The file upload functionality in Extra Customer Information has been implemented for article codes, too. So now in the Article settings page you can attach a virtually unlimited amount of article specific details in textual as well as graphical form (ideally in PDF format) to any article code by uploading a file for this article.

This document is then automatically made available at the PC‑Topp.NET Machine Terminal (in the comments section of the General tab) whenever this article is produced. This feature provides the operator with much more article specific information than the system could store so far, helping him to ensure optimal production.

Besides, the article specific file can be accessed in the Order Summary, too.

On the PC-Topp.NET Articles page a PDF report showing all article comments has been added. You can create it by clicking the toolbox link “Overview of All Article Comments”.

It lists only those articles that have a comment and helps you to quickly spot and sort out unwanted article comments.

• 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.)

The dialog for entering comments on articles available in the General Tab of the Machine Terminal has been enhanced to allow entering more than just article comments. It now offers the following options:

• Article Comment
  As before, comments are saved for the article in question and will be displayed at each run of this article.
• New: Production Comment
  Comments are saved in the statistics for this order and will be displayed in the shift report.
• New: Internal Complaints
  Internal complaint comments are saved in the statistics along with their complaint cause and will be displayed in the Internal Complaints report. (This comment type only is available if there is at least one internal complaint defined in the Downtime Causes page.)

In the future another machine specific Post It-like comment type is planned to be implemented.

The Article Performance Report which used to be available only for the conversion machines has now been released for the corrugator(s), too.

As its conversion machine counterpart, the report lists orders by article. It shows information on produced vs. waste quantity, production time, speed, and trim for the individual orders as well as the totals of the article they belong to. (Partial runs are greyed out.)

PC-Topp now makes a great scope of data on order changes available for customized use as well as in the standard PC-Topp.NET version.

The PC-Topp.NET job card lets you track any modifications made to the order in question with ease: The Order Change History section shows all changes in detail.

Moreover, under Order History you will find a list of all orders consisting of the same article as the order in question.

You can choose now if the Article Settings page should display all article settings or just the user created article settings.

The PC-Topp.NET Article page allows entering comments for articles that used to be shown only at the Machine Terminal so far. The PC-Topp.NET Conversion Machine Scheduling page nows displays those article comments in a tooltip that pops up when you move the mouse over an order's article number (if there is a comment for this article).

The calculation of order duration in PC-Topp has been significantly enhanced. The system can now use the statistics data of an article's production history to calculate the production time of orders for this article more precisely.

For any article you can define if its set-up speed, production speed, and target speed should be either of the following:

• The speed settings of the machine(s) the article will run on
• The statistics data of the article's production history
  You can define in detail
  
  • if the article history data should be used for all articles with valid data or for just a selection of articles,
  • conditions for the validity of the article history data (maximum number of days in the past, minmum number of runs)
    
• A user defined speed