Due to their pink background color, orders flagged as "Forbidden" by Planning or Sales clearly stand out in the machine schedule of the PC‑Topp.NET Conversion Machine Scheduling page. As of now, you can spot orders flagged as "Suspended" by Planning or Sales more easily, too: They are displayed with a pink order number.

• Machine operators can closely monitor corrugator production without having to stay next to the machine controls.
• No matter where the members of the machine crew are working, everybody can see in advance when the next change of flute type, board grade etc. is due so the team can better prepare for a smooth transition.
• Everybody at the corrugator is immediately alerted to downtimes.
• Supervisors and all staff at the machine can effortlessly get information on corrugator performance with just a glance at the overhead display at all times, without having to leave their workstation.

Customizable Range of Production Figures

There is a wide scope of production information available for displaying with the new feature. The figures and texts to be shown can be easily personalized according to customers’ needs. Some possibilities would be:

• Production Figures of the Current Shift, e.g.
  
  • Current speed
  • Program number, board grade, roll size, flute
  • Total meters produce and average meters per minute for the current run and shift respectively
  • A forecast of meters to produce until the next change of board grade, roll size, or flute type
  • Shift duration
• Production Figures of Previous Shifts
  
  • Shift duration, total meters produced, average meters per minute
• Current Order
  • Order number
  • Customer name
  • Sheet size
  • Quantity
• Downtime or Off-Line Alerts
• Freely Configurable Messages

The displayed information can optionally be toggled in certain intervals, e.g. from production times to produced and scheduled quantities or other information of interest, or even between production figures and announcements or text messages for special occasions like visitors in the plant etc. The interface is available both in portrait and in landscape format.

How to Get the New Extra Large Display

Basically, all you need is a license, an idea of what you want to display, and a large screen. So if you are interested in taking advantage of the new possibilities provided by this functionality, please get in touch with us:

Contact the PC-Topp Team

As of now you can sign in at a machine right at the Multi Machine Terminal without deviation to the Staff Time Registration page.

On the Corrugator Control page the sign in functionality has been added as well (Personnel tab).

PC‑Topp’s calculation basis for estimating order end time has been improved. Basically this means that for calculating an order’s speed we have modified how PC‑Topp allows for downtimes during an order’s production.

In the past, the system used to take into account every downtime, regardless of its length, for order end calculation. Therefore long downtimes during an order’s production lead to an unrealistically long expected order duration.

To improve this, the following changes have been made:

• Mini downtimes are always taken into account.
• For all other downtimes a maximum duration can be specified in the DataSet Parameters.
  • Downtimes exceeding this maximum duration are ignored for calculating order end times.
  • For downtimes below the maximum you can specify which type of downtime should be taken into account for calculating order end times (order, machine, or operator related).

(By default, the maximum downtime duration is 30 minutes, and only order related downtimes are taken into account.)

This change helps estimating order end times in a more realistic way.

The PC-Topp statistics page now contains a new report called “Corrugator Production by Board Grade and Roll Size” in the section Corrugator > Production Statistics. This report gives you an overview of the corrugator production of the selected period by flute type, board grade and roll size. The production totals per board grade are broken down by roll size.

• Production History Data
  PC-Topp uses production history data for calculating article specific speed and waste under the following conditions:
  • In the Article Configuration the article history is enabled,
  • There is production history data available for this article,
  • There are no article specific settings.
  Using history data for calculating the orders’ speed and target quantity offers significant advantages:
  • Differences in the production of individual articles are allowed for.
  • Corrugator Scheduling gets more precise because it can take real production data into account.
• Article Specific Settings
  If there is no history data available for the article PC-Topp checks whether this option is set. It can be used for difficult articles to enter speed and waste figures derived from practical experience.
• Machine Specific Settings
  If there are neither history data nor article specific settings for the article then PC-Topp falls back on the machine specific settings. (Machine specific  waste is defined under “Calculation of Target Quantity” on the Machine Settings page.)

As of now any application that can access the PC-Topp SQL Server database can print bar codes. The first example of this new option is the new PC-Topp.NET corrugator material list. It is now available as a Crystal report in a standard as well as a personalized version that supports bar codes.

