A new PC-Topp report is now available which lets you assess at a glance the quantity of finished goods and waste per order within a given period of time.

The report lists all orders produced within the selected date range and shows

• the number of ordered and scheduled products per order,
• the number of produced sheets vs. good sheets on the corrugator,
• the number of good products per order and machine along with the percentage of waste occurred on this machine,
• the total quantity and waste percentage for each order covering all machines it ran on,
• the totals for the selected time span.

The report allows you to quickly scan all orders produced and pinpoint orders with excessive waste, and then to analyze on what machine the waste occurred.

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.

Category	Abbr.	Definition
Available Shift Hours	ASH	Shift duration, e.g. 8’00 plus any overtime after the beginning or before the end of the shift.
Machine Shutdown Hours	MSH	In case of shorter shift duration Machine Shutdown Hours explain the difference between shorter Open Hours and Available Shift Hours.
Open Hours	OH	The total period of time during which a machine is open (Available Shift Hours minus Machine Shutdown Hours)
Break Hours	BH	Total time of breaks
Scheduled Downtime Hours	SDH	Total scheduled down time
Work Hours	WH	Open Hours minus Break Hours minus Scheduled Downtime Hours
Set-Up Hours	SH	Set-Up Hours including downtimes during set-up
Run Hours	RH	Run Hours including downtimes during run
Downtime Hours	DH	The time taken up by breakdowns (including Mini Downtimes and times unaccounted for which are treated the same as Mini Downtimes).
Downtime Hours during Run	DHR	Downtime Hours during run
Downtime Hours during Set-Up	DHS	Downtime Hours during set-up
Production Hours	PH	Work Hours minus Downtime Hours
Net Set-Up Hours	NSH	Set-Up Hours minus Downtime Hours during Set-Up
Net Run Hours	NRH	Run Hours minus Downtime Hours during Run

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.

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.

PC-Topp.NET now offers a growing number of reports in a new style, as Crystal reports. They take the place of existing classical reports, or offer new information, both in a modern and fresh design.

The new reports can be identified by a PDF icon in PC-Topp.NET. Clicking on such a link generates an Adobe Acrobat PDF document that appears on the screen almost instantly, no more long waits required. You can already find them in several PC Topp.NET pages, their cover settings, production reports and schedule printouts.

Many reports are not really needed on paper; the PDF format allows easy on-screen viewing, or to save the report to a file that can easily be emailed. If a printed report is required, the PDF can be sent to any local or network printer. Many reports can also be downloaded as Excel spreadsheets, for further analysis or external use of the data.

Great care has been taken to make the new reports compatible to the existing classical reports: They will contain the same data, and deliver identical results. Many reports will contain additional information compared to their ancestors, and all are presented in color, well structured and easy to read. Footnotes appear on many reports explaining values that are not instantly understood.

The scope of available reports will steadily grow in the near future. They will open up further valuable new sources of information for planning, production and management.

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).

Shifts marked red in the Plant Summary and in the Shift Overview point out erroneous shift data. Even so, up to now clicking on such a red shift could lead to no faulty entries being displayed in the classical Production Statistics interface if the entry type concerned was being hidden at that moment.

Now all erroneous entries are displayed no matter if their type is set to "View" or not.

In order to have nice shift starting times in the statistics some users change the actual shift start to an even time (e.g. 4:52 to 5:00). If any events have occurred in the time span between real and made-up start time (e.g. a quality check at 4:56) they unintentionally get to be placed outside the shift.

PC-Topp reacts to this by creating an extra pseudo shift with normal shift length which contains these lost events. As this pseudo shift totally falsifies the working time of the day concerned it must be corrected by all means.

To make sure that you notice those pseudo shifts they are now highlighted in the Shift Overview page by displaying them in brackets.

In order to offer additional information on the total corrugator production of the day, a new section has been added to the Corrugator Monitor. Next to the main section displaying performance and efficiency figures a box entitled "Entire Day" has been inserted that displays the following values covering all shifts on the current day up to the present moment:

• 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.

With the Plant Summary page, PC-Topp.NET now has an enhanced successor to the old DOS Plant Overview. The Plant Summary supplies information on the current job, performance data and shift key figures for all machines including the corrugator(s) at a glance. And it lets you call up the production statistics data for one particular shift on one particular machine without detour.

The new page is available for viewing on http://demo.pctopp.com.

Key Figures for All Machines on One Screen

The one box per machine layout allows presenting a large amount of data in a concentrated yet clearly organized way which makes it easy to quickly scan the page. Each machine box contains the following information:

• Current Job
  For both the corrugator and the conversion machines a color-coded excerpt from the production plan is shown. The jobs displayed are the current one along with the last finished and the next to come. For the conversion machines start time, order number, customer name and scheduled quantity are displayed, for the corrugator(s) start time, program number, board grade, roll size and scheduled meters.
• Shift Data
  Up to three shifts per machine can be displayed. You see the shift date and code plus information on performance, average speed and total produced quantity.
• Progress of Current Job
  The foot of the machine box contains the data from view 2 of the small Plant Overview (on the PC-Topp.NET menu pages), i.e. produced quantity, scheduled quantity and machine speed, plus a convenient addition: The speed graph icon takes you to the performance diagrams for the machine.

Convenient Access to Statistics Data by Machine

The shifts displayed in the machine boxes are underlined - they link to the DOS program "Edit Production Statistics" for this machine which starts with the correct shift already selected. This way, you have easy access to the shift data for modifying (reserved for planners, supervisors, and administrators; all other users get a read-only version).

Moreover, shift date and shift code turn red if something is wrong with the statistics data of the displayed shift, e.g. overlapping corrugator runs, orders and downtimes starting or ending between shifts, or shifts lacking a shift code. Thanks to the highlighting you can easily determine exactly where the error occurred.

Direct Access to All Shifts on Selected Machine

Another useful feature is provided by the underlined caption "Shift" in the machine's shift header: A click on it displays an overview of all available shifts on the selected machine. By clicking on the desired shift, you can call up the shift data. Planners, supervisors, and administrators can view and modify them; all other users have read-only access.

Here, too, a red shift signals erroneous shift data. From here, you can navigate to earlier months or different machines via the toolbox.

Decide for Yourself Which Machines to Display

The toolbox of the Plant Summary allows toggling between displaying all machines (default setting) and the so called "Main Machines". This is a group of machines that can be freely configured and adapted to user needs by administrators via the toolbox link "Edit Machine Table".