Departments

The Settings -> Human resources -> Departments page shows the list of departments. A department represents a group of workers that can perform the same manufacturing operations.

This page allows creating and editing departments

Users can be added to departments at the user's details page accessible from Settings -> Human resources -> Users page.

Jump to:

1. What is the department?
2. How to plan works by departments? How to assign operations to departments?
3. How to report production operations using the departments?
4. How to assign default departments to operations or workstations?
5. How to plan human resources when production is constrained by skilled workers?
6. How to optimize production scheduling when workers' availability is constrained or unreliable?

What is the department?

A department represents a group of workers that can perform the same manufacturing operations. For example:

One department can also represent a particular skill set. As a user can be part of several departments, an employee skill matrix can be composed.

Departments are used in production planning:

1. instead of assigning workers to operations, the departments are assigned;
2. all workers part of the department see the operation;
3. if a worker picks the job - starts the operation - this operation is assigned to the worker, and other workers cannot see it any longer.

This function greatly simplifies the assigning and reporting of the manufacturing operations for a large number of workers, or where workers can freely pick their jobs without a strict assignment from supervisors.

Demo video: Departments and Workforce Planning.

Planning and reporting by department

1. When a manufacturing order is created - where operations are assigned to Departments (as opposed to individual workers) - then all workers in the corresponding Departments can automatically see the open jobs in “My production plan” or the “Internet-kiosk”.
2. When the job is started by an operator, then it is assigned to that person and others do not see it anymore.
3. If more than one person is needed for the same operation, then the job remains visible until the required number of users pick it.

Demo video: How to assign operations to departments.

Default departments for operations or workstations

Default departments can be assigned:

1. to individual Workstations at Production planning -> Workstations,
2. to operations in Routings (keep in mind that the Workstation setting overrules the Routing).

If several workers are required to perform an operation, several departments can also be assigned.

Demo video: How to set default planning departments for operations and workstations.