The new material list displays the actual program sequence, i.e. the sequence at the corrugator (not the sequence in Program Memory). Much like the classical material list but in a clearer structure, both versions of the PDF material list show

• The required quantities per program and paper code in meters and kilograms, organized by outside liner resp. single facer,
• The total quantity to produce per flute type,
• The roll size distribution per paper.

If subsequent programs require the same paper and roll size on the same single facer then the required quantity for this paper code is totalled in the first program where this paper is used.

Additionally, the personalized extended version of the new material list supports paper bar codes for reading with a bar code scanner. The paper bar codes are displayed next to the respective paper codes in a large font size so they are easily scannable with a pistol bar code reader.

Just as you can select programs for printout on the Corrugator Control page you can also mark one or more orders to have their job cards printed out in PDF format (via the new button Print Order button in the Action section).

Comments entered for programs in Program Memory are now displayed in the Queue tab of the PC-Topp.NET Corrugator Control page.

The slider for marking the number of days with medium resp. low priority orders to take into account in Automatic Optimisation now has two additional markers showing the number of days preset for the flute type in question in the Optimisation Parameters.

Moreover, if you change the slider settings to override the Optimisation Parameter settings the system will remember them for 5 minutes.

The Production Progress Report which is available for the  conversion machines and the corrugator gives an overview of production speed and efficiency by machine including graphical representations for at-a-glance information.

AS of now, PC-Topp can also handle quadruple flutes.

As of now, shift times and downtime reasons can be entered in the Corrugator Control page.

The Board Grade Upgrade Summary shows all board grades by flute type including up- and downgrades, with data on quantity and cost, and totals by flute type.

The conversion machine schedules as well as the list of internal complaints and the paper stock are available as PDF files for easy printout.

This new PDF report offers comprehensive data on production and speed of corrugator and conversion machines for each day of the selected week, with week totals.

The PC-Topp Corrugator Scheduling page looks a little different now: Next to each grade there appears a percentage plus two new buttons.

A closer look reveals that the percentage equals the trim result of Optimisation, provided the automatically preselected orders are left unchanged. In effect, PC-Topp tells you up front what result Optimisation will show:

	Good results are shown on a green background.
	Bad results appear red.

The primary interest for the planner is that he can concentrate on the difficult grades, i.e. the bad results, from the start. Once those grades are done, the remaining ones will be easy.

In effect, if he wants to, the planner can use the arrow button next to a good result to transfer it to Program Memory without going through Optimisation. And if he is happy with all remaining results, he can transfer them all at once by clicking on the arrow button on the top of the page.

The pre-calculated results use the white must orders and blue optional orders of the days preset for the grade's flute type in the Optimisation Parameters page (in the Settings menu). Manual changes of the preset number of days with blue orders (with the slider) are taken into account by the pre-optimisation. But you have to press the Recalculate button to see how this will affect trim.

Red icons appearing in front of the optimisation result warn you if any of the orders selected for optimisation have been ignored or only partially scheduled.

	The optimisation result will lead to leftover medium priority orders.
	The optimisation result contains partially scheduled low priority orders.

Whenever the orders of a grade change, the pre-optimisation automatically reassesses the situation and displays a new result. In particular, this can mean that - when you use upgrades to solve a problem on one (red) grade, a previously green result will turn red. (Grey results show that PC-Topp is aware that the previously calculated result must change, but a new result hasn't been calculated yet.)

On the Corrugator Scheduling page, the first column in front of today's orders shows programs waiting in Program Memory (usually in 1000 m²) for the corresponding grade. A dark yellow background indicates that those programs already have a starting time and program number, while a lighter background shows new schedules that are not tied and numbered yet.

A click on that field shows details on those schedules, and lets you recall some or all of them. (Of course, care must be taken not to recall schedules where production is imminent or has already started.

When a grade you are about to schedule shows such a number, then recalling the existing schedules and doing optimisation for all orders together will give a better overall result in most cases. After a recall, the pre-calculated result will change after a short time to reflect the changed situation.

