Due to their pink background color, orders flagged as "Forbidden" by Planning or Sales clearly stand out in the machine schedule of the PC‑Topp.NET Conversion Machine Scheduling page. As of now, you can spot orders flagged as "Suspended" by Planning or Sales more easily, too: They are displayed with a pink order number.

So far, article comments, special instructions etc. used to be immediately visible at the PC‑Topp.NET Machine Terminal only up to a certain length.

In order to make all comments attached to an order readable at a glance, a Comments sub tab has been added to the Machine Terminal Orders tab. There you now find a structured list of all special instructions, article comments, customer complaints, and extra customer information entries for the current order.

And what’s more, the order comments sent via OTDATA (which were missing until now) are displayed in this new tab as well.

Articles consisting of several parts like e.g. boxes with removable top are produced in several order parts. For better coordination all parts of an order are now displayed in an overview in the General tab at the Machine Terminal as well as in the Order Summary. To make sure the appropriate amount of items is produced for every order part you can now see the number of items produced or scheduled so far for all order parts.

If several orders for the same article run consecutively on a machine there is no set-up time between those orders (as the set-up needs to be done only for the first of those orders). This leads to incorrect goods counts because if the machine runs at full speed while processing those similar orders it is as good as impossible to manually push the Order Change button at the PC‑Topp.NET Machine Terminal at the right moment between orders to properly close them.

Therefore a new option has been implemented in the Machine Terminal section of the PC‑Topp.NET Dataset Parameters which lets you allow the system to do automatic order changes under the following conditions:

• The order has the same spec number as the following one.
• The machine is last in the order's machine sequence.
• The order’s good quantity equals its ordered quantity.

With this feature you can make sure that the number of products for such orders is always correct.

In case you need to modify the quantities of any in such a batch of similar orders you find them in the Orders to Close list in the Palletisation tab.

Let PC‑Topp.NET help you to improve production flow in conversion by ensuring that materials required for production on the machines are available on time. The new Material Preparation Terminal is a valuable instrument for avoiding machine downtime in conversion due to missing materials.

At the new terminal the status of the materials required for all scheduled orders is displayed with colored dots. The personnel responsible for readying inks, dies, pallets etc. can see at any time whether everything is prepared for producing an order and, if not, what is still missing.

The items to be prepared can be individually configured; the available options are:

Cutting die Printing die Ink colors Pallets

Top pallets Protection Printing die for second pass printing Ink colors for second pass printing

Color Coded Preparation Status

Unprepared items appear as white dots (). After having prepared an item for an order the person in charge clicks this item’s status dot to change it to “ready” (). In case it isn’t available (due to damage, insufficient stock etc.) he can set its status to “not ready” ().

The overall preparation status of an order only changes to “ready” if all individual items required for an order are marked “ready”. As long as the materials for the order are only partially prepared (e.g. the inks and the dies are ready but the pallets aren’t) the order’s overall status remains yellow (), indicating that the preparation has begun but isn’t finished yet.

If the mouse is moved over the overall status indicator for an order’s machine or for the order itself the status details of all required materials are shown in a tooltip. Thus it is easy to keep track of an order’s overall preparation status and to check what is still missing.

(Orders with nothing to prepare are marked with .)

Customizable View

By default the orders are shown by start time so the ones that have be prepared next are always on top. Thus the person in charge can always make sure he doesn’t overlook imminent orders which are not yet completely prepared. But if he wants to prepare the materials for all orders scheduled on a specific machine he can switch the view to display just this machine.

Print Out Material Preparation List

Staff members responsible for readying production materials can’t always stay within eyeshot of the Material Preparation Terminal. They can export the list of orders to prepare in PDF format for printout so they can take the materal preparation list along.

There is a new link in the PC-Topp.NET Conversion Machine Scheduling page toolbox that lets you print out several job cards at once in PDF format. You just need to select the orders you want to print out (via the checkbox) and then click “Print Job Card”. This feature is very useful for planners because they can print out the job cards for the program of the day in just one step.

