Housekeeping and first step of workflow for routines (product update)

With finishing our current development sprint and publishing a new just plan it version the continuous improvement process of our production scheduling software took the next step. This time we essentially focused on „housekeeping“. But in addition we included some little new enhancements that are meant to be first a step of new subject areas for future advanced enhancements. Hereinafter I give an overview over all news that come along with the new release.

#1 Housekeeping

Execute Module

Formerly the room for job and task information within the Operator Client was pretty limited. Hence it could happen, that – using long job and task names – customers weren't easily able to identify a task in a satisfying way. To fix this issue we generously extended the number of characters to be used (see the production order at the bottom of the Operator Client list in the screenshot below).

Further more we added another filter option „Job Status“ to the Operator Client, that gives the user additional alternatives to comfortably define subsets of the full task list.

Finally we redesigned the tool tips within the views of the Execute module. The new lines shown focus on giving the relevant data to easily compare planned and shopfloor data.

Revised Auto Scrolling

In the past – more or less – any action within just plan it triggered an automatic scrolling within in the Gantt chart. Many of our customers reached out to us and asked for a „reduction of automatic scrolling“ as the constant movement of the planning board was pretty much vexing them.

So we followed your request and learned that sometimes „less is more“. Hence the new version provides a much more stable user experience as automatic scrolling was limited to very little interactions.

#2 Workflow for scheduling routines

Establishing routines of using the scheduling software is a key factor of success. To productively support implementing routines we decided to provide special functionality to model a workflow of scheduling. In this regard we made the first step within the new release:

Appointing roles and responsibilities is the starting point for routines. Hence we added functionality to appoint a „Chief Planner“ and a „Chief Operator“. The Chief Planner is fully in charge for all scheduling within the plant and the fist addressee for the management in this terms.The Chief Operator is responsibly for all shopfloor progress data and the first person to contact for the Chief Planner.

For the time being there is no dedicated functionality coming along with these roles yet. But this will be changed in the upcoming releases where we will expand workflow functionality step by step.

We also started to refer functionality to the „job status“. Before, the job status was only used within the default color scheme. Now, we connected the Status „released“ with the Execute Module: only jobs with the status „released“ will be shown in the Execute Module as „ready“ to start.

You aren't a just plan it user so far? Why spending more time on maintaining an inappropriate self-made stopgap solution? Why waste more money due to a lack of shopfloor transparency?

Book your meeting with a scheduling specialist now and see how easy you can improve your scheduling with just plan it: