WISL Process Management

Overview

Waterloo Information Systems Limited

33 Dupont Street East

Waterloo, Ontario

N2J 2G8

© Waterloo Information Systems Limited 1998

The information contained herein is proprietary and considered a trade secret of Waterloo Information Systems Limited and shall not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written authorization of Waterloo Information Systems Limited.

I. Introduction

Central to the WISL Process Management is the maintenance of the production "batch" data base. The capability is available to maintain the batch data base directly and automatically as a function of various process control operations such as carton generation and crate wrapping. A complete capability to maintain the product data base is included along with routines to ensure that all key attributes are coded for new products.

II. Production "Batch" Maintenance

1. A maintenance routine designed to run on a traditional workstation provides for creation and maintenance of production batch records.

2. The requirements for generating a production schedule from the batch records beg some of the capabilities provided by a spreadsheet utility. A facility has been developed to load batch records from the WISL Process Management data base into an EXCEL spreadsheet to allow the overview and macro manipulation required to effectively generate a daily production schedule. A complementary facility provides for re-loading the scheduled production batch records from the spreadsheet into the WISL Process Management data base.

3. An interface data base of fixed length records is maintained to serve as the basis for data collection applications that are run from specialized data collection systems(eg. those supplied by Intelligent Instruments Inc or Data Net Corp). Interface details vary by client system but the general approach involves accessing files on the server via TCP/IP through NFS or passing files between client and server utilizing FTP. The WISL Process Management system running on the server provides information about batches to be produced and related control data and the data collection systems return information about the results of production.

4. A routine is available for the forman or production supervisor to record summary results of production activity at the end of a shift.

III. Product Maintenance

1. A maintenance routine has been established to provide for the collection of data that describes product characteristics with controls that help to insure all relevant data is collected upon initiation of a new product.

IV. Reporting

1. Production Schedule

2. Batch Summary Reporting

3. Product Reporting

V. System Interfaces

1. An inventory initiation routine that is part of WISL Warehouse Management collects production data from labels generated by a data collection module conrtolled by WISL Process Management. This process loads the identification of shipping and stock keeping units into the WISL Perpetual Inventory.

2. Planned and actual production data is available to be transferred to WISL Production Analysis or to a third party MRP system.