Following a prompt from a customer, we have created an alternate path to attach special instructions to each production step of an order.

In addition to the comments fields available in the order and in the order data transfer, you can now attach a Production Control Code to each operation (machine) of an order. That code then makes a predefined text message appear in the order, on the Job Card, in conversion machine planning and of course at the Machine Terminal.

Examples of such predefined messages would be “FOUR COLOR PRINT” or “RE-WORK AFTER CUSTOMER COMPLAINT” and similar messages for situations that occur again and again.

The instruction messages and associated Production Control Codes can be pre-defined in a corresponding table found in Settings where it is also possible to print a summary of all Production Control Codes and their meaning.

PC-Topp customers who manually enter new orders into the system (instead of using the automatic order transfer from the host) will find this new feature convenient.

If you have new orders for standard American type (FEFCO type 201) boxes you needn’t input all data by hand any more. If you enter the inner box dimensions PC-Topp can now automatically calculate the following values from them:

• Sheet format
• Corrugator scores
• Conversion scores
• Box type

If you enter the internal box dimensions via the “Input Box Size” dialog in the Order Input / Update screen and press Alt-E the above values automatically appear on screen:

This new functionality saves work and prevents input errors that inevitably occur when order data are keyed in manually. If you are interested in using it please contact us:

http://www.pctopp.com/en/about_us/contact.mspx

There are two ways to create this report:

• Order Data Transfer Information by Category During Default Period of Time
  On the Order Transfer page you can click the PDF icon in the header of each category (new, updated, deleted errors) to create a report with the order transfers in just this category during the period of time displayed on the page (14 days by default; longer periods can be set on request). 
  
• Free Choice of Category and Period of Time of Order Data Transfer Information
  
  Clicking the “Order Data Transfer History” link in the bottom of the Order Transfer page will open a new page that offers further options for customizing the report. You can select
  
  
  • Whether you want to output all or just selected categories of order transfers,
  • The period of time the Order Data Transfer Report should cover.

So far the PC-Topp Machine Terminal has warned the operator with a message in the toolbox if the ordered quantity of the current order is exceeded.

Additionally the Machine Terminal now also displays an alert in the toolbox if according to the machine counter more has been produced than fed into the machine (i.e. if  for the current order the produced quantity is larger than the quantity available from the previous machine).

Just as you can select programs for printout on the Corrugator Control page you can also mark one or more orders to have their job cards printed out in PDF format (via the new button Print Order button in the Action section).

The left-hand side information panel of the PC-Topp Machine Terminal now keeps the next three upcoming orders permanently in view.

The enhanced representation of a linked order's position in the order web plus the data of the other orders in this web has been added to the job card.

PC-Topp now makes a great scope of data on order changes available for customized use as well as in the standard PC-Topp.NET version.

The PC-Topp.NET job card lets you track any modifications made to the order in question with ease: The Order Change History section shows all changes in detail.

Moreover, under Order History you will find a list of all orders consisting of the same article as the order in question.

The Split Order functionality that used to be available only in PC-Topp's legacy environment is now available in the Multi Machine Terminal. You can trigger it by partially producing an order.

If you open a linked order's Order Summary in PC-Topp.NET now its position in the order web is made clearer and the production status of all orders of the order web is displayed.

Besides personalized order information (order.isc fields) can be fully displayed by double-clicking the personalized order information section.

A double click on the Comments & Instructions field of the General tab in the PC-Topp Machine Terminal now displays comments and instructions associated with an order in full length (used to be cut off).

Old, i.e. prodeced orders don't have to be deleted manually any longer. PC-Toppnobr> can now optionally remove them whenever an automatic backup is run.

A sub-dialog called "Restrictions" has been added to the PC-Topp Order Entry dialog that contains the new fields "Re-Run", "First Run" and "More than One Run".