Board Grade and Trim Statistics

The Crystal report “Board Grade and Trim Statistics” lists production data on board grades by flute type. It shows production totals as well trim and average roll size within the selected date range for each grade, flute type, and roll size.

Separate summaries by flute type and roll size are additionally illustrated by pie charts.

The new report doesn’t show upgrade cost, like the classical report does. For analyzing upgrades, a new report will be available allowing more detailed analysis.

 

Corrugator Production by Day

This report shows production totals separate by shift for each day in the month (or other selected periods).

 

Corrugator Speed by Flute Type

The reports starts with a graphical view of day by day production speed for each flute type for a month, following by the underlying figures for each day.

Paper Requirements by Roll Size and Week

The new Crystal report “Paper Requirements by Roll Size and Week” substitutes the classical report “Paper Requirements by Weeks”. It calculates the amount of paper required to produce all orders remaining to be scheduled on the corrugator.

The Crystal paper requirements report offers more reliable forecasts because it takes into account paper consumption data of the past: The distribution of the required amount of a particular paper over the different roll sizes is now based on the data of the same week in the previous year, in order to correctly reflect seasonal influences. (If there is no data available for that week in the previous year, then the last three months are taken as calculation base.)

 

Paper Consumption by Roll Size

The second new Crystal report "Paper Consumption by Rollsize" takes the place of the classical "Paper Consumption List".

Like the classical report it lists the consumption figures during a selectable period of the past for all papers, as well as their distribution over the available roll sizes. What is new is the nicer and clearer layout plus the fact that, like all Crystal reports, the report can easily be emailed as it is provided as a PDF.

Better User Interface, New Options

The PC‑Topp.NET Downtime Causes page combines breakdown causes, scheduled downtimes and internal complaints plus the freshly introduced downtime category "Machine Shutdown Reasons" in a single page. The downtime categories can be selected via the tabs at the page top.

This is what sets apart the four different categories:

Breakdowns	Downtimes caused by machine breakdowns	Breakdowns count as work time and thus reduce the average speed of the machine or the order during which they occur.
Scheduled Downtimes and Breaks	Planned downtimes	Like breaks in the machine timetable these downtimes do not count as work time and thus don't reduce the average speed of the machine or the order during which they occur.
New: Machine Shutdowns	Causes to explain why the machine is closed for a shift, a part of a shift or a longer period of time.	No effect on production times as shutdowns are periods when the machine is closed in the machine timetable.
Internal Complaints	Causes to explain why a machine runs more slowly than normal	No effect in production statistics

Like before, the causes in each category are broken down by groups. It is easy to create new groups and downtime causes, or to edit entries.

Flags for Breakdown Causes

For the breakdown causes you can now say whether the downtime is machine related, or order or crew related. Note that any combination of those flags is possible.

These flags are not evaluated in most PC-Topp reports, except that some statistics show downtime totals grouped by these flags. However, they are available in PC‑Topp's SQL Server database and can be used in personalized reports.

Like before, you can say which downtime causes are supposed to appear on each machine, to exclude causes that don't apply. However, this "filtering" still needs to be done in the "classical" Downtime Causes program (DOS).

A more detailed explanation of the effect each kind of downtime cause has on the calculation of production times in PC‑Topp is available in the news entry Calculation of PC Topp Times for Statistics Explained

The Corrugator Control page fulfills two main purposes:

In the corrugator control room it functions as the online connection between corrugator and Planning. The Corrugator Control page lets the corrugator operator transfer runs to the Dry End controller and change the run sequence while keeping Program Memory and Dry End controller synchronized.

Furthermore, the Corrugator Control page lets the corrugator crew print out a variety of production documents like corrugator programs, cutting and material lists or pallet labels right at the machine.

Elsewhere in the plant, e.g. at the Wet End, the Corrugator Control page allows printing corrugator schedules and material requirements but without the possibility to make sequence changes or to transfer runs to the Dry End controller.

