In the PC-Topp.NET Machine Settings, you can now configure set-up times for up to seven different ink colors. (Before this was restricted to max. four ink colors.)

This way the set-up time for orders with four or more ink colors can be calculated more precisely than before and thus the total work time calculation is more accurate.

For more precise scheduling it is now possible to enter the expected end of current downtimes at the Machine Terminal and Multi Machine Terminal. This automatically corrects the calculation of the end of the current as well as the following orders. As scheduling will adapt accordingly this will make sure that the displayed situation is as accurate as possible.

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 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
  

The downtime causes defined in PC-Topp have different effects on the calculation of times in the PC-Topp production statistics.

These effects are best explained by taking a look at the basic hierarchical concept for calculating production times in PC-Topp.

The following diagrams illustrate how the PC-Topp times are based on each other.

Focus on Stopped Time and Machine Productive Time

Here the PC-Topp times are visualized by stripping away one after the other of the different stopped times from the machine’s available time. The final result is the time during which the machine actually produces goods.

 Focus on Downtimes during Run and Set-Up

Downtimes can occur during set-up and run. Therefore in this diagram the Work Hours are divided into Run Hours and Set-Up Hours which are again subdivided into Net Set-Up and Run Hours vs. Down Hours during Set-Up and Run.

This is necessary to determine the time during which the machine actually runs without interruption by downtimes. Of course the Down Hours during Set-Up and Run equal the Down Hours in the above chart.

The above times are the basis for calculating speeds in PC‑Topp: The Run Hours can serve as a reference value for estimating the Planning Speed (used to compute how long an order will run). Speeds calculated using the Net Run Hours offer a guideline for a realistic machine Target Speed.

Historically, PC-Topp would either calculate the duration of an order by itself - based on conversion machine parameters - or the user could tell the system how long he estimated the duration of the order from start to end. Of course, that duration could also be received from the host system in the Order Data Transfer.

While this seemed sufficient for planning purposes, this approach had the disadvantage that the set-up time was always based on machine parameters even for orders with a manually given duration. This made it impossible to compare the actual set-up time to the target time for such orders where the set-up was more difficult than for a normal order.

Therefore, it is now possible to specify also the set-up time for an order, either manually or in the Order Data Transfer.
This opens the following options for the calculation of the total duration of an order.

Set-up time calculated Based on number of colors and die-cut or not		Run time calculated Based on machine's average speed
Set-up time given By host or manually		Run speed given (Indirectly based on total duration)

Obviously, the run speed does not appear in the order data or in the data transfer; it is specified indirectly by giving the total run time to maintain compatibility with earlier versions of the order data transfer.

This means that instead of sending a set-up time of 27 minutes and a speed of 5000 / h, the host must calculate the run duration based on the quantity (e.g. 10000) and give PC-Topp the result for the total time (0'27 + 2'00 = 2'27).

Future improvements are planned: In a future version PC-Topp will be able to use a given set-up time and speed per article, or base the entire calculation on past experience with previous orders for that article.

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.

Enter Order Duration

The new feature lets you enter either the duration or a starting and ending time for the selected order. The latter is particularly useful when you know the point in time when the order is expected to be finished. Clicking on "Enter Duration" lets you enter the number of hours an order will take, which may be the more direct way in other situations.

Schedule Several Orders in One Go

"Set Time / Duration" can also be used to schedule several orders at the same time, but you may find this feature less useful. (In this case, no ending time can be entered, just the starting time.) You can schedule whole packages of orders by selecting the orders to be inserted or rearranged. Then you can enter the starting time of the first order in your packet. The other orders you have selected are inserted into the schedule after this first one according to their order in the "New Sequence" window. If you leave the pre-displayed starting time of that first order unchanged, then the other orders will simply be inserted directly behind it.