The OTDATA file has been extended to allow defining the order planning speed and target speed via the new fields “Planning Speed for Conversion machines” and “Target Speed for Conversion machines”.

The PC-Topp.NET page Problem Orders shows orders suspended by Planning or Sales and orders with unavailable stereo or tool.

Any amount of comments for an order can be transferred via OTDATA along with information on where the specific comment shall be displayed. The Machine Terminal, the Corrugator Terminal as well as Conversion Machine and Corrugator Scheduling can be targeted. In the Order Summary all order comments are displayed.

The Machine Settings page has been modified to allow production data entry in Conversion Machine Scheduling without having to input duration. Only ending times have to be entered. This feature is used to mark orders as finished when there is no need for production duration data, e.g. in case of orders coming back from external suppliers, or for situations where several orders are produced simultaneously under the same machine code.

The OTDATA field Underrun Tolerance is now available in PC-Topp.NET corrugator and conversion statistics.

As of now, a job card for each order in PC-Topp.NET is available for download, printout, mailing etc. in PDF format.

In the Order Summary, Program Memory data are now presented with a better structure and in more detail.

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.

From the beginning, PC-Topp has been able to show a one-character field next to the due date, the so-called Date Code, to let users know whether the due date was meant as "exactly on that date", or "earliest" or "latest", to name just a few.

In most plants, that feature remained unused, and in plants where the host system did send data in that field only few people, if any, understood the meaning of the letters appearing next to the due dates.

PC-Topp now offers a table in which the meaning of each code in use can be explained. The corresponding note appears in the Order Summary below the due date.

Historically, PC-Topp would either calculate the duration of an order by itself - based on conversion machine parameters - or the user could tell the system how long he estimated the duration of the order from start to end. Of course, that duration could also be received from the host system in the Order Data Transfer.

While this seemed sufficient for planning purposes, this approach had the disadvantage that the set-up time was always based on machine parameters even for orders with a manually given duration. This made it impossible to compare the actual set-up time to the target time for such orders where the set-up was more difficult than for a normal order.

Therefore, it is now possible to specify also the set-up time for an order, either manually or in the Order Data Transfer.
This opens the following options for the calculation of the total duration of an order.

Set-up time calculated Based on number of colors and die-cut or not		Run time calculated Based on machine's average speed
Set-up time given By host or manually		Run speed given (Indirectly based on total duration)

Obviously, the run speed does not appear in the order data or in the data transfer; it is specified indirectly by giving the total run time to maintain compatibility with earlier versions of the order data transfer.

This means that instead of sending a set-up time of 27 minutes and a speed of 5000 / h, the host must calculate the run duration based on the quantity (e.g. 10000) and give PC-Topp the result for the total time (0'27 + 2'00 = 2'27).

Future improvements are planned: In a future version PC-Topp will be able to use a given set-up time and speed per article, or base the entire calculation on past experience with previous orders for that article.

On the Machine Load page, so far you didn't have a chance to see whether the brown (scheduled) and red (full) days on a machine contain orders that will be late.

Now a small violet sign with a white exclamation mark tells you at first sight if you are in danger of running an order too late. There are two kinds of situation that this icon warns you about:

Orders Scheduled Late on a Machine
The violet icon tells you that there are orders threatening to be late on the machine in question and thus won't be delivered in time if nothing is done about them. When you click the icon the dialog displaying the day's orders opens, and orders scheduled late are marked by a red due date so you can easily find them to mend the situation.

Machine Load Is Too High to Produce Unscheduled Order in Time
The violet icon is also displayed when the machine load is higher than the machine capacity on that day (red background) and there is no chance to put the surplus load on any previous day, either, because the capacity on earlier days is insufficient. Therefore one or several unscheduled orders pre-planned on this machine can't be produced in time to meet their due date.

However, if you click the icon expecting to find the unscheduled late orders highlighted in the day details as well you might be disappointed: Unscheduled orders are not marked in red (except when their due date has passed) because the system can't predict which of them you will schedule on time using the available capacity on earlier days.