More Control for the Corrugator Crew, Program Memory Always Up to Date

The Corrugator Control Page changes PC-Topp's approach to the link between Planning and the corrugator: Originally, the On-line Link program was run on a PC in the planning office. When new schedules were ready, the planners used it to transfer them to the corrugator.

Now, the Corrugator Control Page is used by the corrugator crew, directly in the corrugator control cabin, for the same purpose. This not only gives the crew much more control over what programs are downloaded to the corrugator, it also allows PC-Topp to follow corrugator production more closely.

Before, new programs were sent by Planning always to the end of the queue of schedules waiting to be produced. If such a new schedule needed to be run earlier, the corrugator crew had to make the necessary sequence change at the Dry End controller computer, which had the advantage that they maintained full control over what was happening at the machine. Planning could not simply make a sequence change without informing them, or without their okay. The disadvantage was that the schedules in PC-Topp's Program Memory usually stayed in the old, now obsolete sequence.

Now, Planning simply releases new schedules for production, and they appear at the end of the queue of schedules waiting for production. If a sequence change is needed, the corrugator crew makes it right there in the Corrugator Control Page, which is usually much easier than using the corrugator's own user interface. The sequence at the Dry End controller computer is automatically kept in sync with the changes done on the Corrugator Control page.

Moreover, the Corrugator Control page automatically synchronizes Program Memory with the new sequence. This way, the actual program sequence is always visible in Planning as well as at the corrugator.

With the Corrugator Control page, runs can be transferred to the Dry End controller computer either manually or automatically. The automatic mode always keeps enough programs in the queue to maintain a smooth production flow. Optionally, the Corrugator Control page can only be used for displaying and printing programs and paper requirements, without the functionality for modifying the run sequence.

Changing the Production Sequence

The Corrugator Control page displays the runs in the corrugator queue marked with padlock symbols. They show the status of each run and allow you to change it.

	Runs whose position can't be changed anymore because they are either already being produced or very close to production.
	Runs that have already been transferred to the Dry End controller computer. Those runs are locked, i.e. their sequence can't be changed. If you want to modify the position of those runs you can unlock them with a mouse click on the green padlock. Unlocking a run means that it is temporarily deleted from the Dry End controller computer. The run is retransferred as soon as the desired sequence has been established.
	Runs that are in Program Memory but haven't been transferred to the Dry End controller computer yet. You can change their position anytime.
	Runs whose position in the queue of the Dry End controller computer is different from their position in Program Memory. This happens when runs are manually inserted or when the sequence is modified at the Dry End controller computer. These runs can be changed after unlocking them with a click on the padlock.

The queue always starts with one or several red padlocks, followed by runs with a locked padlock symbol (ideally all green, after changes done at the Dry End controller some of them may be orange). The last run with a locked padlock marks the end of the schedule that has already been downloaded to the Dry End controller. After that point, all runs have open padlock icons.

Sequence changes in the section marked with open padlocks can be done directly. If however a change is needed in the locked part of the queue, then the corresponding runs must be unlocked first by clicking on the padlock symbol of the first run in the locked part of the schedule.

On the Corrugator Scheduling page, only grades that have orders to be scheduled for the corrugator are of interest, all other grades are omitted to allow the planner a concentrated view on the grades he needs to work on.

However, any grade that has no orders to schedule in the range of days shown, but where there are runs in Program Memory waiting for production, should also appear, in order to show the planner all grades with runs in Program Memory for the selected flute type.
This situation is rare, as most grades that are being produced do have orders for the near future waiting and thus are shown along with the Program Memory info.

The page has been revised slightly and now shows even grades where there is nothing to schedule for the immediate future when they have runs waiting in Program Memory. As a side effect, the total of the Program Memory column is now always compatible with the numbers shown for each grade below.

Corrugator Scheduling has become even easier and more powerful: It is now possible to activate Automatic Upgrades in the Corrugator Scheduling tool box.

When Automatic Upgrades are activated, PC-Topp automatically selects orders from selected other board grades as optional orders (blue) in addition to the orders from the grade you're about to schedule. Optimisation will make use of them if the result can be significantly improved. Of course, just like with manual upgrades, the cost of the upgrade is taken into account, and upgrades will only occur if the resultant total cost per 1000m² warrants that additional cost.

