The previous sections have discussed how ERP resources are impacted by EAM by work orders. Now it is time to get this information from the Maintenance Planners to the Production Planners so they can perform their production planning more effectively.
Production Planners rely on production requests from various sources to determine total resource requirements. Whether a request is for time to produce actual finished goods or for time to perform essential equipment maintenance the impact is the same. Resource availability is reduced which can impact the Product Planner’s schedule.
From EAM, the Maintenance Planner must generate production requests which correspond to work orders requiring downtime for ERP resources. Production requests should be generated frequently to ensure Production Planners have the most up to date information concerning their resources.
Three methods can be employed to create production requests from maintenance work orders:
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The Generate Production Requests screen can be used to gather work orders and generate corresponding production requests in a batch. The administrator enters query parameters to determine which work orders are used to generate production requests. See previous image and Generate production request (Batch) for details of this screen.
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The system can be configured to generate production requests automatically based on predefined work order status change triggers. Work order type can also be used to further refine these triggers. In addition, the administrator can specify the generated production request status to be unfinished or approved. See Advanced Maintenance Planning Configuration screen for status change trigger details.
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Two buttons (right click options) have been provided on the work order record view. Clicking the Create Production Request button creates an unfinished production request for the work order. The user must approve the production request before the system will request a production order from the ERP. Clicking the Create Production Order button creates an approved production request for the work order. Because the production request is approved, no intervention is necessary prior to the production request being forwarded to the ERP for production order creation.