Each order in PC-Topp has a due date. An order is considered on time when it is ready for delivery on that date.

So far, that was the case if the order was finished on the last machine at any time on the given production day. However, in most plants the production day ends at the end of night shift, in the morning of the following date: Thus, an order was still 'on time' when in fact it could be delivered only the day after the Due Date.

This has been changed: We can set an installation parameter that specifies a more realistic time by which the order must be finished on its due date, for example 5 p.m. (Please contact us to make that change on your system!)

Specifying a Finishing Time for Individual Orders

Independently, it is now also possible to send a finishing time for individual orders in the Order Data Transfer. PC-Topp will use that time as the target time, and will signal that an order is late if that time is not met by its schedule.

So far, orders in PC-Topp.NET could be viewed by customer name, board grade, conversion machine, and article number. Now the scope of order views has been extended by two further pages:

The "Orders by Stereo" and the "Orders by Forme" page show all orders with a specific stereo or tool at a time, listed by due date. If you ask yourself whether there are other orders using the same tool or stereo as a given order, just click on the corresponding link and you'll see all past, current and future orders using that same tool or stereo.

In plants where drawings are available for stereos and / or formes, a little icon appears in front of the stereo / forme code in the toolbox. When active (=red), a click on that icon displays the drawing.

The functionality for flagging orders in brown (e.g. to mark them as printed) used to be limited to the classical Conversion Machine Scheduling program. Now it is available in the PC-Topp.NET Order Summary as well.

In the left column of the Order Summary’s machine routing there is a new check mark icon whose color indicates if the order is flagged on the machine in question:

•    A brown check mark means that the order is flagged on this machine.
•    A grey check mark means it is not flagged on this machine.

You don’t have to start classical Conversion Machine Scheduling any more to switch the flagging on and off. You can now conveniently do so by simply clicking the check mark icon.

The display of flagged orders in PC-Topp.NET Conversion Machine Scheduling with the check mark icon in front of the order number remains unchanged. Just the check icon now is brown instead of black.

Clicking on the customer name, a machine code or any of the other links in an order takes you to a page showing orders e.g. by customer or by machine. However, it used to be hard to find the order you clicked on on that page - it could be hidden from view, or it could be necessary to page forward or backward to get it on the screen at all.

PC-Topp.NET now offers new functionality to make navigating between different order views much easier: When you click on a link in an order, the page that appears will always show the order you clicked on, usually near the top of the page, and the order will be marked by a small black arrow on the left so you can spot it as soon as the page opens.

Not only does this new feature make your work with PC-Topp.NET more comfortable but it also lets you navigate back and forth from one order view to the next and back again rapidly and with ease. No more loss of orientation while browsing the different order views, no more tedious searching for the original order in a new context.

This works in any page, whether it shows a list of orders or just the summary of one order.

But where are the drawings?

In more and more plants, drawings are available for the article, the print specification or the forme, and a click on, for example, the Stereo Number brought up that drawing. Now, that same link takes you to a page showing all orders using that stereo.

The drawing is now accessed by clicking the little icon to the left of that link, usually a tiny PDF icon. If a drawing is available, then the icon is active (=red) and clicking on it will bring up the desired drawing. When it is inactive (greyed out), then no drawing is available.

The Program Memory page marks schedules containing orders that require special scores with a little red icon ( , see Orders with Special Scores Marked in Program Memory).

The same functionality has now been added to the Corrugator Scheduling page. There the red icon now shows you the board grades and dates containing orders with special scores so you can check those orders in detail.

In the pop-up that appears when you click on a date, the orders with special scores are marked in the same way so you can easily locate them.

Among your customers there are always some who are especially important and whose orders have to be treated preferentially. So far it was difficult to locate those orders in Corrugator Scheduling to check which of them you have to produce next.

