Live Production Data Entry

Like at the Machine Terminal, production events are entered as they occur. In practice this means that the operator opens the shift at the Multi-Machine Terminal, goes to his machine to set up and start the first order, returns to the terminal to enter the start of production, and goes back to the machine to run the order.

When a downtime occurs he again goes over to the terminal to put it into downtime mode, and optionally enters a downtime cause. When production resumes, he goes back to the terminal and ends the downtime there, too. And at the end of the order, he enters the produced quantities at the terminal, and starts set-up for the following order.

In this real-time mode, the times for each transaction are recognized automatically, and can be manually modified if needed.

The result is that schedules are kept up-to-date in real time almost like with a dedicated Machine Terminal, except that the Multi-Machine Terminal is unable to estimate the remaining production time as accurately as the Machine Terminal because it doesn't know the quantity remaining to produce.

Production Data Entry in Batches

Alternatively, operators go to the Multi-Machine Terminal only occasionally and enter several orders and other events, or even a complete shift at a time. This reduces the number of trips to the terminal, but as a result the schedules stay inaccurate until the operator actually enters a batch of information.

Operators are free to move from live data entry to batch operation and back to live at any time making it easy to catch up and return to live data entry if an operator prefers to stay at the machine rather than enter every single event in real time.