Which grades exactly are looked at when you schedule a particular grade is defined in the Options page for that grade: You can specify a list of up to 10 compatible grades from which orders will be upgraded if it makes sense. Of course, you could also allow for downgrades, but who would want to do that!?

Production Targets are calculated as a snapshot of the current schedule situation at the exact (theoretical) moment of the shift change, they reflect what Planning had committed to deliver during the following shift.

The Production Targets page shows these targets along with the current production, showing at any time whether actual production is on target (100%), or above or below. The crews at the machines can use that indicator to see how they are doing, and starting out at 100% it should motivate them to stay at or above 100% even if the schedule changes during the shift. That way, the production totals at the end of the shift will more likely match the objectives.

As a new feature, the corrugator's production targets can be added to that page (which until now only showed the conversion machines' targets).

The Corrugator Monitor has been improved again to offer additional information for the user.

Next to the Day Info, the user can look up the next programs following the current run, to stay informed about the schedule sequence as well as upcoming paper size or flute type changes.

The new information box appears on the right hand side of the Entire Day box, and users can hide it to view the Current Program Details box again by clicking on the link in its head section.

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.

The Program Memory page marks schedules containing orders that require special scores with a little red icon ( , see Orders with Special Scores Marked in Program Memory).

The same functionality has now been added to the Corrugator Scheduling page. There the red icon now shows you the board grades and dates containing orders with special scores so you can check those orders in detail.

In the pop-up that appears when you click on a date, the orders with special scores are marked in the same way so you can easily locate them.

Among your customers there are always some who are especially important and whose orders have to be treated preferentially. So far it was difficult to locate those orders in Corrugator Scheduling to check which of them you have to produce next.

Now the Corrugator Scheduling page lets you effortlessly find your important customers' orders with the help of the new Find Customer feature.
The green magnifying glass icon in the Toolbox shows you where to look for the new functionality. Select the flute type you want to search and enter a customer name in the search box next to the green icon or select a name from the popup list just like e.g. in the machine search in Conversion Machine Scheduling.
As soon as you have confirmed your selection the customer is highlighted:

• In the head of the Toolbox the name of the selected customer starts flashing to indicate which customer is currently active.
• In the board grade list the grades containing orders of the selected customer are highlighted by a green background.
• In the corrugator schedule the days when orders for the said customer are scheduled to be run appear with a green background as well.
• When you click those days to view their order details you find this customers orders marked by a green background, too.

No more tedious manual searching for a customers orders - with a few clicks you can spot them right away. For a better overview you can hide all board grades except those containing orders of the customer you want to view by clicking the Toolbox link "Green Grades Only". And a click on "Clear Customer" cancels the highlighting and sets the interface back to normal.

The Corrugator Scheduling page now lets you choose what you want to see in the board grade column of the corrugator schedule. So far only the grade code was displayed there but now a new link in the View section of the Toolbox toggles the display between the following states:

• Display Grade Code shows the grade code as before.
• Display Grade Remarks shows the optional remarks that can be entered in the board grade settings.
• Display Code and Remarks shows both the grade code and the remarks.

• Area produced (in m²)
• Lineal meters produced (in m)
• Production time (in h)

The "Entire Day" section affords a quick overview of the production results achieved so far. It can be displayed or hidden according to the users' needs.

So far it was hard to see if an order is already deckled but not yet definitely scheduled on the corrugator. For such orders, there are already are runs in Program Memory, but no starting time and program number have been assigned yet. That made it impossible to tell in order lists whether an order was already deckled or not scheduled at all on the corrugator.

Now a new status color has been introduced to distinguish such orders. If the corrugator appears in gray letters on a light yellow background in an order's machine sequence this indicates that this order is in Program Memory but hasn't been assigned a starting time yet.

So now e.g. in the order view by customer you can see if an order is scheduled on the corrugator, complete with starting time and program number, or if the order so far only has been deckled but not definitely scheduled yet.