Now the Corrugator Scheduling page lets you effortlessly find your important customers' orders with the help of the new Find Customer feature.
The green magnifying glass icon in the Toolbox shows you where to look for the new functionality. Select the flute type you want to search and enter a customer name in the search box next to the green icon or select a name from the popup list just like e.g. in the machine search in Conversion Machine Scheduling.
As soon as you have confirmed your selection the customer is highlighted:

• In the head of the Toolbox the name of the selected customer starts flashing to indicate which customer is currently active.
• In the board grade list the grades containing orders of the selected customer are highlighted by a green background.
• In the corrugator schedule the days when orders for the said customer are scheduled to be run appear with a green background as well.
• When you click those days to view their order details you find this customers orders marked by a green background, too.

No more tedious manual searching for a customers orders - with a few clicks you can spot them right away. For a better overview you can hide all board grades except those containing orders of the customer you want to view by clicking the Toolbox link "Green Grades Only". And a click on "Clear Customer" cancels the highlighting and sets the interface back to normal.

In the classical PC-Topp screens, it is very easy to locate an order with the Find Order function which can be accessed at any time by pressing the question mark key.

This function is now available in many PC-Topp.NET pages, and it works even better than before.

"Find Order" on the PC-Topp.NET Order Pages

There is a new box in the PC-Topp.NET toolbox called "Order Number" where you can input an order number and then press "Enter". PC-Topp.NET will mark the desired order with a small black arrow, provided it is in the batch of orders currently displayed on the page.

If the order is not on the current page (i.e. the machine or the customer etc. that is on the screen), then PC-Topp will display the Order Summary to let you know where to find the order. From there, you can easily display the current order in the context of orders by article number, board grade, stereo, forme, or conversion machine by clicking the respective links in the Order Summary.

When you start entering an order number in the Find Order box you will notice a handy help feature: PC-Topp displays the orders matching the entry in real time, so you can very quickly select the right order.

Moreover, pressing "?" like in the classical programs now works in PC-Topp.NET, too. Doing so makes the last used order number appear in the Order Number box, so that this order can be accessed by just pressing "Enter". If you start typing instead, the old number is erased and a new search begins.

"Find Order" on the PC-Topp.NET Menu Pages

On the PC-Topp.NET start page and all menu pages in general the link "Find Orders" in the Order System box opens the Find Order tool in a small independent box. Enter an order number or pick one from the pop-up order selection and the Order Summary for this order appears. Here, too, you can also call up Find Order by pressing "?".

The Find Order box floats freely on the page and you can move it around by Drag&Drop. If you want Find Order to be permanently in view click the little arrow symbol in the top right corner to make it dock to the "My PC-Topp" section. (Of course you can make it undock again with another click on the arrow.) In case you want the feature to get out of sight again after using it leave it floating freely on the page.

How to Make Best Use of "Find Order"

The new feature helps you deal with some frequent tasks fast and hassle free, e.g.

• inding all parts of an order
  If an order has several parts (same order number, different part number), the list of matching orders that appears when you enter an order number in the Find Order box will show you that the order has multiple parts, and let you select.
• Finding parts of orders that have been split
  If an order has been split, PC-Topp likewise shows all parts of that order, making you aware that there are several runs of it, and forcing you to choose.
• Moving an order to a specific machine
  If you want to reschedule a specific order you don't have to make the detour over Access by Order Number any more to locate it. Just let Find Order spot it for you, press Enter in the order summary, then change the machine routing.
• Quickly displaying an order at any machine, customer etc.
  The links in the Order Summary have been modified to take you straight to the selected order in any PC-Topp.NET order screen. In combination with Find Order this allows you to directly spot an order at any machine, article no. etc. and rapidly navigate between them.

Red and Orange Underruns

The number of produced sheets for the order appears on a red background for serious underruns, and on an orange background if the order is underrun, but the underrun can be tolerated.

