Visual schedule management system for a manufacturing facility
First Claim
1. A method of scheduling jobs and managing work loads on multiple work centers in a manufacturing facility through a visual user interface to a general purpose computer, the method comprising the steps of:
- graphically representing the work centers and the work load for each work center of the facility on a shop overview image displayed on a monitor;
graphically representing the jobs scheduled at a selected work center on a production control board image displayed on the monitor, wherein the work center is selected via its graphical representation on the shop overview; and
interactively establishing a new schedule for a job by moving the graphical representation of the job to a new position on the production control board.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A computer-based visual schedule management system that provides visual representations of the amount of work scheduled in a manufacturing facility to both enable rapid identification of bottlenecks in the work flow and permit interactive manipulation of job schedules to alleviate conflicts. The user associates realistic images with the work centers of a facility, lays out the work centers on a visual floorplan of the facility to create a graphical shop overview, and instantly refreshes the utilization of each work center in the shop overview. If changes need to be made, the user selects any work center with a pointing device and drills-down to a graphical representation of a production control board to see the details of the jobs that are scheduled for that work center. The user effects changes by simply dragging the job to a new position on the time grid, or by dragging and dropping the job from the production control board of one work center to the production control board of another. Then, by re-displaying the shop overview, the user quickly assesses the impact of the change on the other work centers and can make further changes to the production control boards of the other work centers if necessary. Thus, the work load of an entire manufacturing facility can be visualized and manipulated interactively in a single computer session without the need for paper reports and off-line analysis, promoting more timely decision-making for better productivity.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method of scheduling jobs and managing work loads on multiple work centers in a manufacturing facility through a visual user interface to a general purpose computer, the method comprising the steps of:
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graphically representing the work centers and the work load for each work center of the facility on a shop overview image displayed on a monitor; graphically representing the jobs scheduled at a selected work center on a production control board image displayed on the monitor, wherein the work center is selected via its graphical representation on the shop overview; and interactively establishing a new schedule for a job by moving the graphical representation of the job to a new position on the production control board.
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2. A method of scheduling jobs and managing work loads on multiple work centers in a manufacturing facility through a visual user interface to a general purpose computer having a database, wherein each work center is represented in the database by a maximum work load capacity data item equal to a maximum amount of time the work center operates during a unit of time, and each operation in a sequence of operations required to perform a job is represented in the database by a start date data item, an end date data item, a work center data item, and a work load data item equal to an amount of time required to perform the operation at a work center, the method comprising the steps of:
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creating a shop overview, wherein the work centers in the facility and a work load utilization percentage for each work center arc represented graphically on a monitor; determining a start date, an end date, and a work center for each operation in a sequence, wherein the start date data item, the end date data item and the work center data item are equated to the start date, the end date and the work center respectively for each operation to represent the schedule of the operation in the database; graphically displaying the work load utilization percentage for each work center represented on the shop overview on the monitor, wherein the work load utilization percentage is calculated over a refresh time period; graphically displaying a production control board on the monitor in response to the pointing device selecting the graphical representation of a work center on the shop overview, wherein the schedule of each operation on the selected work center is represented by a token located at a first position on a time grid portion of the production control board; and determining a new start date and a new end date for an operation based on the pointing device moving the token representing the operation to a second position on the time grid to change the schedule of the operation. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
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20. A system for scheduling job operations and managing work loads on multiple work centers in a manufacturing facility through a visual user interface, comprising:
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programmed means for creating a shop overview to graphically represent the work centers in the facility and a work load utilization percentage on each work center; a display coupled to the programmed means for displaying the shop overview; a pointing device coupled to the programmed means for selecting a work center graphically represented on the shop overview on the display; the programmed means for further creating a production control board to graphically represent a schedule for each job operation scheduled for work at the selected work center on the display; the pointing device for further moving a token shown on the production control board to a new position on the display; and the programmed means for further changing the schedule of the job operation represented by the token based on the new position of the token on the display.
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Specification