Order specific quality checks at the PC-Topp.NET Machine Terminal are a powerful instrument for making sure that your products conform to the given quality standards. They are highly configurable and can be adapted exactly to your needs. A quality check’s execution is defined by its content (e.g. ink viscosity, bar code, caliper,…) as well as by the following factors:

• Interval of execution Quality checks are executed periodically; the intervals between the quality checks can be defined very flexibly, e.g. every 15 minutes, every third run, after every order etc.
  • New: Quality Check at Shift Start
    Forces the user to execute the quality check by blocking every other action until the check is done.
• Conditions of execution
  Quality checks can be restricted by specific conditions. Currently, PC‑Topp.NET supports the following conditions four of which have been newly added:
  • New: Customer Name
    Applies to orders for the specified customer.
    (Please note that even slight spelling differences like e.g. Universal Plant vs. UNIVERSAL PLANT can cause errors.)
  • New: Customer Number
    Applies to orders for the specified customer number.
  • Extra Customer Info
    Applies to orders by customers marked for the Extra Customer Info functionality.
  • First Run
    Applies to orders resp. articles that run for the first time.
  • New: Next Machine
    Applies if the next machine of this order is the given one.
  • Last Machine
    Applies if the current machine is the last before Shipping in the current order’s machine routing, i.e. for finished goods orders.
  • Die Cut
    Applies to orders that are die cut on the current machine.
  • New: Scores
    Applies if the order has either corrugator or conversion scores.
  • Print
    Applies to orders that are printed on the current machine.
  • Preprint
    Applies to orders that are produced with preprinted liner.
  • Customer Complaint
    Applies to orders for which a customer complaint has been entered.
  • Article Number
    Applies to orders with the specified article number.
  • Rework
    Applies to orders returned by the customer that have to be rerun.
  • Number of Printing Colors
    You can define a number of printing colors and an operator (EQUAL, NOT EQUAL, LARGER THAN, LESS THAN).
    Applies if the number of printing colors in the current order equals the predefined number of colors and if the predefined operator applies.
  • Color and Print Unit
    You can define a color and the position of the color resp. print unit in the printing sequence.
    Applies if the predefined print unit contains the predefined color, e.g. if color no. 3 is black.

The Products section of our homepage provides more in-depth information on the PC-Topp.NET quality checks

If you would like us to implement specific quality checks for you please contact us: http://www.pctopp.com/en/about_us/contact.mspx

So far you could exchange or remove a machine in an order’s machine sequence in PC-Topp even when this order was already scheduled on the machine in question.

Modifying the machine that an order is currently running on in this order’s machine routing leads to unexpected effects at the Machine Terminal in question. Therefore as of now you can only change a machine in an order’s machine routing if the order does not currently run on this machine.

This means that the machine routing of orders which are displayed on a blue background in the PC-Topp order lists (= scheduled in the past on the machine in question) can’t be modified or deleted any longer.

If an unspecified downtime with a certain duration (no mini downtime) has been recorded at the PC-Topp.NET Machine Terminal the system prompts the user to enter a downtime cause by showing the downtime start and end on the Downtime button in the lower right corner of the terminal interface. So far the operator was reminded of missing downtime causes only for the last recorded downtime. (The causes for all earlier downtimes in the shift had to be entered via the Shift tab.)

As of now, PC-Topp.NET asks the user to assign reasons to all unspecified downtimes during the current shift, i.e. starting from the last downtime, all downtimes without cause are presented. When the operator has entered a cause for the downtime currently displayed in the button the next downtime in the queue is shown.

You can now adapt the columns displayed in the PC-Topp.NET Machine Terminal, the Multi-Machine Terminal, and the Machine View to your individual needs and preferences.

• Machine Terminal
  The machine schedule at the Machine Terminal allows you to insert as many columns as you like in which you can display any desired content, be it order fields, personalized fields or even information provided by external data sources. You can arrange the columns in your preferred sequence and width; the number of possible columns is only restricted by the screen size. Besides, you can also modify the font size and type of the "Due", "Order" and "Available" columns to make them more easily readable.
• Machine View
  The new display options apply to the Machine View, too. The Machine View lets you create your own individual information board by inserting any number of columns (i.e. as many columns as the page width allows) in the machine schedules. And you can personalize those columns in the same way as at the Machine Terminal.
• Multi-Machine Terminal
  Here only the width of all columns can be customized.

If you are interested in using this option please contact us so we can make the necessary changes:
http://www.pctopp.com/en/about_us/contact.mspx

In the Next Orders section of the PC-Topp.NET Machine Terminal toolbox a new button prompts the machine operator to confirm any schedule changes done outside of the Machine Terminal.

 

The End Shift dialog for closing a shift at the Machine Terminal or the Multi-Machine Terminal now contains a new checkbox saying "All Personnel Will Leave". This new feature permits signing out all staff signed in at this machine during the current shift at once.

This has some advantages:

• The machine operator who often does the signing out for the whole crew needn’t sign out every single crew member individually.
• The sign out times for all personnel at this machine during the current shift are unified and they are identical to the shift end time. So you can make both shift end and personnel sign out happen at a specific point of time, e.g. 17:00, instead of having everybody sign out between e.g. 16:57 and 16:59 and then closing the shift at 17:00.

The feature has to be activated via a special data set parameter. When available it is switched off by default so if you want to use it you have to switch it on by clicking the checkbox.

Now you can assign special instructions to individual orders that describe what should be done when this order runs on a specific machine. This functionality can be used e.g. for marking orders whose production is to be controlled by a supervisor or orders that require special quality checks.

You can do so by defining so called production control codes in the new Production Control Codes page (to be found in the PC-Topp.NET Settings section). Each production control code has a description where you can enter an instruction how to treat the order(s) marked with this code. Production control codes can be assigned to any conversion step of an order via the order data transfer.

At the Machine Terminal, in Conversion Machine Scheduling, and in the Order Summary orders with a production control code appear as follows:

• They are marked with a colored icon so you immediately recognize them.
• Their description text is displayed in a tooltip (Conversion Machine Scheduling and Order Summary) resp. on the General Tab of the Machine Terminal.

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The Personnel tab of the PC-Topp.NET Machine Terminal has been equipped with the password-protected possibility to sign in as an engineer (provided the user is marked as engineer in the Personnel Numbers page).

With this new functionality, an engineer can leave comments on the problems he has attended to that will be displayed in the shift report. Besides he can make sure that the time spent fixing a problem will be registered as such.

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.

So far the PC-Topp Machine Terminal has warned the operator with a message in the toolbox if the ordered quantity of the current order is exceeded.

Additionally the Machine Terminal now also displays an alert in the toolbox if according to the machine counter more has been produced than fed into the machine (i.e. if  for the current order the produced quantity is larger than the quantity available from the previous machine).