1850	Red means that the order is seriously underrun, i.e. the number of finished goods is below the minimum because Either its Minimum Overrun Tolerance (Min. %) is exceeded. (For an explanation of Min. % see New Field for Minimum Overrun Tolerance in Classical Order Entry / Update.) Or the Min. % value for this order is blank, and the number of finished goods is less than the ordered quantity.
5230	Orange means that the order is underrun but not critically so, i.e. the number of finished goods is within the Minimum Overrun Tolerance (Min. %) for this order.

In other words, orange will only appear if the new Minimum Overrun Tolerance field in the classical Order Entry / Update screen is used.

The Underrun Orders page can be viewed on http://demo.pctopp.com

So far it was hard to see if an order is already deckled but not yet definitely scheduled on the corrugator. For such orders, there are already are runs in Program Memory, but no starting time and program number have been assigned yet. That made it impossible to tell in order lists whether an order was already deckled or not scheduled at all on the corrugator.

Now a new status color has been introduced to distinguish such orders. If the corrugator appears in gray letters on a light yellow background in an order's machine sequence this indicates that this order is in Program Memory but hasn't been assigned a starting time yet.

So now e.g. in the order view by customer you can see if an order is scheduled on the corrugator, complete with starting time and program number, or if the order so far only has been deckled but not definitely scheduled yet.

The PC-Topp.NET Program Memory page now indicates which programs contain orders that require special scores. You can identify those programs by the small red icon ( ) next to their program number.

If you click on such a program number the combinations view opens with red icons in front of those orders in the program which have to be run with special scores.

This feature is particularly useful if there are restrictions for special scores which the Automatic Optimization cannot take into account, e.g. if there is only a limited number of certain score types available. With the new marker the planner can easily distinguish the programs concerned and check if the restriction is observed.

It is now possible to specify not just a maximum overrun tolerance, but also a minimum overrun tolerance for an order. This new parameter handles better the case where a customer accepts the ordered quantity plus or minus 10% (see example below).

There is a new field called "Min. %" in the classical Order Entry / Update screen (next to the maximum overrun tolerance field "Tol. %"). The value entered in this field determines the minimum number of finished goods required for an order. If set, the new value overrides the Minimum Overrun Tolerance in the Optimisation parameters.

Positive and Negative Minimum Overrun Tolerance

The minimum overrun tolerance can be a positive or a negative value.

• Positive Min. % value: More items are required than actually ordered.
• Negative Min. % value: Fewer items are accepted than actually ordered.

See the table below for a practical example.

Ordered		3000	Too Few	OK	Too Many
Case 1	Tol. % Min. %	10   3	< 3090	3090-3300	> 3300
Case 2	Tol. % Min. %	10 -10	< 2700	2700-3300	> 3300

(Make sure to set the minimum overrun tolerance to a smaller value than the maximum overrun tolerance; otherwise the latter will be ignored.)

So far, orders could only be marked yellow and blue (meaning e.g. Urgent and Very Urgent) in the classical programs Conversion Machine Scheduling or Order Entry / Update. This facility has been extended to five different flags so that now you can assign more different priority levels to your orders.

Besides, these flags can now be set not just in the classical programs mentioned above but also in any PC-Topp.NET page where the Order Summary is available. You just have to click Change in the new Priority field to successively set the following flags:

Classical Programs	Priority	PC-Topp.NET
	Low
	Normal
	Increased
	High
	Very High

If an order is given a priority level its special status is emphasized by an eye-catching icon next to the order number so you can immediately see that it has a special status.

So far, the Sales Status of an order could be set so that the order was marked as "blocked" by Sales, for example if credit approval for the customer was still pending. However, nothing kept planners from scheduling those orders on the corrugator or in conversion for future days, when credit approval was expected.

Now a new, stronger lock as been added: Orders that carry the status "forbidden" are marked by a distinctive icon and cannot be scheduled at all. On top of that, they are marked by a purple "haze" wherever they are shown in PC-Topp.

