that threaten the stability of the system. For example, when a user just turns off his PC without first exiting from PC-Topp or otherwise "kills" a PC-Topp program, a message is sent to everybody to make it easy to locate the culprit.

Don't Forget to Delete Messages

PC-Topp will show messages until you reply to them or delete them, so please click "Delete" after reading a message if it is of no further interest to you. This ensures that you will immediately notice when a new message appears on your screen.

New Display Units

Work in progress has got two new display units (ready for viewing on http://demo.pctopp.com).

• 1000 m²
• New: hours (h) - the hours of work time made up by the orders in the storage area
• m³
• sheets
• pallets
• New: floor space (m²) - the area taken up by the palletized orders in the storage area

The units serve the following purposes:

	Display Unit	Comments
Unit	1000 m²	This is the most reasonable unit for displaying Corrugator outflow.
Calc.	sheet length * sheet width * no. of sheets
Use for	Corrugator
New Unit	Hours of work time (h)	Hours of work time waiting in intermediate storage is an interesting value to watch for each individual machine: You may want to avoid values that are too low as these machines risk running out of work if there is downtime in the upstream processes. Excessively high values must also be avoided to keep work in progress low. Therefore, it is possible to set both high and low warning levels for these values.
Calc.	run time (minus breaks) + setup time
Use for	Individual conversion machines
Unit	m³	m³ is probably the most useful indicator for the total work in progress waiting in front of a group of machines. To help maintain a low level of work in progress high warning levels can be set here.
Calc.	m² * board thickness
Use for	WIP (work in progress for the machines grouped in WIP)
Unit	Sheets	Sheets can also be used for the WIP group if you want to display the group's overall work in progress in single sheets (as opposed to m³). Here, too, high warning levels can be set.
Calc.	(no. of sheets)
Use for	WIP
Unit	Pallets	The unit "Pallets" is of interest regarding the conveyor to the strapping machine. It mirrors the inflow of goods from conversion in terms of a Shipping specific unit and allows estimating the work load waiting to be palletized. High warning levels make sense for Pallets, too, whereas there is no need for low warnings.
Calc.	no. of sheets / no. of sheets per pallet
Use for	Conveyor to the strapping machine
New Unit	Floor space (m²)	This unit may not be exactly suitable for the capacity of the storage holding semi-finished goods, but it might make sense to use it for the Finished Goods area. Note that the calculation does not take into account that forklift trucks can store several pallets on top of each other. Thus, this value is possibly only suitable for conveyor systems. In forklift operated environments, use m³ instead. Setting high warning levels for this area prevents the Finished Goods area from being crowded by too many pallets waiting to be shipped. Low warnings are superfluous.
Calc.	no. of pallets * pallet width * pallet length
Use for	Finished Goods

New Order Display

Order information can be accessed with a mouse click on a figure now like in Conversion Machine Scheduling and the TGV Machine Load. So now the user can check peaks of work in progress to see which orders can be re-scheduled to reduce work in progress. If one of the figures in a machine row is clicked a popup box displays the orders making up the work in progress for that machine at the selected point of time. The popup header shows the machine code the production date of the orders in the list the point of time reflected by the figure that was clicked, i. e. the point of time when the stock reached its maximum or minimum level (depending on the stock type selected) totals of the quantity in 1000 m² and m³, the work time and the number of pallets of all orders in the list All orders in the list that are not marked with a grey background can either be re-scheduled to a later production time on the preceding machine or run earlier than planned on the machine in question. (Orders with a grey background have already arrived in front of the machine and thus cannot be re-scheduled any more.) Like this, it has become significantly easier to systematically decrease peaks in work in progress.

The new PC-Topp.NET Sheets to Schedule page shows all sheet orders that must be scheduled for the corrugator, sorted by date so that the most urgent orders appear on the top of the list. The page is accessible via the PC-Topp main page or the Order page.

The new page is available for viewing on http://demo.pctopp.com.

An additional view for production times of the current shift has been added to the small Plant Overview on the PC-Topp.NET main page. Besides, the views have been reorganized to show more production information in a clearly structured way.

View 1, 2 and 3 show data of the current order, while view 4 and 5 give information on the current shift.

Current Order Data in View 1-3

While view 1 gives the current order's number and customer name, view 2 shows its production progress in terms of currently produced quantity, scheduled quantity, and speed.

View 3 displays performance figures * for setup, run and total production time of the current order.

Current Shift Data in View 4-5

View 4 displays performance *, average speed and totals of the current shift.
The new fifth view shows production times for the current shift, i. e. the total setup time, downtime and run time plus the work time. Additionally, a move of the mouse over the figures displays the percentage of the work time which they make up in white on a blue background.

For a quick overview of the five views see the table below:

View		Subject	Corrugator	Conversion
1		Current Order	Program number Board grade Roll size	Order number Customer name
2		Progress of current order	Current production (lineal meters) Scheduled meters Current speed (m / min)	Current production (sheets) Scheduled sheets Current speed (sheets / h)
3		Performance for current order	Performance during runtime Total Performance for this order (The corrugator performance figures will be available soon.)	Performance during setup Performance during runtime Total Performance for this order
4		Production figures for current shift	Performance * Average speed (m / min) Total produced lineal meters	Performance * Average speed (sheets / h) Total produced sheets
5		Production times of current shift	Total downtime Total run time Work time	Total setup time Total downtime Total run time Work time

*

Machine performance figures: Performance is given in percent, and 100% performance means that the actual setup and / or run time were exactly the same as the expected times. Values higher than 100% reflect better performance (e.g. 200% would mean that production took half as long as expected), values lower than 100% mean bad performance (50% would mean that production took twice as long).

So far only the PC-Topp Machine Terminal offered a way to record staff work time by pressing Come / Leave in the blue section of the menu. Now the new PC-Topp.NET Staff Time Registration Terminal allows the users to sign on or off on any PC on the network. The Staff Time Regstration screen is an Intranet (HTML) page, so that it can be accessed any PC.

The users can sign in at any machine (or for any activity), change to a different machine (or activity), and sign off again. And the procedure has been simplified to make the functionality easier to use. Moreover, an overview of all machines shows who is currently present at which machine.

The Staff Registration Terminal can be viewed and tested on http://demo.pctopp.com.

The small Plant Overview (on the PC-Topp.NET main menu page as well as the corrugator and conversion menu pages) visualizes order progress in more detail. The setup process is shown graphically now:

 

Beginning of Setup
	While a setup is in progress on a machine the expected setup time is marked dark yellow; a fine bright yellow line shows the end of the expected setup time.
During Setup
	Along with the setup progress the dark yellow setup time grows light yellow.
Setup Takes Longer than Expected
	As soon as the actual setup time extends beyond the expected setup time the extra time is represented by a green checkered area.
After End of Setup
	The light green area shows the actual setup time. Its width in relation to the yellow mark for the expected setup time shows if the setup has been just in time, early or late. The order progress is visualized by the dark green area which expands along with the growing number of produced sheets. Order progress is shown by quantity if a machine is equipped with a machine terminal and a counter. by time if a machine either has no machine terminal or a machine terminal and no counter.