MCM - Machine Capacity Management

The goal of Datatex MCM is to support the best utilization of the capacity of a company’s plants, in order to avoid under- and/or over-utilized resources or unfulfilled customers.

Datatex MCM is a flexible graphical tool supporting single users for single facilities, or multiple departmental users for single/multiple facilities. Moreover, the Planner, if empowered, can change the Production Schedule with a specific tool.

Datatex MCM’s Objectives

MCM support the answer to the following questions:

Where are my capacity exceptions?
Where are my material exceptions?
Where are my delivery date problems?
What is the best delivery date?
Is it possible to accept that order for that date?

Datatex MCM Capabilities

MCM is a finite/infinite planning graphic tool, which helps the planner organizing all production.
Requirements considering:

Machines capacity and compatibility
Materials (Stock, supplier orders, WorkInProgress, etc.)
Production constrains (Tools, human resources etc.)
Requested delivery dates

Datatex MCM competitive advantages

Designed for textile industry. It considers constraints and best-practices of the sector
Automatic scheduling and balancing of demands
Bottleneck detection in case of infinite capacity scheduling
Configurable according to the company’s needs and the textile industry typology

Datatex MCM functions

MCM places production requests on the planning board, according to pre-defined rules (Request date, compatibility between product and resource, etc)
A queue of the requests is sorted by user definable priorities.
The supported planning methods are “starting date” (earliest date – improvement of production efficiency) or “delivery date” (latest dates – stock reduction and WIP improvement), at finite capacity or at infinite capacity
Infinite capacity rule is to release a bottle neck by increasing capacity or moving to alternative Work Centre
Finite capacity rule is to delay steps, when and if needed.

Datatex MCM Additional Capabilities

The planner can:

Increase the capacity of a Work Centre for a certain period
Decrease the capacity of a Work Centre for a certain period
Switch Finite/infinite capacity method
Change Work center
Modify Calendar.

Datatex MCM Order Acceptance

With the function it is possible to check if a certain order can be accepted for a requested date and if not, what is the “best possible” delivery date based on the capacity availability.

Application screenshots

Datatex MCM exchanges information with the company’s ERP. It can support one or many planners, for one or many departments.
Datatex MCM: example of the plan and bin. Load balance analysis: The system works at plant, department or work center level. It is possible to detect possible capacity bottlenecks (infinite capacity model) or to work at finite capacity.
With Datatex MCM, it is possible to see different departments. In this example we have the global view (all the departments) or every single department. Sewing, Dyeing and Finishing. It is also possible to use the labels or the numbers (1-2-3-4) to navigate from one dept. to the other. The screen is divided in 2 parts, the plan and the bin. The production requests are downloaded from the host to the bin.
Datatex MCM can present the information with the needed details of the production (tile function). The vertical bars are user definable indicators. An indicator can be for instance how many production demands are confirmed and how many are not.
Datatex MCM plan example for the finishing dept. only. The first line is the summary of the 3 different stenters (1-2-3)
Same plan with monthly view
The planner can change the sequence of the bin, the workcentre capacity and its calendar. The capacity is by hours. The planner can decide to use the real capacity or want to work with overbooking or consider a capacity <100%, to take care of inefficiency.
With Datatex MCM the planner can see the details of what is late. It is possible in the same way, look at the lack of material or consider additional resources (different symbol).
Datatex MCM helps the planner in finding data and information.