Enter Order Duration

The new feature lets you enter either the duration or a starting and ending time for the selected order. The latter is particularly useful when you know the point in time when the order is expected to be finished. Clicking on "Enter Duration" lets you enter the number of hours an order will take, which may be the more direct way in other situations.

 

Schedule Several Orders in One Go

"Set Time / Duration" can also be used to schedule several orders at the same time, but you may find this feature less useful. (In this case, no ending time can be entered, just the starting time.) You can schedule whole packages of orders by selecting the orders to be inserted or rearranged. Then you can enter the starting time of the first order in your packet. The other orders you have selected are inserted into the schedule after this first one according to their order in the "New Sequence" window. If you leave the pre-displayed starting time of that first order unchanged, then the other orders will simply be inserted directly behind it.

The new PC-Topp.NET page Orders by Article Number lets you view all orders for a specific article at once. This can be put to use in several ways, e.g. if you have an order to produce you can easily find other orders for the same article to produce along with it. Or if a customer needs a certain article at short notice you can see if you can help out.

To get all orders with a specific spec number you can either enter the number in the search box in the Toolbox or click the "Find" link next to it to select the spec number you are looking for from the pop-up article number list. (If there is no article number selected all orders are shown.)

The View options in the Toolbox display the orders of the selected article number sorted either by due date or by customer name.

Have a look at the new page at http://demo.pctopp.com

So far orders of sheets from external suppliers haven't been treated very well by PC-Topp.NET: Contrary to in-house orders you couldn't see when they would be available in production or if they fit into the conversion schedule. Now PC-Topp.NET has a new functionality that allows treating these sheets just as if they were produced on your own corrugator:

You can now let PC-Topp know for what date such sheets have been ordered, at what time they are expected, and when they have actually been delivered. Now it is immediately visible throughout PC-Topp if the sheets have arrived and are available for conversion or if they still have to be ordered.

Let the System Know When Ordered Sheets Will Be Ready

In PC-Topp.NET all external suppliers are given an operation code, e.g. XXX = sheets bought from company XXX. (This code has to be set in the classical Conversion Machines program). This machine code can be selected from the machine list in the Order Sheets page which you find on the PC-Topp.NET Corrugator menu page. All sheet orders obtained from the selected supplier are displayed and can be modified if necessary, i.e. when their status has changed.

The order status of these sheets from external suppliers closely resembles that of any normal in-house order:

615118     PRADEL	The sheets have not yet been ordered from the external supplier.
615118     PRADEL	An order has been placed with the external supplier.
615118     PRADEL	The order is placed and its delivery date and time have been confirmed by the supplier.
615118     PRADEL	The order is ordered as well as confirmed, its delivery is imminent (should arrive in less than 30 minutes).
615118     PRADEL	The order should have arrived by now, but either the delivery hasn't been entered yet, or the sheets will arrive late.
615118     PRADEL	The ordered sheets have been delivered.

 

How to Make Best Use of the Feature

You can change the status and the delivery time of any sheet order by clicking the checkbox on its left just like you would when scheduling orders on ordinary machines.

Click one or more orders to make them appear in the "New Sequence" box. It offers you three options for changing the order status which represent the typical stages in the processing of such sheet orders:

• Order Sheets
  for informing the system that sheets for this order have been ordered from an external supplier for a certain date and time.
  You can also set a default delivery time for all sheet orders. This saves you the trouble of entering a delivery time for each individual order. Set it to e.g. 18:00 to provide for even very late delivery.
• Confirm Delivery Date
  for confirming the order's delivery date and time, i.e. your supplier has confirmed delivery for a certain point in time and with "Confirm Delivery Date" you tell PC-Topp about the order's status change.
• Enter Sheets Delivery
  for marking orders delivered as soon as they actually arrive in your plant. Set the delivery time to the current time by default to spare yourself the trouble of entering the delivery time manually.

