Pull planning means that orders are scheduled on the first conversion machine before they get scheduled on the corrugator. Such orders used to be marked with a yellow dot where otherwise the corrugator finishing time would appear.

That yellow dot has been replaced by three new icons which tell the planner not just that the order isn't scheduled but also in which part of the corrugator schedule it will have to go to be produced in time.

	-	This is what the old yellow icon used to be: It says that the order is not in Program Memory. There is time enough to produce it after the end of the current corrugator schedule.
	-	The yellow icon indicates that the order will need to be integrated into the corrugator program that is being prepared: It must be integrated somewhere in between the un-numbered programs that are already in Program Memory.
	-	The orange icon says that the order must be inserted into the schedule that is currently at the corrugator, as it must be finished at a time before the end of the current schedule (before the end of the last program with a program number).

Each order in PC-Topp has a due date. An order is considered on time when it is ready for delivery on that date.

So far, that was the case if the order was finished on the last machine at any time on the given production day. However, in most plants the production day ends at the end of night shift, in the morning of the following date: Thus, an order was still 'on time' when in fact it could be delivered only the day after the Due Date.

This has been changed: We can set an installation parameter that specifies a more realistic time by which the order must be finished on its due date, for example 5 p.m. (Please contact us to make that change on your system!)

Specifying a Finishing Time for Individual Orders

Independently, it is now also possible to send a finishing time for individual orders in the Order Data Transfer. PC-Topp will use that time as the target time, and will signal that an order is late if that time is not met by its schedule.

In Corrugator Scheduling, PC-Topp used to always propose the 'normal' roll sizes, according to the corrugator settings. Now it is possible to have the right paper size appear automatically for Pre-Print grades, or other grades that are only available on certain particular paper sizes.

Go to the Board Grade Settings page and select a pre-print grade. You will find a set of new fields on the bottom of the page where you can define the correct roll size for this grade. Once you save the new settings, Optimisation will automatically propose the right roll size when you schedule that grade.

In the past, many customers wanted to be able to attach comments to breaks etc. in the Machine Timetable. We have now implemented a functionality that lets them do that, and that can also be put to use in many other ways.

The new comments can be attached to any day in a machine's timetable and appear on top of the corresponding day in Conversion Machine Scheduling. Thus they can explain why a machine is open (or closed) on that day, draw attention to the fact that the shift ends 2 hours later (see also Improved Machine Timetable), but they can just as well be used for general reminders, information on personnel, or a comment on a particular order on that day's schedule.

To enter a comment, click on the Timetable icon of that day in Conversion Machine Scheduling. You can use the feature to attach a remark to a particular break or order by clearly specifying it in the comment, e.g.: "09:00-09:30: Maintenance of feed unit!"

The comments will slowly find their way also into other pages where information is organized by day.