The PC-Topp.NET Program Memory page now indicates which programs contain orders that require special scores. You can identify those programs by the small red icon ( ) next to their program number.

If you click on such a program number the combinations view opens with red icons in front of those orders in the program which have to be run with special scores.

This feature is particularly useful if there are restrictions for special scores which the Automatic Optimization cannot take into account, e.g. if there is only a limited number of certain score types available. With the new marker the planner can easily distinguish the programs concerned and check if the restriction is observed.

The on-line link to the corrugator had a weak point - it didn't move the remaining runs of the current schedule to new starting times when there were delays. Only the orders in all subsequent programs were kept up-to-date.

The Corrugator Control Program has now been improved so that it keeps up-to-date the starting times of all runs, including the current program, and thus all orders, including the current job, show ending times that are likely to be correct.

So far orders of sheets from external suppliers haven't been treated very well by PC-Topp.NET: Contrary to in-house orders you couldn't see when they would be available in production or if they fit into the conversion schedule. Now PC-Topp.NET has a new functionality that allows treating these sheets just as if they were produced on your own corrugator:

You can now let PC-Topp know for what date such sheets have been ordered, at what time they are expected, and when they have actually been delivered. Now it is immediately visible throughout PC-Topp if the sheets have arrived and are available for conversion or if they still have to be ordered.

Let the System Know When Ordered Sheets Will Be Ready

In PC-Topp.NET all external suppliers are given an operation code, e.g. XXX = sheets bought from company XXX. (This code has to be set in the classical Conversion Machines program). This machine code can be selected from the machine list in the Order Sheets page which you find on the PC-Topp.NET Corrugator menu page. All sheet orders obtained from the selected supplier are displayed and can be modified if necessary, i.e. when their status has changed.

The order status of these sheets from external suppliers closely resembles that of any normal in-house order:

615118     PRADEL	The sheets have not yet been ordered from the external supplier.
615118     PRADEL	An order has been placed with the external supplier.
615118     PRADEL	The order is placed and its delivery date and time have been confirmed by the supplier.
615118     PRADEL	The order is ordered as well as confirmed, its delivery is imminent (should arrive in less than 30 minutes).
615118     PRADEL	The order should have arrived by now, but either the delivery hasn't been entered yet, or the sheets will arrive late.
615118     PRADEL	The ordered sheets have been delivered.

 

How to Make Best Use of the Feature

You can change the status and the delivery time of any sheet order by clicking the checkbox on its left just like you would when scheduling orders on ordinary machines.

Click one or more orders to make them appear in the "New Sequence" box. It offers you three options for changing the order status which represent the typical stages in the processing of such sheet orders:

• Order Sheets
  for informing the system that sheets for this order have been ordered from an external supplier for a certain date and time.
  You can also set a default delivery time for all sheet orders. This saves you the trouble of entering a delivery time for each individual order. Set it to e.g. 18:00 to provide for even very late delivery.
• Confirm Delivery Date
  for confirming the order's delivery date and time, i.e. your supplier has confirmed delivery for a certain point in time and with "Confirm Delivery Date" you tell PC-Topp about the order's status change.
• Enter Sheets Delivery
  for marking orders delivered as soon as they actually arrive in your plant. Set the delivery time to the current time by default to spare yourself the trouble of entering the delivery time manually.

Changing the Order Quantity

The option to change the ordered resp. the delivered quantity of the order allows you to

• enter more sheets than ordered to make up for waste sheets in conversion
• enter partially delivered orders

In the "Ordered" column of the schedule PC-Topp.NET conveniently highlights sheet orders whose quantity is significantly greater or less than ordered:

• Red means fewer sheets than originally ordered.
• Blue means more sheets than originally ordered.

Our new PC-Topp Monitors, as opposed to the PC-Topp Terminals, primarily show information, with no user interaction. They are designed to be easily readable even from a distance, with a clear-cut layout, extra large fonts, and they present color coded information for intuitive interpretation.

With the new Corrugator Monitor the corrugator crew can easily see the target speed for each corrugator run, depending on the grade and flute type being produced. A speedometer-like color coded bar shows the target speed and the current machine speed provided by the online connection to the corrugator or by the Corrugator Terminal.