Changing the Order Quantity

The option to change the ordered resp. the delivered quantity of the order allows you to

• enter more sheets than ordered to make up for waste sheets in conversion
• enter partially delivered orders

In the "Ordered" column of the schedule PC-Topp.NET conveniently highlights sheet orders whose quantity is significantly greater or less than ordered:

• Red means fewer sheets than originally ordered.
• Blue means more sheets than originally ordered.

In some plants, there are lots of orders with due dates in the distant past that must stay in PC-Topp because they cannot be produced for one reason or another, but will definitely be produced at a later date. PC-Topp treats those orders as overdue and very urgent, although in fact they are dormant until someone decides to put them into production. As a result, they distort the figures in the TGV machine load.

The right way to avoid this would be to assign realistic due dates - in the future - to those orders. This however is not done in many places, for various reasons.

Now PC-Topp offers a way to keep those orders out of the TGV machine load:

When activated, this feature keeps those orders out of the machine load if they are marked as "blocked" either by Planning or by Sales, and either only for orders with due dates in the past, or for all such orders. (By default, the setting is inactive; all orders appear in the TVG.)

Any user with PC-Topp.NET administrator rights can invoke the feature from the TGV screen: A link in the toolbox on the left of the page leads to a configuration page.

If an order is suspended by Sales or Planning, e.g. because the required stereo is not available, this status was so far only displayed in the classical Order Entry / Update program.

Now the Planning and Sales Status of all orders is shown in the Order Summary Page, too. It appears right below the order's main data in the Status area and is illustrated by easy-to-understand icons.

Planners and Sales staff can modify the status of an order by clicking on the "Change" link displayed on the right hand side of the Status area.

Have you ever wished you could access order data directly from the order summary window, rather than having to find the order again inside one of the classical PC-Topp programs? Well, now you can:

The full PC-Topp order screen (classical version) is now accessible straight from the order summary, by clicking on the new link "Display / Update Order (DOS)" just below the order number. (Try pressing Enter immediately after the order summary has opened. The link is active then and directly launches the DOS program as soon as you hit Enter.)

For users with planning rights, the link opens the program "Order Entry / Update" where they can view and update the full order data. All other users get access to "Order View", offering some additional order information but not the modification of order data.

Linked orders have been introduced to let PC-Topp handle products that are not produced by converting a piece of corrugated board into a box (or similar), but that require several separate elements to be assembled, each of them converted from its own piece of corrugated board.

A good example for this type of order is a display stand that may require one front, two feet, and several trays or drawers: Each of these elements is an order in PC-Topp's usual sense. The finished display can be assembled when each of those elements is ready, and may require one or several operations by itself.

PC-Topp models this by a separate order with its own order key for each of the elements, plus one order for the assembled display, again with its own order number. (The order numbers of all orders linked together must be different, but of course they can all have the same main part of the order number with different suffixes.)

 

Obviously, production of the assembled display can only start when all components are ready. PC-Topp shows that information just like it shows the date (and time) when an ordinary order will be ready from the previous machine: The date and status reflect the combined status of availability of all required components.

Thus, the planner sees that the last component required to start working on assembly is scheduled to be ready the next morning, for example, or that all parts are ready (i.e. produced on their respective last operation).

The use of linked orders goes beyond assembled displays, however: A pair of linked orders can much better model an order that is stitched together from two identical (or non-identical) parts. Or, if an order needs more than the six operations supported by PC-Topp, then it can be broken up into two linked orders, where the first feeds the missing operations stored in the second order.

In the following example, an order of 50 boxes requiring eight operations is divided into order 5689A for the first five operations and order 5678 for the remaining three operations.

In all examples above, linked orders had N parts feeding 1 final order (in the last example, N was equal to 1). But also the opposite is possible, where 1 original order feeds several final orders. This is useful, for example, if the same box is ordered by several customers, and should be manufactured in one large job. Or, to run identical sheets for several different articles on the corrugator in one large run.

Please also see the document PC-Topp.NET Linked Orders for more information.