The display's large figures contrast the corrugator's actual performance with its potential performance if it had been operated at target speed. A diagram of the past four hours shows the periods of above target performance in green and those of below target performance in red.

Plants with two or more corrugators will benefit from this new feature: On the PC-Topp.NET Program Memory page each corrugator has its own separate program memory. But in the corresponding DOS program the program memory of all corrugators is displayed in one continuous screen, with separate sections by corrugator.

So far, each new run used to be appended at the very end of Program Memory, no matter what corrugator it was scheduled on, and had to be moved to its proper place manually.

Now each new run automatically appears at the end of the right corrugator's section - no more need to manually reorganize the list. The same applies to programs which are moved from one corrugator to another: Don't be confused when they seem to disappear the moment you change the corrugator code - they simply have automatically been moved to the end of the Program memory section of the target corrugator.

Runs Are Recorded Automatically Now

No More Manual Data Entry

In the past, runs had to be recorded manually by the corrugator staff. This meant that someone had to watch for the end of the run and press a key. That was relatively easy with corrugators that stop between runs, but as good as impossible if the machine continued to run at full speed during a format change.

Now there is a way to automatically detect format changes. All that is required is a counter (the exact type is NE 212) which can register two separate signals, one for the lineal meters produced and the other at every format change.

Easy Use of the New Automatic Recording Functionality

In automatic mode, the terminal records the starting and ending times as well as the lineal meters produced and marks the run that just ended as produced, in a preliminary way: The run is shown in a special color (brown) until the operator confirms it. The operator can choose to confirm little batches of runs now and then; the terminal can store the data of many runs that have been finished.

Secure Operation through Manual Confirmation

Operator confirmation seems important because there is a risk that the corrugator occasionally sends an incorrect format change signal (for example following a jam), which would lead to totally incorrect production figures.

A special situation occurs when the terminal is first started, for example in the morning: PC-Topp cannot be sure that the run known to the terminal as "current run" is still in production, or if one or several changes have occurred while the terminal wasn't "watching".

For that reason, the terminal always starts in manual mode, where it requires operator input after each and every run. Once the operator has made sure that the current run is shown right, he can switch to Automatic Mode by hitting a function key (F10).

Thus, the new feature for automatic production feedback from the corrugator offers a cheap, convenient, and highly precise method of production data recording.

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 * sheet width * sheet 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.

In Corrugator Scheduling, the toolbox shows all flute types that can be produced.

Any flute types that cannot be produced on the corrugator that is selected in the center of the page are now marked with a warning sign.

When a user selects a flute type with such a mark, then the page will not display any grades, as they are all incompatible with the current corrugator.

Instead, a message appears that explains the situation. Additionally, it offers links to all corrugators that can produce that flute type: One click, and the grades appear, along with the correct corrugator code.

The detailed view of the board grades has a new feature: The option for setting the target speed that is displayed in the Corrugator Monitor.

In the field Expected Speed, the page usually shows "same as for all B-Flute grades" or something similar. With that setting, the speed for predicting the duration of a run in Program Memory is taken from the corrugator settings. However, if a grade runs much more slowly (or faster) than other grades, then a lower or higher speed can be entered here.

In the new field Target Speed, one can now enter the speed that the corrugator crew will see on the new corrugator monitor page, for example. It will normally be higher than the Expected Speed, indicating the speed the grade should be run at to achieve 100% performance.

Where the Target Speed has not been entered yet, it defaults back to the Expected Speed, so that the crew will at least see something reasonable. However, for best use of the new page, you should enter a specific target value here.

Below these speed settings, there is the area Exceptions that is only needed very rarely, in plants that have several corrugators: While the standard Expected Speed is found in the corrugator settings and therefore will reflect the corrugator's performance, any special entry (a lower speed for a special grade, for example) in most cases needs to be different for each corrugator. Likewise, the Target Speed can also vary between corrugators.

Therefore, both speeds can be entered here for every corrugator in the plant. The list is endless, as some plants have several machines in one site.